LinkedIn is a powerful tool to increase the number of leads. More leads mean more opportunities for your business to grow.
Currently, LinkedIn has 610 million members wherein 303 million are active users and 40% of those (121.2 million) members visit the site daily. It’s still huge even if the platform is not as big as Facebook. Facebook, the most popular social media platform has 2.41 billion active users today. But when it comes to B2B (business-to-business) opportunities, LinkedIn is the best platform to be active with.
Did you know that out of all social media platforms, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn? (See full stats here).
With LinkedIn, you’ll be able to connect with decision-makers – the Presidents, Directors, Chief Operating Officers, businesses owners, and the other high ranking officials within an organization. They are the ones who decide what’s good for their business operations. Connecting with them would be great for your business goals.
So how do you improve your network on LinkedIn? Here are the five strategies that could help you.
- It starts with the right persons to connect with.
In connecting with people on LinkedIn, you have two options:
- Connect with people who belong only to your industry
This option keeps your network as high quality as possible. You keep in touch with people who speak the same language as you, dealing with the same concerns about your industry. You reject connections from people outside of your industry.
- Connect with diversity
In this scenario, you add and accept people to your network even outside your industry. LinkedIn will not penalize you for having a large network, even if the majority of them are not active in your circle.
This option is better than the first. Why?
- Because bigger connection is always better than a smaller one
- Although some of your connections may not belong to the same industry that you are in, their connections could be. And this is a good opportunity to connect with them too!
- That even if some people do not work in the same industry as yours, it does not mean they won’t be in the future.
- The more connections you have, the more chances your profile would be seen by many, and that means more would try to connect with you.
However, when you do Option B, you have to be aware of spammers and scammers in order to protect your credibility. You don’t want to be connected with them. You’ll lose your connections and potential sales, business or job opportunities when that happens.
How to Spot Spammers
- Spammers usually use stock photos as their profiles. They use pictures of a handsome man or a beautiful woman.
- They don’t use real business name, and the business name is usually misspelled.
- Their profiles have limited information about themselves and what they do.
- Sharing content drives traffic
Just like any online platform, sharing content drives traffic. Whenever you post relevant content to your profile, your connections would see it and you’ll be able to gain trust and build relationships with those who’ll be interested with what you are sharing.
Your posts should always cater to the interest of your target audience. Doing this regularly would make you an expert in your niche. And you’re in the best position to be the first to be recalled when the time comes that any of your connection needs your products or services.
Here’s an infographic made by CoSchedule regarding the best times to post on LinkedIn this 2019, presented according to the type of industry.
However, the next important thing to do upon knowing the best time to post on LinkedIn is the frequency of your posts. Once a week would be good but if you have more time, you could try posting more at regular intervals using the suggested time.
- Engage with your connections
It is not enough that you share contents to your network; you have to engage with them.
When they post something, be sure to leave some thoughtful comments on their posts, share their posts, and offer help by messaging them if you see the need to.
When you see a connection needs help, don’t just give answers to his concern, you can give a more meaningful help by showing him how it is to be done like doing a tutorial video. Go the extra mile in giving help!
As you practice doing these, you’ll see they would reciprocate the actions. They would offer to assist you also. It’s the start of building trust and having a deeper relationship with anyone in your network.
- Join groups on LinkedIn
Another way of increasing your network on LinkedIn is to join groups. Members form groups according to their interests. There are marketing groups, work-from-home groups, accounting groups, fitness trainer groups and so on.
People join groups to know more about the latest in their field, new developments and new products and services that are available.
Joining groups is the faster way to increase your connections on LinkedIn. It is said that conversations made in a group often lead to a sale.
- Connect with Influencers
Influencers have tons of followers. You can connect or follow with at least 10-20 of them.
When you do this, you will be able to see their posts as they will appear on your home feed. You will notice that their posts get a lot of engagements from their followers. This is a good chance for you to be noticed by active members.
But don’t just give an uninteresting comment like “nice post”, this comment won’t get you anywhere. Instead, say something that would add value to the post like sharing an actual experience or a well-thought idea about the matter.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is the social media platform that is best suited for professionals and businesses. Being active on LinkedIn would be a great help in reaching the results that you want for your company or professional career. Follow the five strategies stated here and you’re on your way to building a great network on LinkedIn.
