How to find leads in the audience of LinkedIn influencers in your niche
- Written by
- Jorrit van Ginkel, founder of Ziplined
- Published
- Last updated
On LinkedIn
Reactions on Maya Jansen's post
312- Grace Mensah
- Ruben Smit
- Tom Verbeek
In Ziplined
Industry experts' audience
Grace Mensah
Lead · Commented on Maya's post
Ruben Smit
Lead · Liked Maya's post
To find leads in an influencer's audience, open the posts of an influencer your ideal clients follow and look at who reacts and comments. LinkedIn has no export of those people, so Ziplined collects them every night and keeps the ones who fit your ideal client.
Short answer: pick the influencers in your niche whose posts your buyers engage with, then copy the reactions and comments on their posts into a sheet. Or add those influencers to Ziplined as industry experts (the role Ziplined uses for them), and it lists who likes and comments on their new posts and sends the ones who fit to your tools.
How to find LinkedIn influencers in your niche
The right LinkedIn influencers for lead generation are the ones whose posts your buyers like and comment on, not the ones with the most followers. A big influencer draws students, recruiters and other influencers; a niche influencer draws the people who buy from you.
Start from a customer who fits.
Open their profile and look at their activity: the posts they react to and comment on.
Search your niche's topic on LinkedIn.
Filter the results on Posts, and note who writes the posts with the most comments.
Note the influencers who come back.
Two or three customers who engage with the same influencer is a good sign.
Open one post of each influencer.
Scan the reactions: do you see job titles like your buyers', or mostly peers of the influencer?
How to see who engages with a LinkedIn influencer's posts
To see who engages with a LinkedIn influencer's post, open the post and click its reactions count. The people who reacted open in a list, and the comments are in the thread under the post.
Open the influencer's profile.
Someone your buyers follow for advice.
Click Show all posts under Activity.
Their posts, newest first.
Click the reactions count under a post.
The people who reacted open in a list, with a tab per reaction.
Read the comments under the post.
A comment says what the person cares about.
Maya Jansen's post
2 days agoReactions
Grace Mensah
Head of Sales, Northwind
Tom Verbeek
Student
Ruben Smit
Founder, Brightwave Studio
Can you export the engagers of an influencer's LinkedIn post?
Not with a button: LinkedIn has no export of the people who react to or comment on a post, also not on an influencer's post. Without Ziplined there are three ways, each from the list on your screen, the same as to export LinkedIn post engagers of any post.
1. Copy the reactions and comments into a sheet
Open the reactions list of one post.
Scroll until every person is loaded.
Copy the people who could buy.
Name, job title and company, one row at a time. Skip the rest.
Add the commenters.
Copy the comment too, so you know what they care about.
Repeat for each post and each influencer.
Come back every week for their new posts.
Time: long, because an influencer's post often has hundreds of reactions and most are not your buyers. Limit: one post at a time, by hand, every week.
2. Screenshot the list and ask an AI assistant
Open the reactions list and scroll.
Load every person you want in the table.
Screenshot each screen.
One screenshot per screen of names, plus the comments.
Upload them to ChatGPT or Claude.
Add the prompt below, with your own ideal client.
Check every row.
Then paste the table into your sheet.
Turn these screenshots of a LinkedIn post's reactions and comments into a table with name, job title, company and comment. Mark the people who are founders or heads of sales at companies of 11 to 50 people.Limit: only what was on your screen. An AI assistant can misread a name or a company, and it guesses company size from a job title, so check the table.
3. A one-off script
Open the reactions list of the post.
Scroll until every person is loaded.
Run a small script in the browser console.
It reads the names on the page. No script is shared here.
Paste the output into a sheet.
Then pick out the people who fit, by hand.
Limit: the script breaks when LinkedIn changes the page. Tools that click, send or crawl inside your LinkedIn account can get it restricted, so it is not for every week.
Which way to get leads from LinkedIn influencer posts fits you?
For one influencer post, copy and paste is enough. For several influencers every week, the manual ways cost time on every post, and you still sort out who fits by hand.
| Time each week | Posts covered | Who fits | Risk | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copy and paste | Long per post, by hand | The ones you open | You judge each row | None |
| Screenshots and AI | Long per post, plus checking | The ones you open | The AI guesses, you check | Misread names |
| One-off script | Fixes when LinkedIn changes the page | The ones you open | You judge each row | Your account restricted |
| Ziplined | None after setup | Every new post of the influencers you add | Your ideal client decides | Credits for everyone collected, fit or not |
How to find leads from LinkedIn influencer posts automatically with Ziplined
Ziplined is a LinkedIn Lead Radar. It finds people who engage with your team, your competitors and your market, keeps the ones who fit your ideal client, and sends them to your tools while you sleep.
Add the influencers as industry experts.
Paste their profile link and choose An industry expert. Then pick Include the past week or From now on.
Ziplined collects every night.
It reads their new posts, the reactions for 7 days and the comments for the first 72 hours after a post goes up.
Leads land in a ready-made list.
Leads (people who fit your ideal client) land in a list called Industry experts' audience, each with the post and what they did. Download a CSV or send them to Slack or email on every plan, or to Google Sheets and HeyReach on Team.
Influencers in your niche
Maya Jansen
Industry expert
Daan Mulder
Industry expert
Eva Lindqvist
Industry expert
Your ideal client
You sell to founders and heads of sales at companies of 11 to 50 people in software and IT services, in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Industry experts' audience
Grace Mensah
Head of Sales, Northwind
Commented on Maya's post
Lotte Vermeer
Head of Sales, Kestrel Labs
Liked Daan's post
With Include the past week, Ziplined reads that week right away, so the first names arrive within minutes. After that it checks every night from 02:05 UTC.
You need no Chrome extension to track an influencer, and Ziplined takes no action on LinkedIn. Competitors work the same way: see who engages with your competitors' LinkedIn posts.
- Coming soonAn alert when an influencer publishes a new post.
Until then, LinkedIn's own bell does it per person: see how to get notified when someone posts on LinkedIn.
How much does it cost to track a LinkedIn influencer?
Tracking a LinkedIn influencer in Ziplined costs 1 credit per post and 1 credit per reaction or comment on it, also for the people who do not fit. An influencer whose posts get 300 reactions uses about 300 credits a post, so Ziplined shows an estimate before you add them.
Ziplined bases the estimate on the influencer's posts of the last 14 days. In this example, the past week's posts and the people on them cost about 460 credits once, and about five new posts a month with about 350 reactions and comments each come to about 1,750 credits, most of Solo's 3,000.
To stay in budget, track smaller influencers in your niche, pick From now on so the past week costs nothing, or move to Team with 10,000 credits a month. At 0 credits Ziplined stops collecting new people until your credits renew, and your Leads, lists and alerts stay.
Maya Jansen
Sales coach, 40k followers
Who is Maya Jansen to you?
An industry expert
Someone your buyers follow for advice.
Estimated credit use
Example numbers
How to pick LinkedIn influencers whose audience is your buyers
In Ziplined, the list of the profiles you watch shows per influencer how many Leads they brought in the last 30 days, and what one Lead cost. Keep the influencers whose audience is your buyers, and pause the rest.
An influencer with a huge audience can cost hundreds of credits for each Lead, because most people who engage do not fit. On Solo a credit is about 1.6 cents ($49 for 3,000), so 80 credits a Lead is about $1.30.
Industry experts
Last 30 days- 80 credits a Lead
Maya Jansen
23 Leads
- 45 credits a Lead
Daan Mulder
11 Leads
- 300 credits a Lead
Eva Lindqvist
2 Leads
Which influencer posts draw your ideal clients?
In Ziplined, the list of the influencers' posts, sorted by Most ideal clients, shows which influencer posts draw your buyers. Each post shows how many of the people who engaged fit your ideal client, and a topic of a few words when an ideal client engaged.
Open a post to see which ideal clients liked or commented, with their comment. A Companies list shows the companies whose people engage with the influencers you track.
Industry experts' posts
Most ideal clientsCoaching new sales managers
Maya Jansen
14 of 353
Ideal clients of all engagers
Raising prices without churn
Daan Mulder
9 of 120
Ideal clients of all engagers
My morning routine
Maya Jansen
1 of 890
Ideal clients of all engagers
How to filter an influencer's engagers on your ideal client
To filter an influencer's engagers, write your ideal client as one sentence, and Ziplined marks the engagers who fit it as Leads. Students, recruiters and your own colleagues rarely get through; to be sure, exclude job titles such as recruiter.
You can also exclude titles such as coach, or seniorities, industries, company sizes and countries. A saved list narrows your Leads further, on job title, company, company size, country, industry, seniority or warmth (how much they engaged lately).
How to get a Slack alert when a buyer engages with an influencer's post
Send the Industry experts' audience list to a Slack channel, and Ziplined posts each new Lead there, with the influencer post they engaged with. Email works the same way, both on every plan.
You choose hourly, daily or weekly, and an alert is never real time. Hourly matters for what arrives during the day, such as the past week of an influencer you just added; nightly data reaches you the morning after.
More in how to get a Slack alert when an ideal client engages.
How to export influencer post engagers to Google Sheets, HeyReach or your CRM
Influencer post engagers download as a CSV on every plan. On Team, from $99 a month, a saved list goes to Google Sheets, HeyReach, Clay or a webhook, for example to your CRM with Zapier or Make.
Each saved list goes to its own tools, as in how to get LinkedIn leads into Google Sheets. You can also ask about the same lists in Claude or ChatGPT once you connect Ziplined to your AI assistant.
How to turn an influencer's audience into leads
Turn an influencer's audience into leads by meeting your buyers where they already read, and by making your first message about the topic they engaged with. Four plays to start with, and more in social selling tools:
Comment where your buyers already are
Add a useful comment under the posts that draw the most ideal clients. Their audience reads it.
Reach out with the topic they engaged with
The alert names the post's topic. Start from that, in your own words.
Start with the warmest Leads
Sort a list on warmth: someone who engages with an expert and with your team comes before a one-time liker.
Ask your AI agent
Add Ziplined as a connector in Claude or ChatGPT, then ask about the same posts and people.
The LinkedIn Lead Radar
- Watch your market for buying signals
- Analyze your own audience
- Takes no action on LinkedIn
- Claude
- ChatGPT
- Grok Bot
- Cursor
- Slack
- HeyReach
- Google Sheets
- Clay
FAQ
How do you find leads from LinkedIn influencer posts?
Pick the influencers in your niche whose posts your buyers engage with, open their posts and look at who reacts and comments. Copy the people who fit into a sheet, or add the influencers to Ziplined, which collects them every night and keeps the ones who fit your ideal client.
Can you export the people who engage with an influencer's LinkedIn post?
Not from LinkedIn. It has no export of the people who react to or comment on a post. With Ziplined, add the influencer as an industry expert, and the people who like or comment on their new posts land in a list you download as a CSV or send to your tools.
Will the influencer know I track their posts?
No. Ziplined takes no action on LinkedIn. It never likes, follows, views or comments from your account, and you need no Chrome extension to track an influencer.
How do I find the right LinkedIn influencers in my niche?
Look at the activity of customers who fit: the influencers whose posts they like and comment on. Pick those, not the ones with the most followers. After a few weeks, Ziplined shows per influencer how many Leads they brought and how many credits one Lead cost, so you keep the ones that bring buyers.
How much does it cost to track a LinkedIn influencer?
1 credit per post and 1 per reaction or comment, also for people who do not fit. Ziplined shows an estimate before you add an influencer, from their posts of the last 14 days. Solo is $49 a month with 3,000 credits, for example 30 posts with 99 reactions each; Team is from $99 with 10,000. 7 days free with 3,000 credits; a card is needed at checkout, and the first charge comes when the 7 days end.
How is this different from tracking competitors?
It works the same way, with a different role. Influencers fill their own lists of people and posts, competitors fill theirs, so you see the two audiences apart.
How many influencers can I track?
As many as you like: no plan limits how many profiles you watch, credits are the only limit. A few niche influencers often bring more Leads than one very big one.
Can I get an alert when an influencer posts on LinkedIn?
Not yet, that is coming soon. Today Ziplined lists their new posts the day after they go up, and a Slack or email alert tells you who fits among the people who engage.
How far back does Ziplined go?
When you add an influencer, you pick Include the past week or From now on. Later you can fetch older posts, up to 90 days back. After that, Ziplined reads their new posts every night.
Can I see an influencer's followers?
No. Ziplined lists the people who like and comment on an influencer's posts, not who follows them.
Does Ziplined message the people who engage?
No. Ziplined never sends messages. It tells you who engaged and who fits, and you or your outreach tool do the sending.
