How to turn a LinkedIn post's likes and comments into leads
The people who react to a post about your problem are telling you what they care about. How to find the right posts, sort the buyers from the noise, and message them without being weird about it.
On this page
- Can you see who liked or commented on a LinkedIn post?
- Which LinkedIn posts should you use?
- How do you sort buyers from everyone else?
- Are commenters better leads than likers?
- What should you say to someone who engaged with a post?
- How quickly should you reach out?
- How do you do this for many posts?
- FAQ
- Where Saava fits
- Pick posts about the problem you solve, written by people your buyers already follow.
- Commenters are warmer than likers, because a comment tells you what they think.
- Most engagers are not buyers. Filter by role, company and fit before you message anyone.
- Open with the topic of the post, never with the fact that you saw them like it.
To turn a LinkedIn post's engagement into leads, pick a post about the problem you solve, collect the people who reacted and commented, keep only the ones who fit your ideal customer, and message them about the topic while it is still fresh. The post gives you both the list and the reason to reach out. The filtering step is what separates this from spam: most engagers on any popular post are not buyers.
Here is the process step by step, with examples.
Can you see who liked or commented on a LinkedIn post?
Yes. Anyone can open a post's reactions to see who reacted, and read the comments to see who wrote what. Doing this by hand works for one post at a time, but it is slow, and working through many posts a week this way doesn't scale.
What you see is also raw. A post with 400 reactions might hold fifteen people you would actually want to talk to, mixed in with the author's friends, other vendors, recruiters and people outside your market.
Which LinkedIn posts should you use?
The post determines the quality of the list, so choose carefully:
- Posts about the problem you solve. A post on "why our CRM data is a mess" attracts people living with a messy CRM.
- Posts by people your buyers follow. Industry voices, analysts, respected practitioners and sometimes competitors. Our guide to building a watchlist lists the profile types worth tracking.
- Recent posts. Engagement from this week is a live interest. Engagement from last year is history.
- Posts with real comments. A thread of thoughtful comments is worth more than a post with thousands of reactions and no discussion.
Avoid viral posts that went broad. Once a post leaves its niche, the engagers stop representing your market.
How do you sort buyers from everyone else?
Treat every engager as a candidate, not a lead. Check each one against the same questions:
| Check | Keep | Drop |
|---|---|---|
| Role | Owns or influences the purchase | Students, job seekers, unrelated roles |
| Company | Fits your size, industry and region | Too small, too big, wrong market |
| Type of engagement | A comment with an opinion or a question | A reaction from someone who likes every post |
| Seller or buyer | Works at a company that would buy | Agencies, consultants and vendors selling the same thing |
The last row matters more than it looks. Posts about a problem attract the people who sell solutions to it. Without that check, a large share of your list can be competitors and consultants.
Are commenters better leads than likers?
Usually. A like takes a second and tells you only that someone saw the post. A comment takes effort and tells you what the person thinks, which gives you something specific to reply to.
That doesn't make likers worthless. A like from someone in exactly the right role at exactly the right company is still a useful signal, just a quieter one. Our list of LinkedIn engagement signals ranks them by strength.
What should you say to someone who engaged with a post?
Talk about the topic, not about their activity. "I saw you liked a post" makes people uncomfortable, because it tells them they are being watched. Discussing the idea in the post is natural, since that is what LinkedIn is for.
For a commenter:
Hi Amir, your comment under Jess's post about cleaning CRM data before a migration was the most specific one in the thread. We went through the same thing last year. Did you end up doing the cleanup before or after the move?
For someone who reacted:
Hi Tara, a lot of the RevOps leads I talk to are dealing with messy CRM data before a migration. Is that on your list this year, or already handled?
Notice the second message doesn't mention the post at all. With a reaction, the topic is enough.
How quickly should you reach out?
Within a day or two is ideal, while the topic is on the person's mind. The value of engagement fades quickly: a comment from this morning is a conversation you can join, while a comment from three weeks ago is one that ended. We explain why timing matters in speed to lead.
If you connect first, a note that mentions the topic works well. Our connection request examples include one for exactly this situation.
How do you do this for many posts?
Doing it by hand, the steps are: find posts, open the engagement, copy names, research each person, filter, find contact details and write the message. That is hours per post.
To scale it, separate the steps. Decide once which profiles and topics to watch, check them regularly, filter every engager automatically against your ideal customer profile, and only spend human time on the ones that pass. That is also the approach behind tracking competitor engagement.
FAQ
Is it allowed to message people who engaged with a LinkedIn post? Engagement on public posts is visible to anyone, and messaging someone about a topic they engaged with is normal LinkedIn behavior. Keep the message relevant and respectful, and don't mention monitoring their activity.
How many leads can you get from one post? It depends on the post and your filters. A niche post with a few hundred engagers might give you a handful of strong fits; a broad viral post might give you fewer, despite more engagement.
Should you message people who engaged with a competitor's post? They can be good prospects, but some will be the competitor's happy customers. Lead with the topic, not the competitor, and let the conversation show which is which.
Do you need Sales Navigator to do this? No. Reactions and comments are visible on standard accounts. Sales Navigator helps with filtering and saving leads, but it isn't required.
What is the best time to message an engager? Within a day or two of the engagement, while the topic is still fresh for them.
Where Saava fits
Saava does this without the manual steps. Analyze a post lets you paste one LinkedIn post link and turns the people who reacted or commented into leads in a list named after the post, up to 100 people. Tracked profiles do the same continuously for the voices your buyers follow, scoring every engager against your ideal customer profile and adding a verified email and phone where available.