How to Track Conference Speakers and Prospects on Linkedin and X

Why the schedule isn't enough

A speaker page tells you a name, a title, and a talk. That's useful, but it's static. What you want is what the person said last Tuesday, because that's what they'll still be thinking about when you meet them by the coffee line.

People tend to get loud on social media around an event. Speakers post about their talk, share the slot, and ask who's coming. Afterwards they post the slides, thank the organizers, and reply to questions. Prospects who attend do a lighter version of the same thing. Every one of those posts is a reason to start a conversation that isn't "loved your talk."

The trouble is catching them. Following 40 people on Linkedin doesn't guarantee you'll see their posts, since the feed decides what you get. Linkedin also doesn't notify you when someone comments on another post, which is often where the useful stuff is. And a follow is visible, which feels a bit much for a buyer you haven't met yet.

Building the watchlist

The setup takes about half an hour, and most of it is deciding who belongs on the list.

1. Pick the people

Start from the public schedule and your pipeline. I'd split the list in two. The first group is speakers whose talks overlap with what you sell. The second is people at target accounts who you know or suspect are going, maybe because they said so in a post or your AE heard it on a call.

Keep it short. A list of 20 people you'll really reach out to beats 200 you'll skim.

2. Add their Linkedin and X profiles

In MultiFollow, each person becomes a tracker: a Linkedin profile URL, an X handle, or both. You can also add the Linkedin company page of the organizer or a sponsor if you want to know when they post the agenda changes. Company pages alert on posts only.

On Linkedin people, you choose whether to track posts, comments, likes, or all three. For a conference list I'd turn on posts and comments and leave likes off at first, because a busy speaker can like dozens of things a day. On X we track posts and replies, since likes there have been private since 2024. Nobody on the list is told they're being tracked, because we never follow or connect.

If your list lives in a spreadsheet or a Clay table already, the Business plan can load it in one go. The steps are in how to bulk-import a Linkedin and X watchlist from CSV.

3. Filter for the event

This is the step that makes the list worth reading. Each tracker can take include and exclude keywords that apply to posts and comments. For Web Summit, I'd put the event name, the city, and the topic of the person's talk in the include list. That way you hear about "Lisbon next week" and the slide deck, and you skip the post about their kid's football match.

Leave a few trackers unfiltered, though. For your top five prospects, anything they say is worth knowing. Our keyword filter guide covers the rules, including what happens when both lists are set.

4. Choose where alerts land

Alerts go to email on every plan. On Business and above you can also send them to a Slack channel or an API webhook. For an event, a single Slack channel shared by everyone who's going works well. Each person on the team sees the same feed, and you can claim a prospect in a thread before two reps pitch the same buyer at the same booth.

What to do with the alerts

Once the list is running, the alerts fall into three phases, and each one asks for something different.

In the two or three weeks before, you're looking for an opening. A speaker posts that she's still tweaking her talk on pricing for usage-based products. That's your note: a short reply with a real opinion, or a message asking if she'd grab ten minutes after her session. It's a lot warmer than "see you in Lisbon," and you didn't have to pretend you'd read her whole profile.

During the event, speed matters more than polish. We check every tracker every second, and alerts usually land within a couple of seconds, up to about a minute when things are congested. If a prospect posts "anyone want to grab coffee near Stage 4 at 3pm?", you want to see it at 2:58, not at dinner.

After the event is where most teams drop the ball. Speakers post their slides and a recap, and attendees share what they learned. A follow-up that picks up on the exact point someone made in their recap reads like a conversation. A generic "great to meet you" reads like a sequence. If you've piped alerts into Clay or your CRM, you can log the post against the contact and open a task for the rep who met them. The routing guide shows the setup for Slack, Clay, n8n, and Zapier.

Two weeks after the event, delete the trackers for people who went nowhere and keep the ones that turned into real conversations. A conference list shouldn't quietly turn into a permanent one.

What this won't catch

There's one gap worth knowing about before you start. A watchlist only covers people you already named. It won't tell you who else is going to Web Summit, because attendee lists aren't public and we only watch the accounts you add.

If you want to find the strangers posting "who's going to Web Summit?" or "looking for a CTO to meet in Lisbon," that's keyword listening across the whole platform. Our sibling product KWatch.io does that on Linkedin, X, Reddit, and other sites, and the two work well together: KWatch finds new names, and you add the good ones to MultiFollow.

It also won't flag a job change. If a speaker switched companies last month and didn't post about it, you'll still need Sales Navigator or the speaker page for that.

Which plan fits an event?

The size of your list decides most of it. Here are our plan limits as of October 2026, from the pricing page.

A solo founder with a handful of must-meet people fits on Essential with email alerts. A team going together with a shared Slack channel and a list of 20 or so Linkedin people needs Business. Plans are prorated, so you can upgrade for the month around the event and drop back afterwards.