Companies that use LinkedIn to grow are deliberate about planning for success.
The other day, a businessman approached me and told me that he had not seen any financial results on his LinkedIn profile yet. When asked how often he reviewed his plan and interacted with others on LinkedIn, he said, “I don’t have a plan, but I visit the site every six months.” Unfortunately, this is a common scenario.
Many companies don’t know how to effectively use LinkedIn as a lead generation tool. To help solve this problem, I’ve compiled a list of LinkedIn best practices to help you accelerate your revenue growth this year.
1. Make a list of 10 opinion leaders
Identify 10 thought leaders in your industry who share high-quality content that is valuable to your customers. Include friends and associates who will help you cross-promote. Connect with them on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter, join their Google or Triberr groups. Set up a process to review your content and republish it on your network.
2. Update your monthly LinkedIn goals
What are your LinkedIn lead generation goals for this month? How was the last month? Now is a good time to review goals and adjust strategies and metrics. What gets measured gets done.
3. Identify 3 industry leaders
Create a list of the top 3 leaders in your industry that you would like to meet. If you’re in sales, these could be prospects. If you are looking for work, they could be employers. If you are a business consultant, think about uncompetitive joint venture partners. Make a list and then learn about them. LinkedIn and Google are great places to start.
4. Review the social dashboards
Evaluate the effectiveness of your current social dashboards. Are you using them effectively? Do you need to update your settings or adjust your publishing criteria? Is the expense a worthwhile investment? If you are not using a social panel yet, consider signing up for one. My favorite is Hootsuite. It’s easy to use, will post to a multitude of accounts, and costs less than a cup of designer coffee every month.
5. Download LinkedIn Connections
Do it now. It only takes two minutes. Go to your LinkedIn contact list and at the bottom of the page, you will see “Export Connections”. Export to Outlook and save it as a .CSV file. It can be opened in Excel. Why is this important? Connections are a business asset. LinkedIn has closed profiles without notice, so protect your asset. While this is unlikely, disasters are just as unlikely, however you still buy insurance. Think of this as free insurance – set a reminder to download your list.
6. Protect your LinkedIn asset
Download your LinkedIn profile. You have worked hard to compose the right message and have compiled details from the past such as years of graduation, published articles, and achievements. Log into LinkedIn and go to your profile view. Right at the bottom right of your profile picture is an edit drop-down menu. Look for the option ‘export to PDF’. Click on it and it will be saved to your machine.
7. Update your profile summary
Go to your profile summary and read it from a customer’s point of view. Is it convincing? Does it inspire you to reach out and connect? Is it memorable? Do you feel that it is written exactly for you, the reader? Is it written in the first person? Can you easily find their contact information? Update based on the information you learned in the last month about your industry or customers. Did you lead a webinar? Teach or take a class? Help a client achieve an incredible goal?
