How to get people to reply to your InMails and DMs on Linkedin

the following question. How do you get people to reply to your direct messages on LinkedIn? That's a pretty important thing to really think about because LinkedIn is the world's most professional social network. There's 1.2 billion people on LinkedIn. So how do you get people to reply to your DMs? The answer is 3 words. Greeting, Write this down. Greeting, feeding, and meeting. That's how you do it. Greeting, feeding, and meeting. Most people, they don't bother nurturing. They don't bother taking the time to do things correctly. And with Evie AI, we help people learn the proper path to doing things correctly. And if you do it correctly with the right strategy, it's going to completely change the game for you. Why? Because greeting, feeding, and meeting is a path to nurturing. And when you nurture someone, they actually want to reply. And that's the real deal. People want to feel a certain way. How do people want to feel?

Loved.

How do you think people want to feel? They want to feel understood. They want to feel like you really care about them. They want to feel like, like they matter. You know what I mean? People really want to feel like they matter. And if you want to share your message, if you want people to know how much you know, you first have to make people understand. How much you care? Let's listen to some music together. I'm going to put on my headphones here, and you could listen in as well.

Yeah.

Yo, here we go.

Here we go.

Here we go. Here we go.

Um.

I'm going to take a moment right here and open up Evie AI right on the side here. And this AI will help me be able to strategically leave comments. So check this out. I'm going to go here into the comment box and I'm going to put a keyboard shortcut which allows me to automatically write a post. So I'm going to go here, put in this thing, and I just left him a thoughtful comment. I'm the only one that commented on his post in the past 38 minutes. Now I'm going to message him and I'm going to ask him a simple question. And the question is going to be, do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Okay. So I just sent him this quick little message and will he respond to this message? Now, what do you guys think? Do you think that he will respond or do you think he will not respond to this message? I think he will respond. Message. Let's analyze it for a second.

Start with a greeting, warm as the sun. Yeah, not too hot, don't make them run. Hope your day's fine, not lit with stress. Now the vibe set, time to impress. Feed them a thought, a line, a gem. Make them think I gotta reply to them. Greeting, feeding, meeting the vibe. A message so smooth, they gotta subscribe. DMs a dance, two-step in the night. Say the right words, the convo ignite. Feed in the convo, serve up a plate. Questions so tasty, they clean off the slate. What's your Dream City, what's your best day? Got him typing fast, no delay, no copy paste, no template tricks. Authentic, raw, not pre-made scripts. Throw in the meme, a GIF that pops. Now the inbox love just never stops. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sliding in smooth, no ice on my skates. Crafting a message that seals our fate. Hey, How you doing? Ain't cutting it right. Need a hook like a fisherman reeling all night. Start with a greeting, warm as the sun. Not too hot, don't make 'em run. Hope your day's fine, not lit with stress. Not a vibe set, time to impress. Feed 'em a thought, a line, a gem. Make 'em think, I gotta reply to them. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Greeting, feeding, meeting the vibe. A message so smooth, they gotta subscribe. DMs a dance, two-stepping the night. Say the right words, the convo ignites. Feeding the convo, serve up a plate. Questions so tasty, they clean off the slate. What's your dream city? What's your best day? Got them typing fast, no delay. No copy paste, no template tricks. Authentic raw, not pre-made scripts. Throw in a meme, a GIF that pops. Now the inbox love just never stops.

So I want you to think about that for just a moment. The relationship that you build with someone, the information that you Save about them. You see that? I'm saving information about each person and building relationships with them and getting to know them and connecting. You see? Saving their birthday, making sure that you understand. These little things really, really matter. And when you start building meaningful relationships with people and really getting to know them and connecting with them in a meaningful way, they're much more likely to want to respond to you and connect with you and— And that's, that's the idea. So like on Thanksgiving, the most important thing that you can do between now and Thanksgiving is start sharing some gratitude. And you see, I have a whole gratitude guide here on how to be able to send gratitude, how to share thanks that really matter. And I say, listen up, LinkedIn family, the LinkedIn daddy is here. And I'm about to drop the most comprehensive guide you'll ever need. Now check this out. If you click on the immersive reader within LinkedIn, you can actually hit play here.

Listen up, LinkedIn family. The LinkedIn Daddy here, and I'm about to drop the most comprehensive guide you'll ever need for sharing genuine, meaningful gratitude. Gratitude this Thanksgiving season. After building relationships with thousands of entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants across 40+ countries, I've learned one fundamental truth. Gratitude isn't just a nice sentiment. It's the currency of authentic networking. And Thanksgiving? That's your annual permission slip to go all in on appreciation without anyone thinking you want something from them. But here's the problem: most people send generic Happy Thanksgiving messages that get lost in the noise. They copy-paste the same template to 100 people, wondering why nobody responds. That's not high-energy networking— that's low-energy spam. Today, I'm giving you the complete playbook for sharing gratitude across every platform. With templates, scripts, and strategies that actually work. This isn't theory— this is what I do every single year to strengthen relationships that turn into partnerships, clients, and lifelong friendships. Let's get into it! Article content. So grateful for everyone in my life. Why gratitude is your secret weapon in business. Before we dive into the how, let's talk about the why. In my book High Energy Networking, I talk about the relationship-first approach to business. Gratitude is the foundation of that approach. When you genuinely appreciate someone, you're not just making them feel good; you're activating the law of reciprocity, building trust, and positioning yourself as someone who values relationships over transactions. As a former rabbi turned entrepreneur, I've seen both the spiritual and practical power of gratitude. It changes you as much as it impacts the recipient. When you focus on what you're grateful for, you shift your entire energy and attract more opportunities. Here's what I want you to remember: The best time to reach out to someone isn't when you need something. It's when you have nothing to ask for and everything to give. Thanksgiving is that time. What are you most grateful for right now? Think of that too. Article content. Prayer hands. Grateful. The five-channel gratitude strategy. I'm going to break this down by platform because each one serves a different purpose in your networking ecosystem. You don't need to use all of them, but understanding each one helps you choose the right tool for the right relationship. 1. Email: The Professional Gratitude Power Move. Email is still king for professional gratitude. It's personal, it's permanent, and it shows you took time to write something meaningful. By the way, when was the last time you sent an email thanking someone? When to use email: long-term clients and business partners, people you've worked with professionally, anyone you want to have a written record of your appreciation, when you want to be more formal and thoughtful. The Joe Apfelbaum email template number 1, the specific appreciation. Subject, grateful for you this Thanksgiving, name. Hi, name. Happy Thanksgiving. I'm taking a moment today to reach out to the people who've made a real impact on my journey, and you're absolutely on that list. Insert specific thing they did or specific quality, quality you appreciate.

So as you can see, I'm not even reading it myself. I'm having the AI read it with the LinkedIn Built-in LinkedIn reader. Isn't that cool? So you can go on LinkedIn Live like I'm going right now, and you can have the AI read for you so you don't have to read it yourself. Or you can have AI play some music. Here, listen to this song.

Grateful like the algorithm blessed my feed. Turn connections to currency, planted the seed. Millions in the bank, call me LinkedIn czar. Got folks swiping right, nah, it's biz, not a bar. DM templates drippin', gems in my hand. Value's the product, I'm the supply and demand. I'm the LinkedIn daddy, got the world in my chat. 44 templates where your prospects at. Givin's my hustle, gratitude's my flair. I build networks, now they build me a lair. LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy. Content so rich it's a Forbes list snack. DM game slicker than a wolf in a pack. Joe, you're the GOAT, yeah, I'm hearing it plenty. Built bridges so wide they charge me a toll fee. I give and I get, that's the secret sauce. Turn my posts into gold, now they call me the boss. I'm writing these gems, you sliding in DMs. Every line a chess Smooth strategy stems. People call me a giver, I just call it my norm. Transforming cold leads into warm reform. I'm the LinkedIn Daddy, got the world in my chat. 44 templates where your prospects at. Giving's my hustle, gratitude's my flair. I build networks, now they build me a lair. LinkedIn Daddy, hey, hey, LinkedIn Daddy. Grateful every morning when I open the app. Turn gratitude into millions, that's the map. No cap, no gimmicks, just value I bring.

LinkedIn Daddy, hit Okay, so now what I'm gonna do is I am going to take a moment and write a LinkedIn article, and I want to teach you how I write this LinkedIn article. Okay, so this is how I'm gonna do it. Step number one, I'm going to accept Nancy's invitation here. Step number one is I'm going to go to the homepage of LinkedIn. That's step number one. Step number two is I'm going to click on start a post. And then, um, to write an article, actually, I'm not going to click start a post. I'm going to go back to the homepage of LinkedIn and I'm going to click on write an article. It's an option over here. This takes me to linkedin.com/article/new. Okay. That's the URL to write an article. Now I can choose what type of LinkedIn newsletter I want to write. I can write the LinkedIn Advanced Tips newsletter, the AI Automation by Joe Apfelbaum newsletter, or the Frustration to Motivation newsletter. So I'm going to choose the Advanced LinkedIn Tips and Tricks newsletter. And then I'm going to call this 44 Templates, Greeting Templates to Stay Top. Okay. All right, so these are 44 greeting LinkedIn DM templates to stay top of mind on LinkedIn for Thanksgiving. Now I'm going to open up Canva. I love Canva. And I'm going to design a new design, which is going to be a presentation type of design, and I can pick any of these types of presentation. I'm going to go in here and click Generate Design. I'm going to press Generate Design, and let's see what it does. I just put the title of the thing and I hit Generate Design, and let's see what it generates. I haven't seen the Generate Design for presentations yet within Canva. But it's interesting that you can actually generate a design here. Now what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to pick the Evie AI. Let's see, every checklist, testimonial, workshop. I'm going to go to my downloads. Evie AI. Let's see what we have here. This is documents. Every AI posting party image table bookmarks logo. Okay, here we go. Um, I don't know why it's not letting me design. 44 greeting DM templates to stay top of mind on LinkedIn. Uh, all right, let's just see what happens. I'm gonna hit generate design and let's see if it generates a design based on this information I put in here. Let's play another song. I'm gonna make another. I'm so grateful for LinkedIn. Okay, that's pretty good. Oh, it wrote the whole thing. Wow. Apply all 9 pages. Oh, it made a whole presentation. That's not what I wanted. But oh my God, look at all these, look at all this. That's crazy. Oh wow, it made a whole presentation for me. Okay, that's nice. It's nice that it made a whole presentation, but that's not really what I wanted. I'm gonna hit create new design. And I want to create an article cover image. All right, let's see what that looks like. And I am going to do the same thing. I'm going to paste in this, hit go, and let's just see what it does. Did I tell it to create something for me? Oh, too much text. Okay. Did it? It says search results. Oh, okay. So it's not actually creating anything. This is just searching. Describe your design. Press go. And then it just gives me a bunch of stuff here. This is not even the right size. Let me resize this and let's do it custom size and let's do it 1080, 1080 by 1920. Resize this design. Actually, we'll do the opposite. We'll do 1920 by 1080. Resize this design. Okay, so this is the design I want. Perfect. I'm gonna click uploads here, grab this logo, put it here, grab this, put it here. Nice. All right, so now I have this thing. I'm gonna paste in the text. I'm gonna make the text much bigger, make it 100. 200 is too big. I'm gonna make it 44. Here we go. 44 LinkedIn DM templates to stay top of mind on LinkedIn for Thanksgiving. I'm gonna change the font, make it Poppins. Okay, good. I'm gonna change the background color. I'm gonna make it a different color. Let's Let's see. Maybe gold? No, I don't like gold. Maybe purple? No. Maybe like a light pink? Hmm, too pinky. Oh, a color from this. That's cool. All right, that's cool. That works. All right, so we got that going. Now I'm going to hit share, download, download. So now I got this image going, has my logo, it has my text. I'm going to close Canva. I don't need Canva open anymore. Then I'm going to take the image I downloaded from Canva and I'm going to drag it into here and I'm going to press next. Okay, so now I have the image of the article and the actual article. Now I need to write the content of the article. So what am I going to write inside the content of the article? Well, I'm going to put my 44 templates. You ready for this?

Grateful energy. Linga Daddy in the building. Every day on the day. Yeah. Like, used to refresh that feed, no sleep. Now my inbox drip nosebleed. They say, Joe, you get so much value. I shrug, stack grace, let gratitude guide you. Million on the board, a profile polished. Little blue button, turn brain to a wallet. Connection request, turn rooms to a runway. One good DM, turn Monday to a fun day. I love giving, hearts stay paid. Broke that mo hole, ain't upgrade. Joe, you won't go yet. Blessings. In bundles, every little tip turn a bag out the humble. I'm the LinkedIn daddy, daddy. Grateful turn me to a magnet, automatic. Made millions off a message as a habit. All gas in my lane, no traffic. I'm the LinkedIn daddy, daddy. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, that's the pattern. 44 DMs in the cannon, aim steady. Got a VA with me, we ready. Cursor on fire, I'm typing up templates. 44 DM flows, all made for the big break. One for the cold lead, one for the warm chat, one for the client who's Scared of the contract, concrete copy, no fluff, no filler. Every single line turned shy to a killer. Went from who dis to Joe, can you mentor? Voice in a DM turned hall to a center. I'm so grateful for LinkedIn, that's facts. Whole free platform turned keys to the racks. I pour game out, cups still never empty. Get so much value, the value reinvent me. I'm the LinkedIn daddy, daddy. Grateful turned me to a man.

Woo!

Yeah, LinkedIn daddy stacking up racks, call it profession-ess. 44 DMs in the chamber, templates that impress. People hit me, Joe, you the plug, giving more than less. Grateful heart, pockets heavy, but I still bless. DM smooth, sliding like butter on toast. Every post a flex, got the networking growth. LinkedIn daddy, value-packed and savvy. Millions in the bank, no need for a caddy. Grateful for the hustle, yeah, I love this badly. Writing 44 DMs, making inboxes happy. Heavy A in my corner, my copilot, my muse. Social media chess, no moves to lose. Algorithms bow down, I've cracked the code. From grateful giving, my influence explodes.

Grateful vibes.

Yo.

Got the algorithm going. Got the algorithm, algorithm going.

Um. I build networks, now they build me a lair. LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy, LinkedIn Daddy. Content so rich it's a Forbes list snack. DM game slicker than a wolf in a pack. Joe, you're the GOAT. Yeah, I'm hearing it plenty. Built bridges so wide they charge me a toll fee. I give and I get, that's the secret. Secret sauce, turn my posts into gold. Now they call me the boss. I'm writing these gems, you sliding in DMs. Every line a chess move, strategy stems. People call me a giver, I just call it my norm. Transforming cold leads into warm reform. I'm the LinkedIn daddy, got the world in my chat. 44 templates where your prospects at. Giving's my hustle, gratitude's my flair. I build networks, now they build me a lair.

LinkedIn daddy.

Hey, hey, LinkedIn daddy. Grateful every morning when I open the app.

So think about this for just a second. I have 44 different reasons to reach out to different people this week. And by the way, this could last for the whole year because you can keep being grateful for people. You can just take out the word Happy Thanksgiving and you could just say, I'm just grateful we connected this year. Wishing you a wonderful holiday. I mean, you could use this for, for the whole year. So, but check this out. I have one for like general connections that you connected with this year, people that connected, people that engage with your content. So for example, if I go to my engagement, my engaged users over here, I could find all the people that engage with me like Darren Cherry. I could pull up his profile and I could send him a thank you message, or I could find Rick, for example. Rick engages with me all the time. Let's see where Rick is here. I thought I saw him here. Here he is. This is Rick's profile, and I want to send him a message like, for example, Happy Thanksgiving. I wanted to take a moment to wish you— thank you for engaging with my content. And look, he replied right away. You see, within an hour, within 59 minutes, he replied nicely. So that's, that's a very powerful thing to do, to engage with people in such a meaningful, powerful way. I highly recommend that you grab these templates. In-person meetings, special VIP connections, selfie buddies, people that you took photos with, introduction makers, podcast hosts, people that you've been connected with for 10+ years. Think about that for a moment. People that you've connected with for 10+ years. Happy Thanksgiving. Can't believe we've been connected for over 10 years.

Wow.

Community and groups. Let's say I'm part of EO. I can message all my EO members. EANYC, school communities, active community posters, people that are posting in our community, people that are friends with me on Facebook, people that are going to the marketers cruise, people that are in the JV circle, the Speakeasy Mastermind. I think it's Speakeasy like that. Um, multiple community connections, community leaders, new community members, Ajax Union clients, business development, AI Business Development Circle clients. I'm going over here, www.evergreen.com/aicircle. Oh, Sora 2 boot camp. Let's just see if this works. I think it's Sora 2, not Sora 3. Yeah, let me change this. Webinar attendees. Class registrants. By the way, if you missed the webinar yesterday, we have the replay over here at vai.com/webinar-replay. Newsletter subscribers. You can see people who reached out for help, text message connections. Recommendation leavers, people who left me recommendations. So I'll show you how I do this right now. I copy this. I go to my profile. By the way, if you guys are getting value, let me know you're getting value.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ling and Daddy on the algorithms there. Turn the profile pic into a billionaire's lair. DMs slicker than oil spills, they slide. 44 templates, watch the hustle collide. Grateful, yeah, I'm counting every blessing. Value's my currency, keep the legs compressing. They say, Joe, you're the king on the feed. I just laugh, get more, plant the seed. LinkedIn daddy call me the connect king. The finesse make the inbox sing. Millions on the board, gratitude's my ring. Giving's the Flex is a lifelong thing. Heavy A got me sharper than a scalpel. Yeah, assistant on the grind, never running out of sample. Post game lethal. Yeah, captions on fire. Yeah, and drip heavy, never tired, just inspired. I'm out here with a purpose. It's a marathon, not a sprint. My template so clean, every money like mint. Grateful for the hustle, grateful for the climb. I'm LinkedIn Daddy, turning error to a dime.

Here's another one for people who wished me happy birthday, you know, because you get hundreds of people to wish you happy birthday, so you can go back to all the people that wish you happy birthday. So I can go like this. I can go to linkedin.com/messaging. And then you can search for the word birthday. So I'm going to go here. And I can search for birthday in here. I can find all the people that wish me happy birthday. You see that? Who is this person? Oh, she's in United Kingdom, and that is powerful. What does Shalom say? Oh, Shalom sent me a message all the way from Israel. Thanks for the connection. Okay, I just accepted the connection with Shalom. Let's see what he's up to. Oh, he posted six days ago. Looks like he's part of this company over here, Corporate Wellness Consultant, Tel Aviv Skills Recommendations. Last time was May. He speaks Hebrew. אתה מדבר יורית? מה אתה חושב?

He say, "Emmy, wait." Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yo, yo, yo, yo. LinkedIn daddy, I'm the algorithm's heir. Turn the profile pic into a billionaire's lair. DMs slicker than oil spills, they slide. 44 templates, watch the hustle collide. Grateful, yeah, I'm counting every blessing. Value's my currency. Keep the lessons compressing. They say, Joe, you're the king of the feed. I just laugh, give more, plant the seed. LinkedIn daddy, call me the connect king. DM finesse, make the inbox sing. Millions on the board, gratitude's my ring. Giving's the flex, it's a lifelong thing. Every day got me sharper than a scalpel. Assisting on the grind, never running out of samples.

So this is an example of me messaging somebody that's following my company. You see that he's following my company. He's a second-degree connection. And I'm sending him a DM and I'm saying, uh, LinkedIn suggested I reach out to you. And honestly, I'm not sure why, but I trust the algorithm. Whatever the connection, I'm grateful for. Wishing you an amazing holiday. Happy Thanksgiving. Imagine you sent that out to 800 people. And by the way, you can send this for free because with the open profile feature inside Sales Navigator, you can send hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages every month and it doesn't cost you credits, which is insane. Um, but I know strategically why I'm reaching out to him, you know, that's powerful. Okay, so let's see what else is here. Second-degree connection CEOs, like local connections, high-value connections in your city, Instagram friends, office and home travel meetups. And here are the final words. Here's what gets people get wrong about Thanksgiving. And I wanna help you manage that scale, literally why I'm building Evvy AI. Can't possibly personalize 1,000 DMs without some intelligent automation. So if you save it as a template inside Evvy AI, it'll change your life forever. So I wrote, if you want more strategies, subscribe to the newsletter, download the 99 LinkedIn Hacks. Www.99hacks.club. Join the school community, 1,500 people. www.school.com/eviai. Okay, Happy Thanksgiving. Um, Text me. You ready to go, Homs? WhatsApp me. Okay, so that's all right. Here we go. If you miss these templates, get responses, screenshot them, tag me on LinkedIn. Loved seeing networking in action. Okay, good. And I'm going to add another photo at the very end here. I'm going to copy the photo of me being a giant. That's a good one. Okay, great. Now I'm going to go ahead and post this on LinkedIn. So how do I post this on LinkedIn? I press next. And I'm gonna write a post here with Evie AI. I'm gonna click over here, and I'm gonna say I just created 44 LinkedIn DM templates, so you don't have to stare at a blank screen. Most people da da da. Okay, so I'm going to put this in here. Okay, so I'm going to press publish now and boom, there you go. Enjoy. Now they're live. So go ahead and check out the post. It's right here live. Now I'm going to promote this post and send it to people. Unbelievable, right?