How To Scrape Data From LinkedIn
Remember the feeling of finding the right person (and LinkedIn is undoubtedly perfect for the job) but failing to connect? The connection request notes the platform lets you add are always not enough to say what you want to say without being too pushy, not to mention that we do not sell in our first outreach messages.
So what is to be done? Scrape the data you need is the answer and target leads that meet your requirements the best with a chain of personalized messages.
If it feels like something you could add to your outreach strategy to prospects, job candidates, B2B leads, etc., please stay as this article will tell you how to scrape data from LinkedIn.
What Data Can You Scrape from LinkedIn?
Like any social network, LinkedIn stores much of its users' data. The info that you can actually access (and extract) from this platform is as follows:
Name/company name
Description
Location
Email
Industry
Education
Job titles
Websites
Skills
Experience
Public profile URLs
Company size
As you can see, there is a host of details one should want to have collected. As a matter of convenience, it can be grouped into the following types:
Email extracting. Getting the right person’s email is always a small victory. It can be used for cold emailing or, for example, as a follow-up to your connection request. What else is there to say? Emails remain an outstanding means to make a pitch.
Company data scraping. If you are doing B2B sales, this type will let you do the research. Besides, it allows running the competitor research and analyzing a targeted company’s growth metrics.
Member data collection. This type includes profile details and content that the users share in LinkedIn groups and communities.
How to Start Scraping LinkedIn?
As usual, you can do it easy or the hard way. Let’s cover the available options.
Use Linked Helper 2 — the Easy Way
This non-cloud-based tool introduces the safest means of LinkedIn outreach automation activities and can scrape practically any data from people and organization profiles.
The software is built to comply with the LinkedIn algorithms in full, so do not fear getting your account blocked or banned. In fact, it is achieved by migrating the functionality from a used-to-be Chrome-based extension to a fully-fledged downloadable software that operates in a LinkedIn window in an overlay mode. LH will imitate the actions of a human being and limit the number of activities to ensure the most natural behavior possible.
So, the software will let you access a variety of details, including but not limited to:
Emails
Cell phone numbers
Message history from LinkedIn
Message history from Sales Navigator inbox
Besides, you can quickly export the obtained data to a CSV file. It will let you group and analyze your prospects to build the most appropriate outreach strategy.
Scrape Data Manually — the Hard Way
Exactly, some of what automation can do for you can be achieved manually. This includes:
Finding prospects by using LinkedIn out-of-the-box search. In fact, besides using the standard search field to run a keyword-based search, LinkedIn allows narrowing the results further. In the top bar, you can access quick filters to achieve that and sort search results by companies, people, groups, courses, schools, etc.
Exporting some of the details by going to your settings. Please mind that if a user chooses not to share their email address or other details in the profile’s settings, scraping will not be successful, this being the case.
To do that, you will need to find the Data Privacy tab under your settings.
Next, navigate to the Get a copy of my data section, and you will see all the export data options that are currently available on LinkedIn.
If you want something in particular, you can export such details as recommendations, connections, imported contacts, messages, etc. Such extracting normally takes from 10 minutes.
Alternatively, the platform allows downloading larger data archives. It includes any information that LinkedIn infers about you based on your profile and activity. You will need to wait for about 24 hours to be able to download such an archive. That’s how long it generally takes LinkedIn to gather all the required details, according to the estimate that the platform explicitly shares when you choose such an option.
Conclusion
With the ongoing saga of LinkedIn’s battle against data scraping, it remains a legal means to scan its user profiles for further analysis and outreach.
And now as you know exactly how to achieve that, your lead generation and nurturing campaigns will have a fresh start and be more beneficial both for your future connections and your brands.
Happy data scraping!
