With over 200 million users worldwide, it’s no surprise that LinkedIn should be an essential part of your social media and marketing strategies. This article focuses on how you can improve your account and use LinkedIn to make cold calling less of a mind-numbing job.

Social media is the new networking platform. It’s easier, convenient and pretty much everyone who’s anyone is reachable. Also, social media gives insight into your prospective client’s interests and attitudes, which makes initiating a conversation all the more easy.

Sales people are gradually using LinkedIn as their main source of new leads. As Anna Bratton from SalesForce says “for B2B, LinkedIn is a critical tool that can make your prospecting faster, smoother and, ultimately, more profitable”.

It’s always good to do your research before calling someone, and LinkedIn makes this easy – it changes a cold call into a friendly, informed conversation.

Why LinkedIn

“There are three big reasons that LinkedIn is by far the most effective network for meeting high profile people:

-          Most people (industry related to you) already use LinkedIn

-          It is more business-oriented, so people are less sceptical of your intentions

-          There is a ton of information freely available on LinkedIn”

From: How to Cold Call Using LinkedIn

Get the Most Out of It

If you spend enough time ironing out the following components of your LinkedIn account, you’ll soon reap the benefits.

Profile:
Make sure your profile is up to date and complete. The following information is pulled directly from LinkedIn:

“It’s easy to complete your profile: add your professional information and request recommendations. Users with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn.

What makes your profile complete?

• Your industry and location
• An up-to-date current position (with a description)
• Two past positions
• Your education
• Your skills (minimum of 3)
• A profile photo
• At least 50 connections
  
  

Get the most from LinkedIn — complete your profile”.

Contacts:

As the above states, a complete profile means you have at least 50 connections. That may be true but make sure that your contacts count for something. If your contact list is made up of mostly family and friends, you’ll need to start adding industry related contacts.

Follow:

Follow industry related people and topics. This will improve your profile and show others what you are interested in. It also provides a base for connecting with others about topics that you’re passionate about.

Once your account is sorted make sure to employ the following components that LinkedIn has to offer – they’ll make finding potential customers a breeze.

Search:

LinkedIn’s search facility is incredibly helpful as it allows you to search by name, company, title, location or keyword. By applying the different filters your search can become very specific – which is, ultimately, more effective.

InMail:

When you upgrade your LinkedIn account you gain access to the InMail messaging service. Through this service you can reach anyone on LinkedIn, without having an introduction or even their contact information. Your profile is attached and delivery is guaranteed. In fact, if you don’t receive a response within seven days of sending your message, you’ll get your credit back (as you have a monthly limit).

Who’s Viewed Your Profile:

Being able to see who viewed your profile means that you have insight into who might be prospective clients. It won’t hurt to view their profiles in return and send a contact request. You never know what might come from it.

Endless Possibilities

With LinkedIn it’s possible to see who or which topics people follow, which skills they possess and so forth. This makes connecting with them easier than ever before as you already have so much to talk about. Going into a call completely cold is inexcusable in the social media age we’re in. It’s almost impossible not to find any information about a person which makes it simple enough to ensure that your call is relevant to a particular person.

LinkedIn enables you to warm up the sales process and build a relationship with people instead of cold calling them.

Related Articles:

Content Marketing 101: An Introduction to LinkedIn

Have any more LinkedIn tips? Share them below or on Twitter @SoundIdea, and don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn HERE.

Carina Claassens is a Writer for Sound Idea Digital | carina@soundidea.co.za | www.soundidea.co.za

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