LinkedIn’s 650+ million members, in my extensive experience, fall into six categories in terms of their business development usage of the platform.
I’ve identified each of the six as a type of bird.
Take a fun five minutes to find out which kind you identify as, enter it in the comment section below, share with colleagues and friends too and ask them which they are!
#1 The Hummingbird
This particular bird flits in and out of LinkedIn, but doesn’t commit to any sustained, long-distance activity, as they find it understandably boring and tedious.
Hummingbirds miss out though, as success on LinkedIn depends on having a strategy, goals and consistent actions, rather than flitting about.
#2 The Canary
Our vibrant feathered-friend merrily cheeps and chirps away with status updates.
While it’s good they’re active and posting, in so doing, there are two potential problems from which the canary suffers.
Firstly, if the canary hasn’t grown its network, hardly anyone will see its updates.
Secondly, the canary’s unlikely to have a strategy for what types of updates it shares, meaning it misses out on powerful positioning and business development opportunities.
#3 The Owl
The owl sees the wisdom of LinkedIn, but likes to sleep a lot and only wants to hunt within a limited window.
This substantially reduces its prey, and it might often go hungry.
#4 The Penguin
Our Arctic friend solidly marches along, yet creates and nurtures so few connections that it relies on just one egg hatching over the whole breeding season.
#5 The Ostrich
Despite all of the evidence about the social selling power of LinkedIn, the ostrich still has its head in the sand.
It doesn’t acknowledge the role of LinkedIn as a fundamental business to business awareness, reach and lead generation tool. For example:
- 1 out of 3 professionals on the planet has a LinkedIn profile, spanning 200 countries and territories
- 25 million LinkedIn Profiles viewed every day
- More than 20 million members in the UK
- 75% of B2B buyers use social media
- Social selling leaders create 45% more opportunities than peers with a lower Social Selling Index and are 51% more likely to achieve quota
- 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media
- Cold calls are ineffective 97% of the time. With a LinkedIn connection, you never need cold call again.
#6 The Golden Goose
With a systemised, sustained approach and a highly targeted network, the Golden Goose secures up to 50% of its B2B leads via LinkedIn.
The result? It produces golden ‘eggs’ aka sales leads, predictably, repeatedly.
Love To Be A Golden Goose Too?
Is filling your B2B lead funnel is a key responsibility or pressing need for you right now? If so, I imagine you’d love to be the Golden Goose variety of LinkedIn member too.
Being a Golden Goose involves the following:
- A strategy for how you’re going to leverage LinkedIn, based upon these 3 factors: value of sale; volume of enquiries required; Return on Investment
- A connectivity and outreach programme
- Great value content to share with, and market to, your audience on LinkedIn
- Personal profiles for your key team members that are optimised to demonstrate how you help, who you help and proof you help
- Analytics so that you can monitor and measure results.
- All of the above is encompassed by what I call the Push/Pull method on LinkedIn.
The Push/Pull Method on LinkedIn
The ‘Push’ relates to your company having optimised personal profiles, as well as content that positions you in your market AND delivers value to your market
Content can span long-form, text-only posts, videos, white papers, podcasts, slide shares etc. and could be ‘broadcast’ via:
- Status updates and articles from key team members’ personal profiles
- Status updates from your Company Page (now just called Linkedin Pages)
- Articles
- Posts in relevant LinkedIn groups.
- The ‘Pull’ relates to the fact that you need to build a targeted network on LinkedIn, that you can then message directly.
The benefit is that even if your audience isn’t visiting LinkedIn when you’re posting, you can message them with it so they get to see your content.
An essential part of ‘Pull’ is relationship-building with your audience, so that you’re building the all-important KLT factor with them (Know, Like, Trust).
This relationship-building is most effectively done with messaging each connection directly.
The recipient receives the message in their LinkedIn inbox, as well as their email inbox, even when they’re not active on the platform.
It means you don’t need to have their email address or have the email implications of GDPR.
Messages should be short and to the point. They can be text-only, or one of the following, with or without text:
- Image
- Voicemail
- Video
- PDF or other material.
It’s essential to create a sequence of messages. After around 5 or 6 touch points, the messages can include appointment requests and then follow up ‘nudges’.
Doing this manually takes c.45 mins per day, restricts the volume you can send & requires you to be methodical to e.g. record which connection is where in the messaging sequence.
Or we’ve two options with our lead generation service, Prospect Booster, where we can do it all for you or offer a self-managed alternative.
Here’s a video from one of our Prospect Booster clients, Mark Ferguson – click the image to watch.
Ready to get the edge on your competitors?
See your entire universe of prospects revealed to you by booking your FREE 1:1 LIVE Online session, where your ideal prospects are revealed, page-by-page, on LinkedIn.
See where your next clients are hiding, how to get them into your funnel, and assess if Prospect Booster is appropriate for you.
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