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Import the commenters of a LinkedIn post

Bring in the people who commented on a post: one post once, or keep watching a post, a competitor's profile or your own posts.

Choose the right option

Everything is under Lists → New Import.

  • One post, once: Import tab → Post Engagement
  • A competitor's last posts, once: Import tab → Competitor Engagement
  • One post, new commenters added over time: Recurring Imports tab → Auto Post Engagement
  • A competitor's last posts, on a schedule: Recurring Imports tab → Auto Competitor Engagement
  • Your own last posts, on a schedule: Recurring Imports tab → Auto Profile Engagement

Import the commenters of one post

  1. On LinkedIn, copy the link to the post.
  2. In Swimlane, open Lists and click New Import.
  3. In the Import tab, choose Post Engagement.
  4. Paste the link in LinkedIn post URL and click Start Import.
  5. Close the window. The new list appears on Lists with the status Scheduled, then Importing, then Done.

There is no review screen: everyone who commented goes into the list. Swimlane names the list itself from the author's first name and a few words summarising the post, for example "Commenters on Marie's post about sales automation". Each run creates a new list.

Import from a competitor's last posts

  1. Copy the competitor's LinkedIn profile URL (it contains linkedin.com/in/).
  2. Open Lists → New Import, tab Import, then Competitor Engagement.
  3. Paste it in Competitor's LinkedIn profile URL and click Start Import.

Swimlane reads their 5 most recent posts and imports the people who commented on them. The list is named "First name Last name's audience". Reading the competitor's profile uses one of your daily LinkedIn profile syncs.

Keep a list fed with new commenters

  1. Open Lists → New Import and the Recurring Imports tab.
  2. Choose Auto Post Engagement (paste a post URL), Auto Competitor Engagement (paste a profile URL) or Auto Profile Engagement (nothing to paste, it reads your own posts).
  3. Click Start Recurring Import.

Swimlane creates a dedicated list ("Post Engagement Import", "Competitor Engagement Import" or "Profile Engagement Import"). The first run starts as soon as your virtual office hours allow, then it runs again every 2 to 4 hours at a random interval, during office hours only. Profile-based imports look at the 5 most recent posts each time, so newly published posts are picked up. People already in the list are not added twice.

Auto Profile Engagement is the way to turn the people who comment on your own posts into a list, then into a campaign on that list.

Good to know

  • Only commenters are imported. People who only reacted are not.
  • Contacts already in your workspace are added to the list and keep their other lists.
  • New contacts count towards Daily imports. When the allowance is used up, the list shows Paused (limit) and the import tries again an hour later.
  • On profile-based imports, posts that can't be loaded (deleted, not visible to you) are skipped.
  • The connection degree isn't always known for commenters. A campaign's Connection Request step skips contacts whose degree is unknown, so select them in the list and use Enrich with LinkedIn before launching an invitation sequence.
  • To pause or stop a recurring import, see Pause, resume or delete a recurring import.

Troubleshooting

  • "LinkedIn session expired. Please reconnect your account." Reconnect LinkedIn (see Reconnect LinkedIn when the session expires). On Competitor Engagement, the same message also appears when the URL is not a profile link, so check it contains linkedin.com/in/.
  • "Failed to import contacts. Please try again." on Competitor Engagement: check the counter LinkedIn Profile Syncs on Lists. When it is full, wait for the reset.
  • The list is Done but empty. The post has no comments, or none that LinkedIn shows you.

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