Reaching Over 1000 Followers on LinkedIn using Academia, Knowledge Graphs, and Cannabis.

I reached over a 1000 followers on LinkedIn and it's been wild ride to get here. I've been using the platform for roughly 7-8 years. Here are some of things I did to get here. Career moves + Hacks.

Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sulimansharif/

1.) Add people I work with when I leave. I've done a variety of internships when I was younger and and then added folk that were on the team. I used to ask them to add them as a connection. It took me 4-5 years but I got to about 380 connections.

connections = 380

2.) I rejoined a PhD program and started attending all the parties I could and other folks group meetings. As I collaborated more, it turns out there were a significant folk from academia on LinkedIn. So I started adding folk in my department whether I had beef with them or not. Still good to remain connected. This got me another 103 connections.

connections = 483

3.) I work in an academic group so I figured people from my past would like to see the current research that is ongoing and create a wikipedia for us. Here was the message:

Hey XXXXX,
I am creating a Wikipedia page for our Group.
Would you like to write anything about your time here perhaps a story or two?
-Sul (Academic Bro)

This got me 50 more connections.

connections = 533

4.) I then started to reach out to other academic folk in my research doing the same field if they want to collaborate and start chatting. This was another 22 connections

connections = 553

5.) I then started re-adding my students. I re found all my emails with them and this boosted me another 200 connections. Here was the e-mail template.

yoooooo, how you been mang?!?

connections = 753

6.) I then started pivoting my non-profit open source knowledge graph focus to cannabis. I wanted to connect to others creating the same software template so I took the keywords of knowledge graph, cannabis, and others to start finding people in my field. Here are some of my templates:

Hi XXX,

My name is Sul and I am author of Global-Chem. An open source government 
that maps the Common Chemical Names to SMILES. We elected molecules 
based on usefulness and organized it in a knowledge graph.

I want to connect to other graphs and help contribute to a global community.

7.) I then linked up to the cannabis investing group. My connections were maxing out where I couldn't invite anyone. I read online you could message me people for free on the LinkedIn Groups if you join. So I joined and I had something of worth to them.

Hi XXXX,

My name is Sul and I am author of Global-Chem. An Open Source Government 
Knowledge graph of Common Chemical Names to 1-D Molecule.

I recorded the chemicals for all 425 ingredients to Cannabis Sativa as a 
template chemical list. I think it would be useful to map the compositions of 
chemicals to their phylogeny for characterization of different strains.

Would love to connect.

Now my connections are 1126.

This is how I've started to grow my community and it's LinkedIn has helped me a lot in reaching out to different sub-communities.