Originally published on Sept. 6th, 2017
In the last year or so LinkedIn has made great strides to help in establishing themselves as the B2B Social Media platform for professionals. There is so much you can utilize LinkedIn for; one specific thing is the ability to generate leads. Yes, you read that right, you can generate leads and fill your pipeline with LinkedIn. But exactly how do you generate quality leads?
If you are looking for ways to turn prospects into leads, then just having a LinkedIn account is not enough. Generating leads through LinkedIn requires a lot more than you would think. You need to be representing yourself well, knowing where to find potential customers, and creating meaningful connections and conversations. It’s a marketing endeavor that takes time and dedication. Even if you only have 30 minutes a day, the end results make it highly worthwhile!
With more than 530 million members in 200 different countries, it’s no wonder that LinkedIn is 277% more effective than Facebook and Twitter for lead generation, and the conversion rate is equally powerful. If you want to start seeing results or need a better process, these unbeatable tips below will help set you out on the right path to generating the quality leads for your business.
Ask yourself these questions and then use the five tips below to help turn your LinkedIn profile into a lead-generating machine.
Question: Are You Connecting With the Right People?
Tip One: Use LinkedIn Tools to Find Your Prospects
You can spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and still not make valuable connections. It’s important for you to know your audience — and how to find them. LinkedIn has many tools to help you with this. Use features like search, groups, keywords, connections, “How You’re Connected,” and “Who’s viewed your profile” to help identify ideal prospects. Searching effectively is paramount to success.
Another great tool, if you are willing to invest to find the right people is Sales Navigator, a native tool to LinkedIn that lets you search it’s platform through multiple targeted points, like geography, job title, industries, and many more. While this does come with a cost, it can be an effective tool, for your company and sales team.
Question: Have you optimized your profile?
Tip Two: Address Prospect Pain Points
While searching for the right people is a key part of generating leads through LinkedIn, optimizing your profile is just as important. Why? Well, this helps you create a professional presence by making yourself searchable and credible, An optimized profile is more enticing to those leads that will be looking at your profile to see if it makes sense to connect. Make sure your profile is complete and polished and, most important, that it paints a clear and concise picture of what pain points your company.
This is critical because your audience will be more likely to accept a connection request, or even request to connect with you, if they see the value in what you do, instead of the details around the “tasks and responsibilities” you do on a daily basis.
Question: Are you engaging where your target connections are?
Tip Three: Stay Active in LinkedIn Groups
Engagement is one of the bigger initiatives that LinkedIn continues to expand upon, as it grows its platform. There are many ways you can engage with your target audience, but one of the better tips is to join groups with those who share similar interests or might find value in what you’re offering. If you feel like you’ve exhausted the search for the best-fitting groups and aren’t getting anywhere, create your own. Regardless of whether you join groups, create your own, or both, you must be active to see results. Even just spending five minutes a day on searching, joining, and interacting with your relevant groups can help you build relationships.
Another great tip is to scroll through your feed and comment on different posts and articles that your audience is already sharing! It is also a good idea to actually read what they post, but by sharing your thoughts on it, it helps them see that you are interested in them and builds the “know” factor quickly, of the “Know, Like and Trust” that needs to happen in order to have them become a lead.
Question: Are you providing something of value?
Tip Four: Recommend Valuable Content
When was the last time you shared an article that you were excited for your network to read because you knew it had information worthy of your feed? Even if it has been a while, this habit of posting engaging, insightful content that has value will not only build your industry expertise but actually will highlight you as the authority in your market. By offering this value-packed content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise as a thought leader and taking time to write recommendations for your customers and contacts, you show these potential leads that you are the person to go to when their pain point can be solved by your solution.
Some other things to keep in mind that will also provide value are developing and sharing original content and using appropriate links, keywords, and industry categories to ensure you’re findable through LinkedIn’s search functions. And don’t forget to include relevant hashtags in all your posts as it helps those outside your network find and connect with you.
Question: Have you made it part of your daily routine?
Tip Five: Spend at Least 20 Minutes a Day on LinkedIn
You need to stay in touch to stay top of mind. Whether that means daily posts, messaging select group members, or developing a more extensive drip campaign, LinkedIn lead generation is a hands-on process. Once you’ve built up your profile, experts recommend dedicating a total of 20 minutes a day to LinkedIn to see results.
With these unbeatable tips, spending a little time (or more time) on LinkedIn can yield a huge return for you and your business. Even if it is just 20 minutes each day, you can help build your presence and nurture your relationships, while also further demonstrating your position as a thought leader along the way. Your prospects are on LinkedIn, so why not make it easier for them to find you and trust you to convert them into a quality lead!
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