Generating leads from your LinkedIn network can be as simple as learning to stay top of mind, relevant and engaging both with your content and that of those you want to influence.
That means you want to get engaged with your network on LinkedIn. You want to be seen more than showing up in someone’s message folder with a sales pitch.
What does getting engaged look like?
Nope, not like marriage engaged. It is more like going to a party and being willing to mingle and talk with people you may not know. Engaging in conversation until you gravitate to those people you have something in common with or are willing to learn something new and engage them with thoughtful questions.
To generate leads people have to know what you do. In natural conversation even with small talk at a party, someone will say “What do you do?” This is the door opener to communicate your expertise – not to sell.
This is where having a clear brand statement or effective elevator speech comes in handy. Can you communicate in 30-seconds what you do that would engage and intrigue the person to say, ‘tell me more?”
The same process is how you want to invite someone to connect with you on LinkedIn. Hopefully, you see how sending the default invitation without personalization won’t get 95% of people to ask you questions, sadly – most people can’t be bothered.
It does take some communication skills to nurture your network, but as I wrote in a previous blog post: Communication Skills & Tactics, master some of the skills and align it with a few tactics the result is that you gain a competitive advantage and stand out from the rest.
Get engaged by scanning the home page for relevant posts
I encourage my clients to spend about 10 minutes a day scanning their home feed for relevant posts they can leave a comment on. WHY? When you leave a thoughtful comment or question the person who made the post is notified. Now if I don’t know the person, they likely will look at my profile to see who the person is that left the thoughtful comment! This is so simple and yet most people don’t do this.
Tip on how to sort your newsfeed
Have you noticed on LinkedIn you see the same people’s posts every day and week?
A LinkedIn colleague who performs lots of data-backed research says that on average you will see only 10 – 15 % of the posts of your network. What that means is that you have to put more effort into seeing more content.
He also says on average people spend only 25 seconds on scroll time per session, reaching to about the 12th post at that time in the newsfeed and if you scroll long enough, somewhere between the 25th and 30th post, you will see content from people outside your inner-circle of the algorithm.
On the Desktop app, you can actually sort what you see in the newsfeed by RECENT and TOP posts in your feed. You may be seeing the same posts when you open up LinkedIn because you are seeing popular posts with comments. I personally like to change my newsfeed to RECENT when I log in because I want to see more real-time posts. I also like to scroll way down the newsfeed and find people outside the same people who post from my network.
To change your feed view:
- Click the Dropdown icon next to Sort by below the share box on your LinkedIn homepage.
- Click Top or Recent from the dropdown.
Just so you know, this sorting feature currently isn’t available on the mobile app. The feed is set to Top updates by default.
Use hashtags to join relevant conversations
Want to hyper focus on relevant conversations? Using hashtags on LinkedIn will help you discover topics and interests most relevant to you and give you the opportunity to engage with them. As I already said, posts are all in real time when sorted by RECENT from desktop, so look for the most current posts and see where you can add value with a comment.
In order to find conversations, simple go to the SEARCH bar on the top navigation bar and put in the hash symbol # followed by a word or industry. I like to find hashtags with over 100K followers because there are simply more people ‘in the know’ and more active.
Use hashtags to attract people to your posts
To be influential within your industry or topic, you want to add a maximum of 3 hashtags to your original posts signaling what your post is about. Again, you want to be utilizing popular hashtags that people are actually searching for. I keep a running list on my computer, so I don’t have to look up hashtags every time I post.
Look at who viewed your profile
A good practice is to use the ‘who viewed your profile option.’ You may have caught someone’s eye after they viewed your post, or saw you commented on the same post but in either case didn’t send a connection request.
By clicking back on the profile of everyone who viewed your profile, you can decide of they are a potential prospect or not. If they are you can follow up with the, by sending them a personal invitation.
If you have a free account, you can only see the people who viewed your profile over the last 7 days so you want to be sure to take a look every day. If you have a premium account, you can see who’s viewed your profile over the past 90 days.
Even if you have a Premium account, you won’t see the names of viewers who choose to browse in private mode. We respect the privacy of members who don’t wish to reveal information about themselves when viewing profiles.
Post relevant content frequently
There are many schools of thought and many experts who have opinions on content. Mine is this, when you focus on posting relevant content that highlights your expertise then that is what you become known for.
If you are consistently posting quotes or other random thoughts, I think you aren’t known for anything. Not everyone will look at your profile to see what you do because you post something clever and off-topic.
I’m not against posting personal things as long as they align to a point that makes sense, but just shooting from the hip might make you fun, but no one knows what you are known for or have an expertise in.
My fellow LinkedIn trainers may beg to differ, but what I want to point out is those who post clever and random posts are ALREADY known and often have already established their expertise. If that’s not you, I don’t recommend you stray a lot from what you want to be known for or are truly passionate about. People will remember you for the insights you provide.
Conclusion
Staying top of mind with your network isn’t difficult but it does take strategy, consistency and some time. Implementing the hacks in this article is a start to gaining more opportunities.
Creating a process that works for you consistently is the winning formula. If I can help you create a process, please schedule a discovery call with me and let’s chat about where you’re at and what your goals are.
