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Do you use LinkedIn for business?
Are you wondering how you can use LinkedIn to generate quality leads?
To learn how to use LinkedIn to attract leads and build networking relationships, I interview Stephanie Sammons for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.
It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.
The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).
In this episode, I interview Stephanie Sammons, who blogs at Build Online Influence and is the CEO of Wired Advisor—a firm that helps those in the financial industry. She also writes exclusively about LinkedIn for Social Media Examiner.
Stephanie shares her LinkedIn knowledge, tips and experiences when it comes to social networking for your company.
You'll learn about the tools and techniques that will help you attract leads and connect with business professionals.
Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
LinkedIn for Business
Why LinkedIn is so important for business professionals seeking leads
Curious About How to Use AI?
We recently launched a new show that help marketers, creators, and entrepreneurs understand the business applications of AI.
It's hosted by Michael Stelzner and explores this exciting new frontier in easy-to-understand terms.
Pull up your favorite podcast app and search for AI Explored. (Look for the cover art shown to the right.)
Or click the button below for more information.
Stephanie explains how most people think of Facebook as a personal web, whereas LinkedIn is a professional web.
LinkedIn is the largest professional network for working people. It doesn't matter if you're an employee or a business owner, a freelancer or a marketer within a company.
People typically visit LinkedIn with a purpose to make connections, gain insights about their industry and anything that can help them get smarter. They also use LinkedIn to network.
In Stephanie's mind, it's the purest form of business networking online.
Listen to the show to find out how LinkedIn has evolved from just being a place to look for a job.
LinkedIn tools to help generate leads
You'll discover that it's not just about the awesome tools and features that LinkedIn has, it's also about how you use them.
Stephanie recommends having a relationship mentality when on LinkedIn and to position yourself as a thought leader. Look where you are building influence with your network and niche. It's the right thing to do when it comes to attracting leads and people for your business. The smarter you are about marketing, the less people realize you are marketing to them.
Your main goal is to aim to be consistently visible and valuable. Studies have shown that it takes someone 7 exposures to you before they really start to pay attention, listen and determine whether it makes sense to take the next step.
Stephanie looks at LinkedIn as an opportunity to position herself as a resource within her niche using the various tools.
For example, LinkedIn Today is a great way to quickly find content that is relevant to your target market and be able to share it on LinkedIn. You'll find out the benefits of using these rich status updates to stay top of mind.
It's really important to keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date. The more people see you on LinkedIn, the more they are likely to come and check out your profile to learn more about you. And if that person is relevant and potentially interested in your business, they may click through to your blog or website and take the relationship from there.
Another great LinkedIn tool to consider is Groups. If you spend time in group discussions, you have the opportunity to connect with mutual group members whom you might not necessarily know. As you get to know some of the members in the group, you can send them an invitation to connect with you.
Stephanie goes into greater detail about how many LinkedIn Groups you can join and how adding value to the conversation can lead to potential clients and customers. You'll also discover why you should only concentrate on 3 or 5 groups at a time.
Listen to the show to find out the benefits for Social Media Examiner of creating a private group on LinkedIn when running online conferences.
How a marketer or salesperson should use LinkedIn to find leads
First of all, it's important to build a rich personal profile on LinkedIn. You need your prospective clients and customers to be able to understand what you do without using any fancy terminology. Be very clear in what you do, whom you help and how you can help.
A lead generation process that works really well is:
- Build a great personal profile.
- Activate that profile so you begin to share interesting, valuable, helpful content with your network.
- Be consistently visible and stay top of mind.
It's not about selling. You have to educate and provide great information.
It's a personal decision whom you connect with on LinkedIn and how you generate leads. It all depends on your business situation and if you want to make your network as big or small as possible.
Stephanie prefers to work on the depth and breadth of her network. She has the belief that the more connections you have, the more opportunity there is for visibility and more business opportunities you can create for yourself. You're going to show up in more LinkedIn searches.
You'll hear Stephanie give an example of how her network facilitated a valuable relationship for someone else.
Listen to the show to learn about how promoting your blog, ebook or webinar can work on LinkedIn.
The process of growing your network
If your goal is to generate business and leads on LinkedIn, you need to think about growing your connections. There are many different ways to connect, from meeting people offline to connecting with them on Facebook or Twitter. Think about peers in your industry, clients, prospective clients, community leaders, etc.—anybody you may know and have a good reason to be connected with.
Stephanie shares her rules for LinkedIn when it comes to making connections.
Listen to the show to hear what you need to do when meeting people at a trade show, event or conference, to take it to the next level on LinkedIn.
The time commitment for getting the most out of LinkedIn
Once you know your way around the network, Stephanie feels you only need to spend 10 minutes a day to make a good impact on your network.
It's about having a focus and a purpose when you go in.
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How to use LinkedIn to reach someone in a big company
Stephanie describes why she loves LinkedIn's feature called InMail. LinkedIn has a strong integration with email inboxes, which include frequent notifications.
You'll also discover the reason behind members trusting emails from LinkedIn. Open rates for InMail on LinkedIn are greater than open rates for typical email marketing collateral. InMail gives you the ability to send a direct message to any member of LinkedIn, regardless of whether you are connected to them. The response rates on these are high.
But remember, you've got to have a good reason to connect. It can't be just a sales pitch.
Listen to the show to hear the best approach when writing direct messages to other LinkedIn members.
What to avoid on LinkedIn
You need to be careful when you grow your connections, as LinkedIn will stop showing publicly if you have more than 500 connections. So you need to be careful about being too active. If many of your connections have fewer connections within their network, then all they are going to see is you when they log into LinkedIn.
You have to be thoughtful in the way you promote your own content.
Listen to the show to hear why it's so important to have your profile looking good and up-to-date.
Stephanie's Top Tip
You'll hear Stephanie explain why Company Pages are becoming more important and how they are the identity for your business on LinkedIn, not your personal identity.
LinkedIn has a Self-Service Ads program that Stephanie has been experimenting with. It's a great way to grow your group through running ads to grow followers for your Company Page. Not only is it inexpensive, it's also easy to administer and test. Stephanie has already seen results from this.
You'll find out why LinkedIn members are receptive to ads as long as they are relevant.
Listen to the show to discover why a LinkedIn Share button on your site is a must.
This Week's Social Media Question
Curtis Moe at SmokeHouse Podcast asked, “My podcast has always been a hobby and I don't want to do much else with it. But what do you think about teaming up with a blogger? This way I won't have to do the website and I can just focus on doing the podcast, which I enjoy doing.”
Curtis, here is what you need to do.
Teaming up with people who have strengths where you have weaknesses is always a wise move. In my book Launch, there is an entire chapter about working with outside experts or other people who have a competency.
In your particular case, as someone who has an expertise in podcasting, it makes a lot of sense to work with a blogger who has an existing audience.
We've seen other people in our industry do this. For example, Brian Clark from Copyblogger has a podcast called Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio. The show is not actually produced by him, it's hosted and produced by Robert Bruce. Brian appears on the show now and again.
It makes a lot of sense to collaborate and leverage the strengths of both of you together.
Listen to the show to hear more of Mike's advice for Curtis.
Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.
Other Show Mentions
Social Media Marketing World is Social Media Examiner's latest mega-conference—taking place at the waterfront San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina in San Diego, California on April 7-9, 2013.
As you'd expect, Social Media Examiner recruited the biggest and best names in the world of social media marketing for this conference. Only the best for you! Be sure to check it out.
Stephanie will be one of the presenters, along with over 50 others, who are some of the biggest names in the world in social media marketing.
There will be extensive networking opportunities—you'll make priceless professional connections because we built this event to include networking after keynotes and lunch, and catered evening events at the historic San Diego Natural History Museum and aboard the largest private yacht in Southern California.
Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:
- Connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn, Twitter or her website
- Discover more about LinkedIn's tools and features
- Check out LinkedIn Today for relevant content
- Read 5 Ways to Use LinkedIn Groups to Build Influential Connections
- Use LinkedIn's InMail as a way to send a direct message to someone
- Learn how to optimize your new LinkedIn Company Page
- Check out LinkedIn's Self-Service Ads program
- Discover more about SmokeHouse Podcast
- Check out the book Launch
- Head over to Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio
- Learn more about Social Media Marketing World
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What do you think? What are your thoughts on using LinkedIn for lead generation? Please leave your comments below.
Discover Proven Marketing Strategies and Tips
Want to go even deeper with your marketing? Check out the Social Media Marketing Podcast! Publishing weekly since 2012, the Social Media Marketing Podcast helps you navigate the constantly changing marketing jungle, with expert interviews from marketing pros.
But don’t let the name fool you. This show is about a lot more than just social media marketing. With over 600 episodes and millions of downloads each year, this show has been a trusted source for marketers for well over a decade.
