LinkedIn is a great platform for building professional connections and promoting your company. One useful metric on LinkedIn is the number of followers your company page has. This can give you an idea of how many people are interested in your company and seeing your updates. However, LinkedIn doesn’t provide an easy way to export or scrape the list of followers from your company page. This article will walk through different methods you can use to scrape your LinkedIn company page followers.
Why Scrape LinkedIn Company Page Followers?
Here are some of the key reasons you may want to scrape your LinkedIn company page followers:
– Get a complete list of your followers in Excel or CSV format for analysis – LinkedIn only shows you a limited preview of followers. Scraping lets you export the full list.
– Identify influential followers and potential brand advocates based on job title, company, location and other attributes.
– Discover followers by department, seniority, geography to tailor content marketing and outreach.
– Compare changes over time by periodically scraping your followers list to see growth rates.
– Sync your LinkedIn followers with your email marketing, webinar or event management tools. Many tools require a list to upload.
– Build targeted sales prospecting lists based on your LinkedIn company page followers.
– Better understand your LinkedIn audience and benchmarks for your industry.
Overall, having the full list of your LinkedIn company page followers enables much more detailed analysis and outreach compared to only seeing a sample preview of followers on LinkedIn.
Methods to Scrape LinkedIn Company Page Followers
Here are some of the main methods available to scrape your list of LinkedIn company page followers:
Use LinkedIn’s Export Feature
LinkedIn provides a basic export feature to download your company page followers, but has significant limitations:
– Only exports 1000 most recent followers, not the full list
– Only provides very basic info like name, headline and location
– Requires manually exporting on a regular basis to get updates
– No way to filter, customize or analyze within LinkedIn
So the LinkedIn export is very limited. It’s better than nothing if you just need a small sample, but for serious business analysis you need more.
Use LinkedIn Scraper Tools
There are specialized scraping tools available to download your full LinkedIn company page followers list and additional profile details. Here are some top options:
– Octopus 8 – All-in-one LinkedIn scraping tool that lets you export followers with filters and schedule automated regular exports.
– Phantombuster – Headless scraping API that requires coding but offers advanced filters and customization.
– Dux-Soup – Python based web scraper with pre-built libraries to extract LinkedIn data.
– Import.io – General purpose web scraping tool with GUI interface to build LinkedIn scrapers.
These tools remove the scraping complexity and avoid the need to code everything yourself. They tap into LinkedIn under the hood in an approved manner and provide user friendly interfaces.
Build Your Own LinkedIn Scraper
For maximum flexibility or tighter integration with in-house systems, you can build your own custom LinkedIn scraper from the ground up. Here are some tips:
– Use Selenium or Puppeteer in Python, NodeJS or other languages to programmatically browse LinkedIn and extract data.
– Authenticate via LinkedIn’s OAuth API to increase scraping limits.
– Load follower profiles asynchronously to speed up large scrapes.
– Cache data locally and use throttling to avoid bot detection.
– Build a friendly UI like a Flask or Django app for business users.
– Containerize your LinkedIn scraper using Docker for simple deployment.
Building your own LinkedIn scraper requires more effort up front but pays off long term with maximum performance and customization for your needs.
Step-by-Step Tutorial
Let’s walk through a specific tutorial for scraping your LinkedIn company page followers using Octopus 8, one of the purpose built LinkedIn scrapers.
Here are the steps:
1. Sign up for a free Octopus account
Go to Octopus and sign up for a free account. No credit card required.
2. Connect your LinkedIn company page
In Octopus, click the LinkedIn integration. Authenticate and connect your LinkedIn company page.
3. Set up scraping configuration
In the configuration panel, you can define:
– Output fields like name, job title, location, etc
– Filters like seniority, company size, keywords
– Scrape frequency – hourly, daily, weekly or monthly
4. Run and export scraper
Click run scraper to start extraction process. Once completed, export your followers to CSV or integrate via Zapier.
And that’s it – you now have your complete customized LinkedIn company page followers exported for further analysis and outreach!
What to Do With LinkedIn Followers Data
Once you’ve successfully scraped your LinkedIn followers, here are some of the key things you can do with that data:
Segment and Analyze in Excel
Load your exported CSV into Excel or Google Sheets. Use functions like pivot tables, VLOOKUPS and filters to slice and dice your followers by department, seniority, company, location and other attributes. Identify the most engaged followers.
Sync with Email Marketing Tools
Sync your exported followers to your email service like MailChimp or Constant Contact. Segment lists by job role or industry to send targeted content. Nurture followers with automations.
Generate Leads for Sales Prospecting
Enrich follower profiles with tools like Clearbit or DiscoverOrg. Identify followers from target accounts and roles for sales prospecting. Prioritize based on engagement, seniority and similarity to existing customers.
Create Custom Audiences for Paid Ads
Upload your follower list as a custom audience for LinkedIn ads or website re-targeting. Drive high ROI by advertising to existing followers who know your brand.
Benchmark Over Time
Compare current followers to past scrapes to analyze growth over months and years. Set goals for follower acquisition by geography or industry. Identify declining followership in certain segments.
Legal Considerations for Scraping LinkedIn
When scraping any website, including LinkedIn, it’s important to follow proper legal practices:
– Comply with LinkedIn’s ToS by avoiding spammy behavior and excessive scraping. Use throttling/delays.
– Do not share or resell LinkedIn data to third parties without permission.
– Delete old data that is no longer required for your purposes.
– Provide notice and obtain consent where legally required under privacy regulations.
– Use data responsibly for defined business purposes, not surveillance or tracking.
– Employ reasonable security protections when storing LinkedIn data.
By following good ethical practices and LinkedIn’s ToS, you can scrape responsibly and avoid legal issues. Consult an attorney for advice tailored to your specific situation.
FAQs
Here are some common questions about scraping LinkedIn company page followers:
Does LinkedIn allow scraping?
LinkedIn’s ToS does not explicitly prohibit scraping. However, you must scrape responsibly to avoid bot detection. Using OAuth and respecting throttling limits helps maintain good standing.
Isn’t scraping LinkedIn illegal or unethical?
Scraping public LinkedIn pages ethically is typically viewed as legal in most jurisdictions. You still need consent for certain types of regulated data. Be transparent and provide opt-outs.
Can I scrape private profile data on LinkedIn?
Scraping private profile data without consent is unethical. Stick to public company page follower data only.
Is there a daily limit for LinkedIn scraping?
Limits vary but aim for no more than ~50K profiles daily to avoid detection. Use generous throttling and random delays.
Are there free LinkedIn scraping tools?
Some free options exist but are limited. Paid tools like Octopus provide higher caps, better support, and more features. But free open source libraries like BeautifulSoup can work.
Conclusion
Scraping your LinkedIn company page followers provides valuable business insights not available through LinkedIn’s built-in tools. With the right approach, scraper and analysis tools, you can gain a major competitive advantage by understanding and engaging your LinkedIn audience better than ever before. Just be sure to scrape ethically and legally.
What strategies have you found effective for profiting from LinkedIn company page follower data? What challenges have you faced trying to export followers? Please share your experiences in the comments!