Flow #1: from a post's commenters to a first conversation

Somebody who comments on a post about your problem space has just told you three things: they care about the topic, they are active on LinkedIn this week, and they have an opinion. As starting points go, LinkedIn post commenters beat any job title.

This flow takes the commenters of one post — yours, a peer’s, a competitor’s — and walks them from stranger to first reply, without you copying a single name into a spreadsheet.

1. Import Auto Post Engagement on the post URL: new commenters land in one list, checked again every 2–4 hours
2. Tag Add tag "commented-pricing" so the origin stays on the record
3. Connection request After a 1-day delay, a request with a one-line note that names the post · wait for acceptance: 7 days
4. Condition The request's own acceptance wait: accepted within 7 days?
5. Yes Message Accepted: 2 days later, one question about the post they commented on — no pitch
6. No Like their last post Not accepted: 10 days later, like their last post
7. No Tag Then add tag "retry-next-month"

Why it works

The request references something the person actually did, so it reads as a reaction rather than a sequence, and a note like that tends to be accepted more often than a blank one. The first message inherits the context: you are continuing a public conversation in private, not opening a cold one.

The “not accepted” branch is deliberately quiet. Someone who ignored a request does not need a second one a week later. A like on their last post keeps your name in front of them, and the tag lets you find them again next month with a different angle.

Setting up the post commenters flow

1. The import. In Lists, click New Import, open Recurring Imports, choose Auto Post Engagement and paste the post URL. Swimlane creates a list (rename it) and reads the post again every 2 to 4 hours, adding new commenters without duplicates. Pause it once the post goes quiet. The one-off Post Engagement import creates a new, AI-named list on every run, so a second run never reaches your campaign. Both are among Swimlane’s LinkedIn prospecting imports.
2. The source. In the campaign’s Audience step, pick that list. Enrollment is continuous: every commenter the import adds enters the flow on its own, without a relaunch.
3. The request. In the LinkedIn automation campaign builder, an Add tag step, then a Connection Request with a 1-day delay and Wait for acceptance set to 7 days. The request branches by itself into Accepted and Not accepted: no separate condition to add.
4. The branches. Accepted: Send Message with a 2-day delay. Not accepted: Like last post with a 10-day delay, then Add tag.

The note and the message

Everyone on the list commented on the same post, so the post is the one detail you can name for all of them; anything more personal is a guess sent to eighty people. Keep the note well under LinkedIn’s 200-character limit for free accounts, and the message under three lines.

Note:
Hi {firstName}, saw your comment under Marc's post on usage-based pricing.
Same debate on our side, happy to connect.

Message:
Thanks for connecting, {firstName}. Since you weighed in on Marc's post: did
your team end up moving to usage-based pricing, or is it still a debate inside?

No link, no calendar, no “quick call”. The reply is the goal of this flow. The pitch comes three messages later, in the inbox, typed by you.

Guardrails

• Ceilings. Requests count against your daily invitation ceiling, 20 by default, and leave a few seconds to ten minutes apart at random. Eighty commenters take four days, not a morning. That is the point.
• Office hours. Once you set virtual office hours, every step waits for them. Nothing leaves at 2am your time.
• People you would rather not invite. The 1-day delay before the request is your window. Archive competitors and anyone else you want to skip: an archived contact is paused in every campaign.
• Existing connections. Swimlane never invites someone who is already a first-degree connection, or whose connection degree it could not read. The request step drops them from the flow, and they get no message. Write to those by hand.
• Replies. Nothing stops the flow when someone writes to you. If a commenter accepts and messages you first, the Accepted message still goes. To prevent that, put a Replied to message condition, carrying the 2-day delay, in front of the message, and send only on No.

What to measure

The campaign shows connection requests, connections accepted and reply rate. Compare the acceptance rate with your usual blank requests: if naming the post does not clearly beat them, the note is too generic. If replies lag, the question is too big, so ask a smaller one. And when commenters accept and then go quiet, the accepted-but-silent follow-up picks up where this flow stops.