Using for Lead Generation

What Is ?• Social Media is word-of-mouth advertising

• Facebook = Backyard BBQ, Twitter = Party!, LinkedIn = The Office

• LI is the business standard today

• Over 75M members from over 200 countries using it exclusively for business social networking (source: linkedin.com)

• It’s about making connections and building relationships through professional credibility

• Engage the audience and build a network

‘s Purpose• LI can be a valuable tool for business development

• “With great power comes great responsibility”

• Be Spider-man: Harness the power of ‘the web’

• Demonstrate your expertise and thought-leadership

• Don’t try to be a super-hero, be relevant

• Don’t try to sell your services, add value

Profiling LI Users

•Who is actively using LinkedIn?

• Roughly 50% of its users are in the United States (source: quantcast.com/linkedin)

LinkedIn

Male 54%

Female 46%

Average Age 43

Average HHI $107,278

College 77%

Graduate 39%

Entrepreneurs 31%

Executives 18%

source: linkedin.com

Where Do You Begin?Complete Your Profile To 100%

• Watch the meter and it will tell you how updated you are and what else you need

• Add experience, education, and expertise

Include Links To Your Company Website, Blog, Podcasts, and Portfolio

• You can customize titles

• Be conscious of keywords you use - think SEO value

And Then...

Add a Photo

• Humanize your presence with a professional photo• Preferably a headshot so people can recognize you• Phantom profiles send the wrong message and portray an inexperienced user

Build Your Connections

• LI is not a seasonal platform, stay committed

• You can send invitations to people based on recommendations from LI, your own network, uploading your contacts from Outlook, G-Mail, and others

• To connect with the people you must play like the people

“Information flows swiftly through the internet, but that other ingredient of relationships, trust, doesn’t. The people I know who succeeded overcame this difficulty by:

Focusing their attention on reconnecting with old contacts, where trust already existed, or Focusing on local contacts, whom they could meet for breakfast or lunch, broken bread being a superior medium for developing trust.” Posted on LinkedIn by Ford Harding

Customize Your Invitations

• Do not send the generic greeting

• It’s impersonal and comes off robotic

Update Your Status

• No more than a few times a day

• You can sync your Twitter account up to LI

• Let the information flow that way or use LI as your primary status feed

• Share information that feeds your the brands you represent: you and your company

Visit The Application Directory

• Under the ‘More’ tab

• There is a variety to include, but the most commonly used are:

• Amazon Reading List - Allow your network to see what you are thumbing through

• Slideshare - Upload your presentations to appear in your profile (yes, this one will be there)

• Twitter - Displays a Twitter stream and allows you to isolate your LinkedIn network’s stream as well; you can

post directly to Twitter from LI

• WordPress: Publish blog posts to appear in your profile

Participate In The Answers Section

• Under the ‘More’ tab

• Search out questions being asked in your industry, areas of expertise, and/or interest

• Contribute: uncover people by asking questions and get involved in the conversations

• Share links to relevant articles, landing pages, blog posts, videos

• Thank people for sharing their insight with a personal note and your thoughts

“I have certainly developed inquiries by being on LinkedIn. I do this by answering questions and contributing in group discussions. It is a very good way to show your expertise, and that you are open to communication. I also try to connect with anyone I am in conversations with on the phone. It gives them an alternate means to get information, as well as giving you an alternate means of contact.”

Business Development Rep at InTouch

Join Groups

• Look for parallels to your industry and interests

• Search for groups by keywords and find related groups to join

• Visit the discussions and get involved with your contribution

• Add value to the discussions, don’t sell

“I have been making many contacts through the groups and questions. I was on LinkedIn for two years before I did any networking. My network has grown from 12,000 to over 6,000,000 in a matter of two months. I learned by watching other people. Not everyone on LinkedIn is open to this, however, I avoid the ones who are not. Why join a network if you are not going to network?”

Posted by Gail Cavanaugh

Create a Group

• Have a purpose

• Put yourself in a position to be viewed as an expert and engage an audience

• You are trying to get in front of people

Use The Recommendations Feature

• People can write recommendations about you and vice-versa

• Write sincere, unsolicited recommendations about people you’ve worked with in the past

• Your recommendations will show up in the stream of updates within your network and their’s

Follow Companies

• Search out companies and click ‘Follow’

• Consider following your customers or prospective customers

• Get updates from them, keep track of new hires, and former employees

Screen Your Prospects

• B2B or B2C can benefit by getting to know them before they arrive

• Find parallels that can be used as conversation tools and build rapport

• Does not guarantee anything but it could thaw out the conversation quicker

Going Forward With

• Consider LI a professional networking environment

• Use common sense, don’t be a salesman and spammer

• Be useful, offer value to your network

• You can find opportunities if you engage with your network

• Mine the data to uncover intelligence about people and companies

• Be smart with how you use the data

Going Forward With

• Use the common sense rule of offline networking at an event

• Don’t suffocate people with your business card and a sales pitch

“People no longer want to be sold to or talked at, especially in the social media environment. You can find leads and prospects on LinkedIn and Twitter IF you contribute to the community first and ask for business later. I see too many business post a discussion on LinkedIn saying "buy widgets from me: best widgets ever!" That is not the way it works anymore. You must honestly and genuinely answer questions, contribute white papers or other news/events, and generally establish your reputation and expertise. Only then, will people approach you for your services.”

Ludo Van Vooren, Aerospace eBusiness Consultant

‘LinkedIn As Marketing Strategy’ source: brandnexus.com

Bonus Round: For Businesses• Must have collective and

individual buy-in

• Coordinate marketing strategy with LI capability

• Harness group power, participation, and event

management

• Plan your work, work your plan

Contact

derek@dmbrown.com

www.dmbrown.com

twitter.com/derekmbrown