How to Import Contacts to LinkedIn from Excel? Top Two Ways!

LinkedIn is one of the most popular platforms when it comes to building connections professionally or just expanding your network. Either way, if you are someone who manages their contact base in Excel spreadsheets and wants to store contacts on LinkedIn, unfortunately, there is no direct way to import contacts to LinkedIn from Excel.

What you have to do is, first convert your Excel file to vCard and then, Import Excel contacts to LinkedIn.

In this technical blog, we have explained how you can do this conversion and two different ways to accomplish the task. Go through the article until the end and then, you can choose the method you like the most!

Need to Import Excel Contacts to LinkedIn

Here are the top 5 reasons to Import Contacts to LinkedIn from Excel:

• Network Expansion: Adding a bunch of valuable connections from your existing contacts quickly, can help the user to expand their network.
• Reach Target Audience: By adding up specific bunch of people or individuals from existing Excel list can help the users in reaching their target audience quickly.
• Engagement Boost: One of the benefits to import Excel contacts to LinkedIn is that the user is able to send invitations and connection requests which results in boosting their engagement.
• Security and Backup: By importing contacts from Excel to LinkedIn the user can create a copy of their network data and keep it safe.
• Easy Access: This enables users to manage their network at one location. Therefore, it becomes easy to access.

Let’s come to the main section of this blog, from hereon, we would be discussing the various ways in which you can import contacts to LinkedIn from Excel.

Manual Method to Import Excel Contacts to LinkedIn

This Manual way Import contacts to LinkedIn from Excel has been divided in 3 different phases:

• To Convert Excel Contacts to Standard Format
• To Import contacts from CSV file
• To Export contacts to vCard

Phase#1- To Convert Excel Contacts to Standard Format (VCF)

1. Open the XLS file in MS Excel.
2. Click on the office icon on the upper left corner and the go to “Save as” option.
3. Now, click on “other formats”.
4. Choose the location to save the “.CSV” format file.
5. Select CSV as your saving type and hit “Save”.
6. Now, Click “Open” and the “Yes” option.

Phase#2- To Import Contacts from CSV file

1. Click on the Windows icon and search “Contacts”.
2. In the Contacts page, click on the Import tab.
3. Select CSV and hit Import.
4. Now, click browse to locate the .CSV file you had prepared in the previous phase.
5. Click and select that .CSV file and hit Next.
6. After field mapping, click on the Finish button.

Phase#3- To Export Contacts to vCard

1. Back into the Contacts page, select all those contacts you want to convert to VCF format and then, click on the Export tab.
2. Select vCards in the folder of .VCF files.
3. In the end, select an Export option then, choose a place to save the .VCF files and hit OK.

Now, you’ve completed the task by converting the Excel contacts to the standard format. But, this process has some cons, which we are going to look at in the next section.

Limitations of Manual Method

These are some disadvantages of using the Manual Method to import contacts to LinkedIn from Excel:

• Tedious process: This process consists of too many steps therefore, it can be tiresome for the users.
• Non-efficient: This whole process is too lengthy and hectic and as a result it takes too much of the user’s time.

Expert’s Suggested Solution to Change the Excel Contacts to Standard Format

The RocoveryTools Excel to vCard Converter is an expert’s suggested tool which possesses the ability to make this cumbersome process a very easy one.

Attributes such as needing few steps, efficient working and having a very user friendly interface makes this tool superior to its competitors. Let’s discuss the process further ahead.

Steps to Export Excel Contacts and Import them to LinkedIn

1. Download and Launch the software.
   
2. Now, in the “Select your Excel file, you want to convert” browse the Excel file you want to convert.
   
3. In the “Select Destination” folder to save your Excel Contacts as the standard format (VCF) choose the destination where you want to save your file.
   
4. Setup your contacts field map from the “Contact Fields Mapping” section.
   
5. From the “Set vCard Encoding” option, select an encoding of your choosing.
6. Now, click on the “convert” button to begin the process.
   

You’ll have your file saved in VCF format, where it was chosen as the destination.

This automation tool can make the process to import excel contacts to LinkedIn very smooth and easy! We have discussed some advantages to using this way, in the upcoming section.

Benefits of Automated Solution

• Simple UI: Due to the user friendly interface, using this tool is hassle free and easily understandable.
• Short process: The process of converting Excel data to VCF through this tool requires very few steps, due to which using this software is not tiresome for the user.
• Field mapping option: This tool enables the user to match the Excel fields with corresponding VCF properties.
• Efficient processing: Due to the few steps the tool utilizes, the time taken in the whole process is also reduced. Therefore, making it very time efficient.

Now, you have been briefed about both the methods of changing the Excel contacts file to VCF i.e, Manual and Automated. You can effectively choose which one you want to go with.

In the upcoming section, we are going to look at the process to import contacts to Linkedin from Excel, which you are going to integrate with your preferred way of conversion.

VCF Format Contacts to LinkedIn

Now that you know how to convert the Excel contacts file to its standard file format, understand the process to import VCF format contact files to LinkedIn.

1.  Locate the “My Network” icon at the top end of your LinkedIn homepage.
2.  Now, go to “Contacts” located under “Manage my Network” on the left side of the display.
3.  Click on “Add More Contacts” on the right hand side of the screen.

Now, the user will be redirected to a page, where they would be able to choose the source from where they would like to import their contacts.

The process to Import Contacts to LinkedIn from Excel is now finished, and is ready to be accessed.

Also Read: Import Excel contacts to Android

Conclusion

Through this article you got to know how you can import excel contacts to LinkedIn. We discussed two methods of doing that but, if you need a second unbiased opinion, we would suggest you go with the Automated solution as it’s easy to use and makes the whole process seamless!