Social media, Top tips | 4 January 2017
Our five top tips help you make the most of LinkedIn for B2B.
By Jenny Harbour
We help businesses connect with clients and prospects — here are our top five tips for uncovering and nurturing fresh opportunities using LinkedIn.
1. Monitor company pages and groups.
Change creates opportunity. A change within a company can present a good reason to get in touch and offer your expertise. And staying on top of breaking business news is easy if you follow company LinkedIn pages because changes will show up on your newsfeed — so you can capitalise on new opportunities right away. There are plenty, too; over three million companies have their own LinkedIn company page.
You can also learn what’s going on inside a prospect’s company by joining groups. Groups give you a direct line of contact to people you’re not in touch with yet. Join the conversation; provide your opinion and demonstrate your expertise. Groups can lead to relevant, high-quality connections and are the first point of contact with new prospects.
A good strategy is to pick at least three and contribute to them regularly. This will show that you’re active on LinkedIn, get your name out there and reflect well on you and your company.
2. Get more from advanced search.
This function lets you find people by title, company, location, keyword, postcode and more. If you have a paid account, you’ll have extra search filters such as company size and seniority level, too. You can even have LinkedIn send you a weekly report with a list of anyone new who matches the profile you’re looking for.
3. Make the most of recommendations and endorsements.
These are a great way to strengthen your profile for sales. Don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations — these are essentially references that support what you say on your profile, and make it more legitimate. If asking feels too direct for you though, write one for somebody else — most people are quick to reciprocate.
Too time-poor? Endorsements are a faster, more casual version of recommendations. Because they’re so quick and easy, some people consider them less relevant — but the more endorsements you have against a skill, the more impressive it looks. And it shows others have been impressed with your work, even if they’re too busy to talk about how great you were at length.
4. Reach out via InMail.
Senior decision makers can be tough to contact. But InMail’s a great way to bypass the call screening and ignored emails that we have an entire blog dedicated to it. It’s LinkedIn’s internal email system, allowing you to get in touch with a LinkedIn user, with no need for an introduction or connection. It helps you make the right impression on the right people — and it’s 30 times more likely to get a response than a cold call.
5. Follow up on profile views.
Unlike Facebook, you can see who’s viewed your profile on LinkedIn. So, set aside a little time each week to see who’s visited and follow-up on relevant contacts by reaching out to offer them more information or help.
It’s also worth viewing a set number of profiles each week related to an area in which you’d like to expand; some of the people you view will check out your profile in return, and this immediately gets your expertise out to a wider audience.
When searching for potential prospects on LinkedIn you’ll see ‘viewers of this profile also viewed’ along the right hand side. This flags up other relevant people that will be useful to your search. It’s a great way to find out who the decision makers are and who you need to influence to make a sale. With a little time, you can uncover a wealth of information, and never have to make a cold call again.
Head over to LinkedIn now and start putting these tips into practice — there are so many connections to make. And, if you’re ready to grab even more opportunities on LinkedIn, take a look at our InMail blog. It’s full of helpful tips on how to connect with your prospects.
1. Monitor company pages and groups.
Change creates opportunity. A change within a company can present a good reason to get in touch and offer your expertise. And staying on top of breaking business news is easy if you follow company LinkedIn pages because changes will show up on your newsfeed — so you can capitalise on new opportunities right away. There are plenty, too; over three million companies have their own LinkedIn company page.
You can also learn what’s going on inside a prospect’s company by joining groups. Groups give you a direct line of contact to people you’re not in touch with yet. Join the conversation; provide your opinion and demonstrate your expertise. Groups can lead to relevant, high-quality connections and are the first point of contact with new prospects.
A good strategy is to pick at least three and contribute to them regularly. This will show that you’re active on LinkedIn, get your name out there and reflect well on you and your company.
2. Get more from advanced search.
This function lets you find people by title, company, location, keyword, postcode and more. If you have a paid account, you’ll have extra search filters such as company size and seniority level, too. You can even have LinkedIn send you a weekly report with a list of anyone new who matches the profile you’re looking for.
3. Make the most of recommendations and endorsements.
These are a great way to strengthen your profile for sales. Don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations — these are essentially references that support what you say on your profile, and make it more legitimate. If asking feels too direct for you though, write one for somebody else — most people are quick to reciprocate.
Too time-poor? Endorsements are a faster, more casual version of recommendations. Because they’re so quick and easy, some people consider them less relevant — but the more endorsements you have against a skill, the more impressive it looks. And it shows others have been impressed with your work, even if they’re too busy to talk about how great you were at length.
4. Reach out via InMail.
Senior decision makers can be tough to contact. But InMail’s a great way to bypass the call screening and ignored emails that we have an entire blog dedicated to it. It’s LinkedIn’s internal email system, allowing you to get in touch with a LinkedIn user, with no need for an introduction or connection. It helps you make the right impression on the right people — and it’s 30 times more likely to get a response than a cold call.
5. Follow up on profile views.
Unlike Facebook, you can see who’s viewed your profile on LinkedIn. So, set aside a little time each week to see who’s visited and follow-up on relevant contacts by reaching out to offer them more information or help.
It’s also worth viewing a set number of profiles each week related to an area in which you’d like to expand; some of the people you view will check out your profile in return, and this immediately gets your expertise out to a wider audience.
When searching for potential prospects on LinkedIn you’ll see ‘viewers of this profile also viewed’ along the right hand side. This flags up other relevant people that will be useful to your search. It’s a great way to find out who the decision makers are and who you need to influence to make a sale. With a little time, you can uncover a wealth of information, and never have to make a cold call again.
Head over to LinkedIn now and start putting these tips into practice — there are so many connections to make. And, if you’re ready to grab even more opportunities on LinkedIn, take a look at our InMail blog. It’s full of helpful tips on how to connect with your prospects.
