How to build an effective presence on LinkedIn
Last week, I was thrilled to have Richard Van Der Blom, LinkedIn’s top guru, participate in our weekly live audio event. Here is his super insightful advice.
Build a “Customer-centric” profile.
Remember that first impressions last! Your profile should talk about you but in front of a specific target audience. These are the steps to optimize your profile.
- Decide on the specific persona that you want your profile to talk to.
- Identify their main challenges and your solution to those challenges.
- Build a list of keywords that this persona will be looking for.
- This list of keywords should position the trustworthy expert capable of solving their challenge.
- Use these keywords in your profile, like your headline, the about sections, and the experience section.
- Use high-quality images in every section of your profile wherever possible.
Create content that drives engagement and more reach
Your content should be relevant and relatable (RR) to your target audience to strengthen your position as a trustworthy expert. Please note that there are three main criteria for getting more reach for your content.
- Engagement: How many times do people Like, comment or share your posts
- Clicking: How many times do people “click” on the “see more..” link, click to move to the next carousel slide, or click to choose a poll option? This is important because more than 57% of the LinkedIn audience is silent, meaning they will not like, comment, or share. But, most probably, they will “click”.
- Time spent: The more time people spend on your content, the more the algorithm will consider the quality of your content. So, the algorithm will give your content more reach.
AVOID automation tools that write automated comments and send automated connection requests or DMs. But you can use automated tools that boost your efficiency.
The Art of Social Selling
Designing Your Funnel
Your powerful profile and magnetic content are the foundation of social selling. Here is the simple funnel that you should build.
- From Feed to Profile: People move from scrolling their feeds to entering their profiles because your content tells them that you can help.
- From visitors to potential clients: When you see someone regularly checking your profile and engaging with your content, send him/her a connection request!
- From potential clients to real clients: When you offer high-quality value to them using DMs, they will ask for your product or service.
Building Trust
Without trust, there is no sales.
There are two strategies here. Inbound and outbound
Inbound
Your content should act as a strong magnet for your potential customers. I am always happy to receive direct messages from people saying they have been following me for a while, enjoying my content, and wanting to discuss my services/products.
Outbound (in 5 effective steps)
- Identify your ideal clients: Think of the top people on LinkedIn with whom you want to work. Build this list and use a bookmark to see their content on LinkedIn frequently.
- Engage with their content. Consistently engage with the content of the people in the list you built on the previous point above.
- Reach out: Whenever you engage with one of these people and initiate a conversation through comments, send him/her a connection request. Make it a continuity to your discussion. Acceptance rate in 99%
- Build trust: When this person accepts your connection request, ask him/her if he/she would like to receive a valuable piece of content relevant to your discussion. Do not send this content, but ask them if they would like to receive it. Make them curious. If they say yes, send it. After a few days, you can send a follow-up message to check if they have any questions or offer another relevant piece of content.
- Convert: Finally, after a week, you can send a direct message checking if they consumed your content, and you can offer a 15-minute call to share more value and insights. Thats it.
You have a hot lead now, and they await your call!
Summary
- Build a robust customer-centric profile.
- Create consistent, high-quality, and relevant content.
- This content would attract and get you leads.
- In parallel, use those five steps to generate and convert new leads.
Sounds good?
Finally, do you want to step ahead?
The “LinkedIn Influence Accelerator” is a course for founders, coaches, and communicators. It is crafted for professionals who want to create a process for consistent growth while enjoying time freedom.
