The ModumUp agency helped Global CIO, a professional IT community, attract 50% of its members and launch two international competitions featuring industry leaders. Here’s a detailed look at the Social Selling strategies and tools used to achieve these results.

Global CIO, a professional IT community, has been uniting digital industry leaders since 2012. The platform provides its members with a rich knowledge base on technology, networking opportunities, and professional competitions. With over 10,000 members in Eastern European countries, Global CIO has established itself as a trusted name in the IT industry.

Two years ago, the community began its journey toward international expansion. To address this challenge, Ekaterina Lyasko, the founder of Global CIO, partnered with ModumUp.

LinkedIn was chosen as the primary platform for promotion due to its robust networking tools and precise targeting capabilities, which allowed outreach based on geography, profession, job title, and company. The focus regions included Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

With these clear goals in place, the work began.

The success of a Social Selling project relies not only on the organization but also on the individual representing it. High-ranking professionals with established credibility can build trust more effectively, particularly among top executives and industry leaders.

For Global CIO, LinkedIn promotion was conducted through its CEO, Ekaterina Lyasko. As a seasoned marketer with extensive experience as a marketing director and commercial director at IT companies, Ekaterina has been leading Global CIO since 2012. Over the years, she has cultivated a vast professional network spanning Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and other regions.

Ekaterina has been an active LinkedIn user for years. By the time she partnered with ModumUp, her profile already boasted nearly 2,500 connections. She regularly shares relevant content and highlights her most impactful posts in the “Featured” section, enhancing both visibility and engagement.

Our team focused on identifying representatives of the target audience, adding them to Ekaterina's network, and sending personalized invitations to join the private CIO community and its events.

We focused on audiences across Central Asia, MENA, Latin America, Africa, Turkey, India, Georgia, and several other regions. Our primary targets were C-level professionals, including CIOs and CTOs, from large companies with over 1,000 employees. We further segmented the audience by industry, focusing on retail, manufacturing, and banking.

To accomplish this, we leveraged LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator, a tool that provides advanced filters for precise targeting. By filtering by position, company size, and geography — even down to specific cities — we were able to customize our approach. For example, city-based filters proved invaluable for promoting offline events like a session in Tashkent.

We also used advanced filters to improve connection rates. The "Posted on LinkedIn" filter, which identifies users active within the past 30 days, enabled us to connect with an engaged audience more likely to accept connection requests, read messages, and respond. Additionally, we prioritized second-degree connections — those with mutual contacts — since these individuals were more likely to accept requests compared to third-degree connections with no shared network.

In just eight months, we added 2,979 highly relevant connections to the profile. Connection rates varied by region, with Central Asian countries achieving the highest acceptance rates. For instance, in Kazakhstan, 70% of connection requests were accepted within the first month—an exceptionally strong benchmark.

This success can be attributed to the region’s active IT community and our client’s existing network, which provided a solid foundation for outreach.

Surprisingly, African audiences demonstrated strong engagement, with average connection rates ranging from 38% to 40%. Despite often being overlooked, this region boasts a growing digital community and a wealth of skilled professionals, making it a promising market with relatively low competition.

By the end of the project, we had automated the connection-building process, empowering our client to continue growing their network independently.

Once a target audience member accepted a connection request, we implemented a direct lead generation strategy. The initial message introduced recipients to the Global CIO community, briefly highlighted its benefits, and included an invitation to register.

If recipients didn’t respond within 7–10 days, we sent a follow-up message offering a specific opportunity, such as joining an upcoming webinar or live-streamed event. Registrants were granted immediate access to valuable materials, including the article “PR for CIOs” and a leadership competency test.

Since this campaign involved cold outreach, individual responses weren’t essential to measure success. Instead, the primary metric was the number of registrations generated through the shared link.

By the end of our collaboration, ModumUp had facilitated approximately 50% of all registrations and successfully doubled the community’s membership.

One of the main objectives was recruiting participants for the Project of the Year competition, an annual event hosted by Global CIO for IT leaders. This competition provides CIOs with a platform to share their experiences and insights while receiving valuable feedback from community members. Instead of a traditional jury, winners are determined using a balanced methodology that incorporates community voting.

The target audience was highly specific: active IT leaders managing ongoing projects. The primary challenge was identifying and reaching out to the right candidates.

Leveraging LinkedIn tools, we identified 1,220 potential participants and sent personalized invitations from our client, Ekaterina Lyasko. The message highlighted the competition’s free entry and the opportunity for professional recognition.

The strategy was a success. Together, we attracted the desired number of participants, resulting in over 80 project submissions from 15 countries.

In addition to organizing large-scale competitions, Ekaterina and her team regularly host webinars and meetups to encourage engagement.

Based on our recommendation, these online events are conducted using LinkedIn Live. This platform allows the audience to stay within the familiar LinkedIn environment without needing to switch to external services. LinkedIn Live also automatically saves event recordings, enabling participants to revisit the content at their convenience. Additionally, its built-in analytics tools offer valuable insights into event performance and audience engagement.

With LinkedIn Live, up to 1,000 participants can be invited to each event at no cost. Ekaterina actively sends invitations to her LinkedIn contacts, which we support by expanding her network through targeted outreach. On average, 100–200 participants register for each event. The “Digital Transformation with AI” conference was especially successful, attracting 941 attendees due to the viral nature of the event announcement.

Offline meetings play a crucial role in community building and brand awareness. Recently, Global CIO hosted an in-person event in Tashkent, bringing together leading IT specialists from Uzbekistan. Through LinkedIn outreach, our agency contributed approximately 20 of the 67 total registrations.

The client’s role in the success of this project deserves recognition. Ekaterina and her team have been exceptionally proactive, consistently creating content, organizing events, and nurturing their professional network. However, even the strongest brand needs a continuous influx of new audiences to thrive.

Building meaningful connections with this audience is crucial—inviting them to events, sharing valuable insights, and engaging through comments and direct messages. LinkedIn’s tools, combined with the Social Selling approach, have proven highly effective in expanding and activating the community.