How to use the LinkedIn keyword mention signal for research interviews
Last updated 14 November 2026
When you need participants for research interviews, the LinkedIn keyword mention signal helps you find people who write about your topic, and HeyLead reaches out to them for you.
What the keyword mention signal means
People who write about the topic you study have views worth hearing. When someone mentions a specific keyword in a post or comment, they leave a keyword mention signal. This shows they think about the subject and might be open to a research interview, survey, or test.
HeyLead is an AI agent for LinkedIn outreach: it finds the right people, writes to them in the voice of your own LinkedIn posts, follows up, and handles replies. It runs from Claude Code, Cursor, any MCP client or a web dashboard. It reads your own LinkedIn posts to learn your voice and never posts unless you ask for a post.
Why this signal matters for research
Finding the right people to interview takes time. A keyword mention tells you exactly what a person cares about right now. HeyLead watches 40+ signal types, scored, matched to your ICP and expiring. A strong signal starts outreach and the opener says why now.
You can ask one question about what they wrote to start a conversation. The fit question HeyLead asks is whether this audience is who you need to hear from. Your message is for the participant.
What to write to participants
When you reach out, keep the message short and focused on their keyword mention. State clearly what you ask of the person. Before an invitation, HeyLead warms up: a profile view, a follow, a comment on a recent post.
Then it sends an invitation with a note, an opening message, up to 2 follow-ups on Free and 5 on Pro, InMail and email fallback.
- Ask one question about what they wrote.
- Say what you ask of the person.
- Let the opener say why you are reaching out now.
The brief to type into HeyLead
HeyLead has six campaign goals: sell a product or service, find a job, hire people, find partners or investors, find a vendor, research interviews. Hire people, find partners or investors and research interviews work with a custom brief.
Campaigns with the research interviews goal work with a custom brief. You type a one-sentence brief in Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or the HeyLead dashboard. One sentence creates a draft campaign. Nothing is sent until you press Launch.
HeyLead works in Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop and claude.ai, any MCP client and a web dashboard. It works in ChatGPT as a custom MCP app.
- Open your client.
- Type your brief.
- Review the draft campaign.
- Press Launch.
Create a campaign for research interviews to reach people who mention remote work, asking them for a short chat about their recent post.How HeyLead handles replies and limits
Replies are read, classified and answered from the campaign's facts. A reply that could mean two things gets one short question back. A question your facts can't answer is held for you. "Not now" gets a check-in in 30 days.
Opening messages, follow-ups and answers to replies go out without review unless you switch review on; then they wait for your approval. Invitations are not held. In review mode, invitations go out without a note. It runs from the cloud with your laptop closed.
Pricing and CRM sync
Free costs $0 and includes one connected account, cloud sending, and up to 2 follow-ups per person, until your 2nd hot lead. A hot lead is a person whose reply HeyLead reads as interested. From then HeyLead keeps working the conversations already open and reaches new people on Pro.
Pro costs $29 a month per connected account. HubSpot is the CRM it syncs with. Google Calendar is the calendar it books into. The client's source is on GitHub under MIT. The hosted backend is not.
Questions people ask
How much does HeyLead cost?
Free is $0 for one connected account until your 2nd hot lead. Pro costs $29 a month per connected account.
Does HeyLead post on my profile?
It reads your own LinkedIn posts to learn your voice and never posts unless you ask for a post.
What happens if someone says not now?
"Not now" gets a check-in in 30 days.
Can I review messages before they go out?
Opening messages, follow-ups and answers to replies go out without review unless you switch review on; then they wait for your approval. Invitations are not held.
HeyLead sends from your own LinkedIn account at a human pace: at most 20 invitations a day and 100 a week on a free LinkedIn account (more on Premium or Sales Navigator: a newly connected paid account starts at 20 a day and doubles each week up to its limit), Monday to Friday 08:00 to 22:00 in your time zone, minutes apart. It backs off when LinkedIn pushes back and resumes on its own. You can pause any campaign at any time.
HeyLead is not affiliated with LinkedIn. It reaches LinkedIn through Unipile, which is also not affiliated. LinkedIn's own rules are in the Terms.
Set up HeyLead using https://heylead.dev/llms.txt