Data collection, manipulation, and usage are something that people often overlook when LinkedIn is mentioned.
All of these things do exist and they aren’t rare to see, but not many people talk about them. This is nonsensical in a way that all people that are using LinkedIn should know about this stuff because of its usage and impact on the way people use this network.
First of all, we’re going to take a look at what LinkedIn scraping tools are, the best Linkedin scraping tools on the market, and should you even be using these tools in the first place.
All of these questions are quite complicated as they are, so don’t try to understand them all at once. I’ve dedicated this article to help you understand LinkedIn scraping as a whole, so you don’t have to worry about the fullness of your knowledge.
All you should do is read till the end and enjoy!e
What Is LinkedIn Scraping?
First of all, let’s take a look at what is scraping, and then we’ll put it in the context of the LinkedIn platform.
Scraping allows you to retrieve and collect valuable intel on the internet that can be used to build up a prospecting file, or even find out about your competitors.
This is a powerful tool that many experienced people on LinkedIn use, and I’m going to teach you how to use it as well.
Now, scraping in the context of LinkedIn is collecting data about people that you’re interested in any way, shape, or form.
Those people can be your potential leads and prospects, your competition, someone you’d like to hire, etc…
All of these people have something in common – they are a point of interest to you, and collecting publicly available data about them is a key factor in your further approach.
This is where the importance of LinkedIn scraping comes in since people that don’t use it rarely have as much data to rely on as people that do scraping before they make their next move.
How Do You Scrape Content On LinkedIn?
Scraping content on LinkedIn may be a long and tedious process if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a fast and fun process if you do know what you’re doing.
That’s a gap you’re all going to jump over today, and you’re going to learn how to scrape on LinkedIn with optimal resources in order to get to the optimal result.
Scraping is not profitable if you’re doing it the wrong way, and I assume none of you would like that.
Now, are a few things you should know about scraping on LinkedIn before we get into the tools used for this.
First of all, there are two main ways to approach scraping on LinkedIn, and that’s manual and automatic.
Manual LinkedIn scraping
It consists of you going and collecting all necessary data by yourself without any help. This is the way the majority of people that are new to this approach scraping.
Doing so is not inherently wrong, but it is a slow process that requires large amounts of time and energy spent on them.
Automatic LinkedIn scraping
This is what we’re interested in here, and it’s done by using scraping tools that collect, analyze, and process publicly available data on people that you’re interested in and present you with said pieces of information.
Tools for automatic scraping are widely used and are the main topic of this article. Now, we will get into different scraping tools, but first I have to explain a few things about scraping.
First and foremost, what is it that you’re trying to scrape off of LinkedIn? You’re trying to collect data that will help you build your sales business to another level.
What might that imply? It implies that you’re targeting people’s interests, groups they’re a part of, what they look at often, etc… In other words, anything that might help you recognize people that you’re able to sell your product or service to based on their preferences.
This may sound semi-easy on paper, but it’s not nearly as easy as in real life. There are a lot of things to consider when scraping on LinkedIn in order to find the perfect group in which you’ll find your potential leads.
Some of them are:
- Age
- Residence
- Financial power
- Interest
- Approachableness
But enough of the talk, let’s take a look at the top 5 LinkedIn scrapers.
Proxycrawl LinkedIn Scraper
The first on the list is usually the best on the list, and that’s exactly how it works here. Proxycrawl is a LinkedIn scraper that’s been used for a long time and has a long history behind it.
This tool can be used for various things, even outside of LinkedIn, but we’re going to stick to our beloved business platform.
By using Proxycrawl you can easily crawl the terrain that you’re interested in collecting data that will later be quite beneficial to you in the long run.
The only thing that you won’t find on this crawler and may need are the indications of what this data that you’ve collected tells you or indicates what you should do next.
Also, you can try it for free, but there if you’d like to keep using it, you’ll have to pay.
Web Scraper
Having a generic look and a generic name may imply that this scraping tool isn’t good, but you’d be fooled if you would think so.
webscraper.io is a very powerful Google Chrome extension that is allowed to crawl the web from your browser and bring you useful information on the subject you’re interested in.
Some of you may ask is this LinkedIn scraping tool-free, and the answer is – yes. All it takes to use it is to download the extension, activate it, make your account, and you’re ready to be on your way scraping for information!
One thing that is important to note is that this is a Google Chrome extension, so the safety of your files and Drive contents are not 100% guaranteed!
Octoparse
This is one of the more intricate Linkedin scraping tools I’ve come across and decided to tell you all about. You may see it as a 2 in 1, which is quite amazing.
Octoparse is a web scraping tool and a free web crawler, which is a dream-team combination when it comes to collecting publically available data.
You can use both options that this website offers you to their fullest extent and get some pretty amazing results with it.
Also, you have a 14-day free trial for the web scraping tool, so even if you don’t have any money to spend on it, you’ll have two full weeks to take advantage of this software.
Scrab.in
ScrapIn is one of the most well-made software out there and it really gets the job done. Crawling and scraping information is something that you should heavily rely on which Scrab.in really understands and work to achieve.
When I first started being interested in scraping, I remember stumbling upon ScrabIn and being quite interested.
For those who don’t believe that this will bring you any results, or for those who don’t want to spend their resources on these tools, Scrab.in allows you to use their services for a limited amount of time through a free trial, so go take advantage of it!
In addition to that, I’d just say that I’ve never heard someone question the validity or the safety of people who use this software, but although you shouldn’t really be concerned about your safety, it’s always good to be extra safe!
ParseHub
This is yet another free scraping tool that you can use with a good success rate attached to it. There are a few things that you need to know about free scraping tools.
The first is that you’ll probably miss out on some features if you use completely free scraping tools instead of those that you actually pay. That’s something you’ll have to come to peace with.
But besides some super tech-looking features that some of you probably won’t even use half the time, ParseHub really has everything to get you started.
You’ll get decent information with decent accuracy that you’ll be able to use later on in your business endeavors.
Is LinkedIn Scraping Legal?
One more thing that I have to touch upon before wrapping this up is the fact that some people think that all web and LinkedIn scraping is somehow illegal.
There are two main answers here. The first is that scraping is not inherently illegal, and the other one is that it can be illegally done.
Scraping information that’s publically available to everyone is not illegal and it will never be impossible to delegalize using information that people willingly provided you with.
The second part of the answer is that if you use some scrapers that are not buyable on this side of the web, you’ll end up with some personal information that blurs the line between scraping and doxing somebody.
So use only checked and verified scraping & crawling tools, or just stick to the list above and you won’t have any problems!
LinkedIn Scraping Tool – Summation
It’s time to sum up everything I’ve said and to give you a clear overview of what you learned about LinkedIn scraping tools today.
First and foremost, scraping is quite a useful thing to do, especially in sales. Collecting publically available data about people that are potentially interested in what you’re selling or can become interested once you contact them really saves you a lot of time and other resources.
That’s why it’s smart to start scraping and start taking advantage of the data this brings to the table.
I’ve given you 5 amazing tools for scraping LinkedIn and any website publically available really. These scraping tools aren’t meant just for LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is a website that can be scraped using these scrapers.
I hope they help you in achieving your goals!
