If you want to maximize LinkedIn’s potential for finding companies, you’re in the right spot. LinkedIn is more than just a networking site; it’s a powerful tool that, when used effectively, can help you uncover valuable insights about companies, whether you’re seeking new clients, exploring career opportunities, or researching industry trends.
This blog will guide you through LinkedIn’s search tools, from simple searches to advanced techniques that help you easily find companies on Linkedin. We’ll cover how to use filters, Sales Navigator, and even Google to enhance your search, allowing you to quickly identify companies that fit your specific needs. By using these advanced search options effectively, you can focus on the companies that truly matter, making your searches more efficient and your connections more valuable.
Source: linkedinriches.com
LinkedIn offers a robust suite of search tools designed to help you find the right people and companies. From simple keyword searches to advanced filtering, understanding these options is essential for effective prospecting.
LinkedIn provides three primary search methods:
By familiarizing yourself with these search options, you can build a strong foundation for your prospecting efforts and increase your chances of finding qualified leads.
Basic Search on LinkedIn is the quickest and simplest way to find companies on Linkedin, people, or content. It’s accessible to all LinkedIn users and involves using the search bar located at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
Here are three simple steps to use LinkedIn’s basic search effectively:
Basic Search is ideal for quick, general information or when you’re starting your search and want to explore a broad range of results. It’s perfect for simple queries or when you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for.
Advanced search on LinkedIn is a tool that helps you find companies on Linkedin by allowing you to filter your search results with specific criteria. Instead of just typing in a keyword and sifting through broad results, advanced search lets you narrow down your options by factors like industry, company size, location, job title, and more. This makes it much easier to focus on the most relevant companies or people, saving you time and helping you connect with the right opportunities.
To get started with advanced search, enter a keyword or phrase into the search bar at the top of LinkedIn’s homepage. Once the results appear, you’ll find an option called 'All filters' near the search bar. Click on this, and a panel will open up with various filters that allow you to refine your search.
In the advanced search panel, you can use several criteria to filter your results:
These filters help you find companies on Linkedin that match exactly what you’re looking for, making your search easier and more effective.
To elevate your profile's visibility and engagement, tagging companies in your posts can be a powerful strategy. If you want to learn more about this please read our blog on Tagging Companies on LinkedIn: A Simple Guide
Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT can help you refine your search even further. Here’s how they work:
These operators make your searches more precise, ensuring you get exactly the results you’re looking for.
Also read: Performing Boolean Search on LinkedIn: Tips and Examples
Advanced search is also great for finding people within companies. In the filters panel, you can search by:
This is especially helpful if you’re trying to connect with key individuals or experts within a company.
LinkedIn’s advanced search powerfully streamlines your efforts and helps you find companies on LinkedIn with ease. However, if you’re looking to take your search to the next level, Sales Navigator can be a game-changing tool. Now, let’s explore how to make the most of LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Before we dive into the specifics of using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for company searches, it’s important to take a moment to understand what this powerful tool is all about and how it can significantly enhance your search and networking efforts.
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s premium tool that offers advanced search capabilities, making it easier to find companies on Linkedin and connect with the right companies. It’s especially useful for sales, recruitment, and business development professionals.
Within Sales Navigator, the 'Account' tab lets you search specifically for companies. This feature is more detailed than the basic LinkedIn search and offers additional filters and insights.
Sales Navigator provides extra filters like company growth and recent hiring trends. These tools help you identify companies that are actively expanding, making them prime targets for outreach. For example, Sales Navigator’s filters can help you find companies that are increasing by more than 20%, allowing you to focus on rapidly growing businesses.
Now that we’ve covered the features of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, let’s explore another valuable approach: using Google to search for companies on LinkedIn. This method can be a great alternative when you need to broaden your search or find specific information that might not be as easily accessible through LinkedIn’s own search tools.
To learn more about which tool best fits your needs, understand the strengths and features of both LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Recruiter by reading our blog on Choosing between LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Recruiter
Taking advantage of Google’s search capabilities can greatly enhance your ability to find companies on Linkedin, specific employees, and even older LinkedIn content that might be harder to access through LinkedIn itself. Here are some simple tips to help you make the most of this approach:
When searching for companies on LinkedIn through Google, try using specific phrases. For example:
This tells Google to search only LinkedIn for companies related to the phrases you use, helping you find more accurate results.
If you’re interested in finding out where certain professionals work, you can search for job titles along with company names:
This search will display LinkedIn profiles of individuals who hold the title "CEO" and are linked to Google. This approach is especially helpful for identifying key contacts within a company, allowing you to build connections or gather more specific information.
Sometimes, a company’s LinkedIn page might be updated or even removed, making it challenging to find the specific information you need. Luckily, Google’s cached pages can help you access older versions of these pages. Cached pages are essentially snapshots that Google has taken of a webpage at a particular moment in time, preserving the content as it was.
To access these older versions, simply conduct your search as you normally would on Google. Once the search results appear, look for a small green arrow or three vertical dots next to the URL of the desired result. Clicking on this will give you the option to view the "cached" version of the page. By selecting this, you can view the older version of the company’s LinkedIn page.
If you want to explore specific posts or articles shared by a company on LinkedIn, Google can help you search for these content types directly. For example, if you’re curious about what Microsoft has been sharing, you can use a search query like:
This search will pull up posts, articles, and other content that Microsoft has published on their LinkedIn page. By reviewing this content, you can gain valuable insights into the company’s recent activities, their key focus areas, and the topics they’re engaging with. This method helps you stay informed and aligned with the company’s current initiatives, whether you're researching industry trends, preparing for a meeting, or simply keeping up with what the company is prioritizing.
If you have a company logo, product image, or any other visual content related to a company, you can use Google’s image search to track down the LinkedIn profile associated with that image. This can be particularly useful when you're trying to identify the correct LinkedIn page for a company but are unsure of its exact name or there are multiple companies with similar names.
To do this, you can either upload the image directly to Google’s image search or drag and drop the image into the search bar. Google will then scan the web for visually similar images and provide you with links to where these images appear online, including LinkedIn profiles. By using this tool, you can avoid the confusion of similar company names and ensure you’re engaging with the correct LinkedIn page.
After running a Google search, scroll down to the bottom of the results page to see "Related searches." These are suggestions that can help you refine your search or find similar companies you hadn’t thought of.
By following these simple steps, you can use Google to search for company profiles on LinkedIn effectively, finding information that may be harder to locate directly through LinkedIn’s own search feature.
Now that we've covered various search techniques, from basic and advanced LinkedIn searches to using Google and Sales Navigator, it’s time to shift focus to outreach. Let’s discuss effective outreach strategies you can use after identifying the companies you're interested in.
Once you've identified the companies you're interested in, the next step is to reach out to the right people within those organizations. Here's how you can do that effectively:
After pinpointing potential companies, it's crucial to connect with the key decision-makers. LinkedIn is a powerful tool for this, as it allows you to search for specific job titles within a company. For example, you might want to connect with IT Directors or Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) if you're selling software. By targeting these specific roles, you ensure that your message reaches the people who have the authority to make purchasing decisions, increasing your chances of a successful outreach.
Account-based marketing (ABM) strategy involves tailoring your marketing efforts to individual companies, treating each as a “market of one.” Using LinkedIn’s data, you can create personalized marketing campaigns that speak directly to the needs and goals of the companies you’ve identified. This personalization helps you connect more deeply with your potential clients, showing them that you understand their unique challenges and can provide tailored solutions.
Sales Navigator is a powerful tool that goes beyond just finding companies—it helps you extract leads with pinpoint accuracy. With Sales Navigator, you can save your leads, track their activities, and engage with them at the most opportune moments. For example, if you notice that a potential lead has recently viewed your profile or engaged with your content, it’s a perfect time to reach out with a personalized message. This strategic approach ensures that your outreach is both timely and relevant, making your interactions more effective.
Now that we’ve covered effective outreach strategies, it’s crucial to think about how you can make these processes more efficient and scalable by using AI tools. Automating your outreach can save time and ensure consistency in your efforts. We’ll explore how tools like LaGrowthMachine can help you automate your outreach, how Clearbit can enhance your data, and how Skrapp.io can simplify your contact gathering process, making your overall strategy more powerful and efficient.
LaGrowthMachine is a powerful tool that helps automate and streamline your outreach process, making it easier to manage and connect with your leads. Here's how you can use it effectively:
Once you've identified potential leads on LinkedIn, LaGrowthMachine allows you to import their data into the platform easily. This means you can take all the contacts you've found on LinkedIn and seamlessly transfer them into LaGrowthMachine, where you can manage your follow-up efforts. For example, suppose you've identified 50 potential clients on LinkedIn. In that case, you can import all their details into LaGrowthMachine in just a few clicks, setting the stage for more organized and efficient outreach.
After importing your leads, LaGrowthMachine empowers you to create specific audiences based on the data you've gathered from LinkedIn. This means you can group your contacts into different segments based on factors like industry, job title, or location. For instance, if you've identified leads from both the tech and healthcare industries, you can create separate audiences for each group. This personalized approach allows you to tailor your messaging to be more relevant and engaging for each segment, increasing the chances of a meaningful connection.
One of the key features of LaGrowthMachine is its ability to run multi-channel campaigns. This powerful tool allows you to reach out to your leads through multiple channels, such as sending them LinkedIn messages and following up with personalized emails. By engaging your leads through different channels, you increase the likelihood of catching their attention and driving a response. This effective multichannel approach helps ensure that your outreach efforts are successful and that you stay top-of-mind with your potential clients.
After identifying leads on LinkedIn, you can effortlessly use Clearbit to enhance the basic information you’ve gathered. For instance, if you’ve found potential contacts but only have their names and company details, Clearbit can fill in missing information such as job titles, company size, and industry. This enriched data provides a more complete picture of your leads, making your follow-up efforts more informed and effective.
Clearbit empowers you to create detailed profiles for each of your leads by adding valuable information like company revenue, the number of employees, and the specific roles of the people you’re targeting. For example, if you’re reaching out to a company’s marketing department, Clearbit can help you identify the exact decision-makers, such as the Marketing Director or Head of Digital Marketing, ensuring your message reaches the right person.
With the enriched data from Clearbit, your outreach can be more personalized and relevant. Instead of sending generic messages, you can tailor your communications based on the detailed profiles you’ve created. For instance, knowing that a lead is part of a rapidly growing company, you might craft a message highlighting how your services can support their scaling efforts. This level of personalization helps increase the chances of a positive response, making your outreach more successful.
To enhance your networking efforts and to make your outreach more efficient.explore our detailed guide on: How to Automate LinkedIn Messages: A Step-by-Step Guide
Skrapp.io is a tool that simplifies gathering contact information from LinkedIn. As you identify potential leads on LinkedIn, you can use Skrapp.io to extract their email addresses directly from their profiles. For example, if you’ve found a potential client on LinkedIn, Skrapp.io helps you quickly locate their email address, allowing you to follow up with them outside of LinkedIn.
After extracting emails, Skrapp.io allows you to save and organize these contacts into lists for easier management. This is particularly useful when you’re building a targeted outreach campaign. For instance, you can create a list of potential clients within a specific industry and use this organized data for more focused and efficient follow-up efforts.
Once you’ve built your contact list with Skrapp.io, you can integrate it with your existing outreach tools, such as email marketing platforms or CRM systems. This integration ensures that your outreach efforts are efficient and that you can easily manage follow-ups, track engagement, and refine your strategies based on the responses you receive.
By streamlining the process of finding and managing contact information, Skrapp.io empowers you to build stronger relationships and accelerate your sales and marketing efforts.
Also read: Extracting Emails from LinkedIn using Top Tools in 2024
Mastering LinkedIn’s search tools can transform how you find companies on Linkedin and connect with companies. You can uncover valuable insights and opportunities by using basic and advanced search techniques, along with tools like Sales Navigator and Google. Combining these strategies with automated tools can enhance your efficiency, making your outreach efforts more effective and targeted. Whether you're seeking new clients, exploring career opportunities, or researching industry trends, knowing how to find companies on LinkedIn effectively can open doors to numerous possibilities.
To further enhance your outreach process, explore WithBlaze’s powerful features for enhancing prospecting and automating your LinkedIn interactions. Book a free demo today to see how WithBlaze can optimize your outreach efforts and drive better results.
