How to Export LinkedIn Contacts (& What to Do With Them)

How to Export Your LinkedIn Contacts for More Connections, Sales, and Business Growth

You‘ve invested significant time and effort into building your LinkedIn network. But are you fully leveraging the value of those connections? Exporting your LinkedIn contacts allows you to take your professional relationships beyond the platform and use that data in powerful ways to drive more sales and grow your business.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll walk you through not only how to export your LinkedIn contacts step-by-step, but also explore the benefits of doing so and share actionable tips for making the most of that exported data. Armed with your LinkedIn connections, you‘ll be able to better manage relationships, conduct targeted outreach, and uncover more opportunities.

Why Export Your LinkedIn Contacts?
Before we dive into the technical process of exporting your connections from LinkedIn, let‘s examine some of the key reasons to do so:

  1. Backup your valuable contacts data. Just like any digital asset, it‘s smart to periodically back up your LinkedIn data in case of unforeseen events or platform changes. Exporting gives you a copy of your connections that is independent of LinkedIn.

  2. Gain full control and ownership of your professional network. While LinkedIn provides tools for engaging your connections within the platform, exporting allows you to communicate and build relationships with more flexibility on your own terms.

  3. Merge with your CRM or customer database. Integrating your LinkedIn connections with your other contact records creates a more complete picture of your professional network. Most CRM platforms allow importing of contacts via CSV file.

  4. Conduct personalized email outreach. By exporting with email addresses, you can use your LinkedIn data to power targeted email prospecting and nurturing campaigns to your connections.

  5. Analyze and map your network. Exported LinkedIn data can be imported into network mapping and analysis tools for uncovering new insights and opportunities within your professional graph.

  6. Comply with data regulations. New privacy laws have placed more restrictions on contact data. Exporting and getting permission to store your LinkedIn connections helps maintain compliance.

Now that we‘ve established the "why", let‘s proceed to the "how". Follow these steps to export your LinkedIn contacts:

How to Export LinkedIn Contacts

  1. Click the "Me" icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
  2. Select "Settings & Privacy" from the dropdown menu.
  3. Click the "Privacy" tab at the top of the page.
  4. Under the "How LinkedIn uses your data" section, click "Get a copy of your data".
  5. You‘ll be taken to the "Download your data" page. Here you can select which data files you want to export. To download your connections, select "Connections."
  6. Choose whether to export in CSV or PDF format. We recommend CSV so the file can be imported elsewhere. Also select whether to include email addresses connected to your account if needed.
  7. Click "Request archive."
  8. You‘ll receive an email to your Primary Email address which will include a link where you can download your list of connections.
  9. Click the link in the email to securely download your archived data as a zip file.
  10. Unzip the file and open the Connections.csv file in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. You‘ll see all your contacts‘ details including name, company, position, email, and connected date.

Tips for Cleaning and Using Your Exported LinkedIn Contacts
Congrats, you‘ve got your hands on a complete record of your LinkedIn network! Here are some suggestions for auditing and putting that valuable data to work:

  • Scan for missing or outdated info. Quickly audit the file and fill in any missing details like company, location or email. Having complete records will enable you to better filter and segment your list.

  • Remove irrelevant contacts. If your list includes people you don‘t really know or aren‘t relevant to your business, you may want to delete those rows to keep your list lean and targeted.

  • Standardize the data. For consistency, you may need to make some fields uniform – i.e. changing "Co" to "Company" or "Senior Manager" to "Sr. Manager". This will help with filtering, importing to other platforms, and personalization.

  • Tag and segment contacts. Consider adding a few extra columns to categorize and group your connections – i.e. "VIP Client", "Prospect", "Industry – SaaS", "Met at Conference X", etc. This will allow you to easily create targeted sublists for personalized outreach.

  • Import to your CRM. Upload the cleaned CSV file to your CRM so you can manage and interact with your LinkedIn connections alongside the rest of your customer/prospect database.

  • Collaborate with your team. Share the exported contacts with your sales and marketing teams via a Google Sheet or CSV so everyone has access to and can act on those key relationships.

  • Integrate with marketing automation. Many email and marketing automation platforms can ingest your LinkedIn CSV so you can enroll contacts in email nurture campaigns or add them to your newsletter list (with their permission of course!)

  • Analyze network patterns. Upload the CSV to data visualization and network mapping tools to uncover new insights about your professional graph – i.e. most common job titles, popular geographic locations, interconnected people and companies, potential new prospects.

  • Conduct targeted outreach. Using the contact details and tags, send highly personalized emails or LinkedIn messages to specific segments of your network to share content, make introductions, request a call or meeting, etc.

Of course, with great contact data comes great responsibility. Always respect your connections‘ privacy and communication preferences. Before importing your LinkedIn contacts to other platforms and tools, read and comply with their terms and conditions. When conducting outreach, focus on providing relevant value and building real relationships vs blasting spammy marketing messages.

Conclusion
Exporting your LinkedIn contacts grants you full ownership and control of your professional network data. With a clean, complete CSV of your connections, you can more strategically build relationships at scale and uncover new business opportunities beyond the LinkedIn platform.

Use the step-by-step instructions in this guide to easily download an archive of your contacts. Then implement our tips to organize the data and put it to work through targeted outreach, marketing campaigns, network analysis, CRM integration, and more.

To continue growing your LinkedIn network (and future exports!), check out our other guides on LinkedIn profile optimization, content sharing best practices, and social selling tactics. By consistently providing value and nurturing your professional relationships both on and off LinkedIn, you‘ll become a magnet for meaningful connections that drive real business results.

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