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As a sales leader, I’m sure you know about LinkedIn. Even though you don’t post much, you probably check it many times a day. It gives you a quick snapshot of a prospect or costumer, who you know in common, and their work history and preferences. You have built your network throughout the years, organically rather than intentionally, yet you would like to find effective ways to engage with some of your 500+ contacts.
I know there are better ways that you can use your LinkedIn profile, especially to support your business goals. It’s time to start using LinkedIn for social selling as a way to add value to your prospects and customers. And the good news is, it’s straightforward and easy to execute and is a highly repeatable process, no spam involved. In fact, many of the best sales executives are using these LinkedIn tactics right now.
1. Add useful comments to posts.
Don’t just “like” it or respond with 1-2 words (e.g., “Great post”, “Loved it”, “Thank you”, “Amazing!”, etc) when you can contribute, add your point of view, and provide meaningful value to the conversation.
Try it today. Take a moment to engage and add value to ongoing conversations on LinkedIn. Here are two examples:
Share your opinions and help deepen conversations, like those happening on one of Beth Comstock’s posts
Go to this Jack Welch’s post and explore the compelling debate that took place in the comments
2. Share relevant, useful content.
What problems do you want people think you’re great at solving? Share content that associates you with these hard problems. Offer thoughtful, concise commentary which reinforces your skill at solving them. See these two examples below, and how they used storytelling to share problems that matter to them:
3. Use #hashtags.
Highly popular on Twitter and Instagram, and also highly underestimated on LinkedIn. You can find key prospects, live conversations, and valuable content by simply searching for specific #keywords on LinkedIn.
More so, make it a habit to add 4-7 relevant hashtags in your posts to make it easy for others to find your content.
You can follow popular hashtags such as Sales (5M+ followers) and automatically receive tailored content on your feed
Increase your posts’ visibility, especially when it’s aligned with relevant, themed hashtags — Here’s Jessica Alba posting about #GivingTuesday
4. Discover highly-engaged users, and learn.
Did you know you can see people’s entire activity on LinkedIn with just one click? It’s a great way to identify those power users who regularly spend time on LinkedIn and are potentially more likely to respond to your messages/inquiries.
Additionally, using a customer-centric approach you can learn more about someone’s interests and preferences. To see this, simply scroll down through someone’s profile and look for the section called “Articles & Activity” or “Activity” and click “See all activity” — You’ll be able to filter between articles, posts, and all activity depending on that user’s activity and privacy settings. Here are two of my favorite profiles. What can you learn from them?
The best use of your LinkedIn time is to nurture and grow your relationships. By taking advantage of the technical features of the platform and by focusing on what your prospects care about, you can do this effectively—and the result will be meaningful relationships and stronger bonds, which often translates into better business success.