Whew! It’s been a long weekend! AEP (Annual Enrollment Period) is finally over. I worked 14 hours at my day job yesterday (8am-10pm) and it was exhausting (see what I do on the about me page. This post was meant to post yesterday but it was just a hectic schedule.
So the day before yesterday, I got the bright idea to try networking on LinkedIn. At the time I only had 5 connections, and only one of them is a creative. She’s a really talented fashion stylist, YouTube personality, and social media influencer. We connected on LinkedIn 5 years ago. 5 years ago was 2016 and if I remember correctly, I was trying to find influencers to help me promote my handmade perfume oils, and I guess during that time, she accepted my invite to connect on LinkedIn.
Anyway, I tried to make LinkedIn connections a few days prior, by looking up producers of some of my favorite songs. But the way LinkedIn works, it’s hard to connect with people without a mutual connection. Kind of how people are more likely to accept your Facebook request if you have mutual friends, except LinkedIn is more strict (professional). So, since the one influencer in my tiny network and myself are 1st level connections, I was able to see everyone in her network. I scrolled through all 298 of her connections and sent a cold invite to anyone with any sort of entertainment industry related verbiage in their title. I sent 22 cold invites in total, and added the message “Thanks for connecting” on about a quarter of them. And guess what? Between yesterday and this morning, 3 of those 22 cold invites accepted my request. Now I have 8 connections. Sounds like a small number, but 4 of those are direct links to the industry. Whether through music, TV or film.
There’s a specific producer I’m trying to connect with. And it’s going to take a lot more work than sending cold invites. But if I can continue this strategy to the point that I get connected with someone that is a mutual connection between myself and this producer, there’s a greater chance he will connect with me and pay attention to the work I’m putting out.
This is a good strategy to start with if you have no connections to the industry you’re wanting to work in. However, this isn’t foolproof. I find myself really lucky because what if I never connected with this successful influencer 5 years ago? She was a key to opening the door to those 22 cold invites, people I otherwise have no access to.
So, with my 3 new industry related contacts, I’m going to repeat the same strategy. Look through their connections, send cold invites to the profiles that are relevant to the entertainment industry. Rinse and repeat. Try this out, and see if it works for you. Add a nice message like “Thanks for connecting” to help the contact trust you are a real person.
Happy holidays! The book is coming along, I hope you’re getting started early on your New Year goals. Share them in a comment below, I’d love to know what you’re working on!
-Bare it all and bloom.