LinkedIn offers everyone the opportunity to connect with millions of professionals and build their network.
You too probably cultivated a huge network filled with sales, marketing, recruiting… opportunities.
What if you wanted to take those connections off of LinkedIn and onto a different platform or import them into campaigns?
This guide will help you export your LinkedIn connections including all of their important data.
Why You Should Exporting LinkedIn Connections
Having all of your connections on LinkedIn is great, but it has its limitations for which you may want to export it.
One of the biggest challenges you’ll stumble upon when trying to reach out to your connections is the low response rate.
Their responses become even more important when doing sales campaigns, customer analysis, marketing campaigns…
These tasks can’t be done through LinkedIn, they require external tools and analysis.
Even when you get a response from someone, LinkedIn doesn’t allow for keeping track of those responses and important metrics.
This is where exporting your LinkedIn connections is crucial.
- You are keeping your data safe and away from potential LinkedIn breaches.
- You can centralize your whole network in one place, regardless of platform.
- You can utilize your connections in sales/marketing campaigns.
- You can import connection data into different tools.
- You can keep connection data up-to-date.
And exporting LinkedIn connections isn’t too hard, you can do it through LinkedIn.
How to Export Your LinkedIn Contacts
Exporting LinkedIn contacts is very easy as you can do it directly over LinkedIn’s platform in a few clicks.
Follow these steps to quickly export contacts from LinkedIn:
- Click on the “Me” drop-down menu
- Click on “Settings & Privacy”
- Select the “Data Privacy” section
- Click on “Get a copy of your data”
- Check “Want something in particular?”
- Select the data you want to export (In this case “Connections”)
- Click “Request archives”
- Finally, you will receive an email with a link to download the list of your LinkedIn connections. (The wait time depends on your network size)
The email will contain a .CSV file with your connection’s data:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Company
- Email address (if it’s public)
- Position
- Connection dates
While exporting LinkedIn contacts through LinkedIn is easy and convenient it isn’t perfect and it has many shortcomings.
Why Do We Need a Better Way?
Quite simply, LinkedIn isn’t the most elegant platform because it wasn’t designed for data exports.
LinkedIn doesn’t offer a filter option and only lets you download data about all of your connections, even if you only want data about a certain group of people.
It’s all or nothing.
Another huge area for improvement is the data LinkedIn lets you have.
The .CSV file you download only has 5 data points about your connections which isn’t enough if you plan on using it for anything serious.
Especially when it comes to email addresses as most of them won’t be available due to LinkedIn’s privacy settings.
This is a huge blow if you are operating a business looking to use email addresses in sales/marketing campaigns.
With all of these limitations from LinkedIn direct export, there needs to be a better way.
Enter LeadDelta’s connection export.
How To Export LinkedIn Contacts With LeadDelta
LeadDelta’s connection export gives you the ability to filter who you want to export, gives you more data, and gives you more ways to manage that data.
It’s simple and you can do it in minutes:
- Open the LeadDelta “Connection” Tab where you can see all of your connections in a table.
- (Optional) Filter which connections you want to export by 15+ data points.
- Select specific connections you want to export or export all connections.
- Click on the export button at the top left.
- A popup will appear asking if you want to export your Tags and Notes about connections.
- Click on “Export All” if you want to export your whole network or “Export Selected” if you want to export specific connections you selected.
- Wait a few seconds for your .CSV file to download.
And you’re done! You can then proceed to use the extracted data freely.
But what if you want to export data about LinkedIn users you aren’t directly connected to?
How To Export LinkedIn User Data If You Aren’t Connected?
Sometimes our network isn’t enough, especially if we are doing prospecting campaigns or recruiter outreach…
The slow way is sending connection requests and hoping for users to accept them.
Only after they accept us can we use their information.
But there’s a better way.
With the LeadDelta Sidebar, you can import user data into LeadDelta even if you aren’t directly connected.
Simply go onto their profile and click on “Add to LeadDelta” in the Sidebar on the right.
You will gain access to their information and will be able to manage them inside LeadDelta as if they were a regular connection.
Yes, this also means that you can export their information and use it in your campaigns following the same process we mentioned above.
It’s an easy way to build lists of suitable prospects, candidates, and partners… without needing to connect with them.
Conclusion
Exporting your LinkedIn contacts is essential to unlocking the full potential of your network and utilizing it outside LinkedIn.
It’s the best way for you to have full access to your network data.
While LinkedIn gives you the option to export your contacts, it lacks advanced options and limits the data you get.
That’s why using LeadDelta not only lets you get more data but you can also manage it and use it in sales, recruiting, fundraising…
Download LeadDelta and improve your networking game today!
