# How to use the news expansion signal

Last updated 30 October 2026

You can use the LinkedIn news expansion signal to start outreach with HeyLead. This page explains what the signal means, how it is detected, and what to write.

## What the news expansion signal is

The news expansion signal means news reported the company expanding to a new market or office. You can use this signal to start a conversation.

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.

The signal is attached to a company. HeyLead attaches it to campaign contacts at that company.

## How HeyLead detects the signal

HeyLead searches the web for news about the companies in your campaigns. The source is news about a company, found on the web.

HeyLead watches 40+ signal types, scored, matched to your ICP and expiring. The news expansion signal has a weight of 0.25 in the score. Scores run from -0.30 to 0.90. A negative score lowers priority.

The signal expires after 14 days. A strong signal starts outreach and the opener says why now.

## What to write in your message

Mention the news plainly and ask 1 question about what it changes for them. Never mention layoffs to the person. That signal only lowers priority. The news expansion signal raises priority but does not write the invite note.

Before an invitation, HeyLead warms up. It does a profile view, a follow, and a comment on a recent post. 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.

Replies are read, classified and answered from the campaign's facts. Anything ambiguous is held for you. A not-now gets a check-in in 30 days.

Opening messages, follow-ups and answers to replies wait for your approval until you switch to autopilot. Invitations, not-now check-ins and meeting nudges are not held.

## The brief to type into HeyLead

You type a 1-sentence brief in Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or the HeyLead dashboard. HeyLead drafts the campaign. You review it and press Launch. Nothing is sent before. 1 sentence creates a draft campaign.

It 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. Custom apps depend on your ChatGPT plan and settings. It was tested on ChatGPT Pro.

There are 6 campaign goals. You can sell a product or service, find a job, hire people, find partners or investors, find a vendor, or research interviews. Hire people, find partners or investors and research interviews work with a custom brief.

```
Find contacts at companies with a recent news expansion signal and ask how the new market changes their priorities.
```

## Limits and details

Free costs $0 for 1 connected account with 2 follow-ups. Pro costs $29 a month per connected account. It runs from the cloud with your laptop closed.

The client's source is on GitHub under MIT. The hosted backend is not.

HubSpot is the CRM it syncs with. Google Calendar is the calendar it books into. It reads your own LinkedIn posts to learn your voice and never posts unless you ask for a post.

## Questions people ask

### How long does the news expansion signal last?

The signal expires after 14 days.

### Does the news expansion signal write the invite note?

No. It raises priority but does not write the note.

### What is the weight of the news expansion signal?

The news expansion signal has a weight of 0.25 in the score. Scores run from -0.30 to 0.90.

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: https://heylead.dev/terms

Related: [How to use the funding event signal for a job search](https://heylead.dev/signals/funding-event-for-a-job-search), [How to use the executive hire in the news signal](https://heylead.dev/signals/news-exec-hire), [How to use the news funding signal](https://heylead.dev/signals/news-funding), [How to hire from the industry thread participant signal](https://heylead.dev/signals/industry-thread-participant-for-hiring), [LinkedIn signals](https://heylead.dev/signals), [How to use the news expansion signal for partnerships](https://heylead.dev/signals/news-expansion-for-partnerships), [How to use the news acquisition signal](https://heylead.dev/signals/news-acquisition), [How to handle the news layoffs signal](https://heylead.dev/signals/news-layoffs)