6+ Tips for Building Your Network and Social Selling on LinkedIn
Want to learn more about the secret power to network and implement social selling on LinkedIn?
This article reveals some winning strategies for acquiring new customers as well as interacting with your “oldies” on this social media site.
No more minutes to waste. 61% of companies have already experienced revenue growth with social selling techniques.
Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything. Take your time to get properly acquainted with LinkedIn social selling.
What’s LinkedIn Social Selling?
Social selling on LinkedIn is about expanding your pool of prospects and leads on the platform and connecting with them on a meaningful level to drive sales.
The power of three for networking and social selling on LinkedIn consists of the following components:
- Find – gain access to your ideal leads and use a variety of lead generation techniques to do so.
- Relate – make an authentic connection and unbreakable ties with them
- Engage – ensure content engagement and effective marketing communication
The main issue, however, is still on the table.
How do you unlock this power to network for LinkedIn sales success?
We’ve got the missing pieces of this puzzle.
How to Build Your Network on LinkedIn and Succeed in Social Selling
You’ve got six clues (+ a bonus one) to connect and sell on LinkedIn like a pro.
Tip #1. Do profile optimization
Open your profile on LinkedIn.
What do you see there?
Does it produce a wow effect or do its bare bones need some qualitative flesh?
Anthony Martin, Founder and CEO of Choice Mutual, states: “There are two major aspects of a LinkedIn profile for creating a network for social selling: branding and keyword optimization. Your brand’s identity must be visible from the first glance. Besides, your profile should also be optimized with targeted, industry-friendly keywords to make you more findable on LinkedIn.”
Here are five essential elements of a well-branded and optimized LinkedIn profile:
- Brand logo as your profile picture
- Branded background image
- Custom profile URL with your company name
- Polished headline
- Optimized bio
Don’t forget to add some other significant details about yourself, such as your business website, phone number, industry, company size, headquarters, etc.
You might also want to take advantage of storytelling for a compelling brand story in your “About” section to grab the reader’s attention or use other tricks.
For example, Darrell Evans, a business growth partner and digital marketing expert, uses numbers at the very beginning and humor throughout his LinkedIn summary.
Tip #2. Maintain post frequency
How often do you publish new content on LinkedIn?
The most influential LinkedIn brands post at least 12 updates weekly.
“With the right post frequency, you can develop a professional network and start social selling on LinkedIn considerably faster,” says Jerry Han, CMO at PrizeRebel.
“Regular and fresh content rewards your leads with newness and automatically converts them into your loyal followers waiting for more updates from you. To make the publishing process easier, you may use LinkedIn’s native scheduling feature or turn to third-party post schedulers such as Buffer, Taplio, Later, DrumUp, RecurPost, and the like,” he recommends.
One of the above tools can help you supercharge your content marketing with the regularity of LinkedIn posts and work out a long-term publish plan. And don’t ever say “We have nothing to post on LinkedIn”.
Tip #3. Provide high content value
Again, content marketing is in its purest form here.
It’s one of the tips for effective LinkedIn networking and social selling shared by Volodymyr Shchegel, VP of Engineering at Clario. His recipe for creating value with your content on LinkedIn is as follows:
- Breaking news from your business industry
- Your company’s life and behind-the-scenes
- “How to use a product or service” guides or other how-to content
- X lists
- Document posts (PDFs)
- High-quality videos and live streams (these are today’s video marketing trends)
Check one of the most recent guides by Clario below.
If we take videos, they drive 5x more engagement on LinkedIn. Not to mention that video content is 20 times more shareable than any other content type. And many companies benefit from that. For example, Slack usually introduces new products and features on LinkedIn via videos.
If you look at Slack’s videos carefully, you’ll notice captions in practically each of them. Why? Because subtitles boost video viewership. 80% of people are more likely to watch a video till the end if it has subtitles or captions. You can use these apps for adding subtitles to your video: BIGVU, MixCaptions, Veed, or Kaptioned.
Tip #4. Explore relevant LinkedIn groups
Why bother spending time in groups on LinkedIn, and more importantly, how to pick relevant ones?
According to Mark Pierce, CEO of Colorado LLC Attorney, “On the one hand, LinkedIn groups open the doors to partnerships with other firms and brands. On the other hand, they help you find valuable connections for your network.” He provides an example from the law industry:
“In the legal sphere, for instance, you may become a member of the communities that gather around lawyers, legal researchers, paralegals, legal tech entrepreneurs, or others. By joining their group discussions, you demonstrate your professionalism in law and gain trust from prospective clients.”
You can reach out to your existing network for group recommendations, ask your colleagues or employees, or look for groups via LinkedIn’s search.
Let’s suppose you’re interested in email marketing. So, you type “email marketing” in the Search bar and filter the search results by choosing Groups.
And voila!
Tip: You can take your communication further using a LinkedIn email finder and engage in emails.
Alternatively, you can create your Group on LinkedIn and become a thought leader in your area of influence.
Tip #5. Track and boost your SSI (Social Selling Index)
Leaders in LinkedIn social selling have 45% more opportunities for effective sales than those with a lower SSI rate.
SSI or social selling index is a useful metric to measure your social selling efforts on LinkedIn. You can access it directly from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Alternatively, you can see it when you go to https://www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi (make sure you log into your account first).
It looks like this.
Although LinkedIn doesn’t reveal the exact algorithm for calculating SSI, here’s what matters for a higher score:
- Factor #1. Developing a professional brand and publishing meaningful posts
- Factor #2. Searching and identifying better prospects quickly
- Factor #3. Giving worthy updates and engaging with the content from your connections
- Factor #4. Strengthening your network of decision-makers in the industry
You have already seen some ideas on how to create an outstanding LinkedIn profile or share respectable content on the platform.
What we have missed is how to search for leads faster on LinkedIn (factor #2).
For that, you should master Boolean searches and refine your search results on LinkedIn for targeted social selling.
Tip #6. Share clickable links to your LinkedIn profile everywhere
Just remember: no spamming!
Instead, follow this tactic from Michael Power, CMO at DTF Transfers:
“A clickable link to your profile shared wisely and in moderation can significantly speed up the growth of your social selling network on LinkedIn.
It’s possible to achieve non-aggressive link sharing on your business site, blog, other social media accounts, and your email signature.”
Let’s look at those in action.
● Website
● Blog
● Social media
Use social media channels like TikTok to lure leads to your LinkedIn account.
In the newsletter of The Motley Fool, for example, you can see active buttons with links to the company’s social media profiles including LinkedIn.
You may want to change your email signature now if you haven’t done it yet.
Bonus Tip for Nurturing Relationships with Your Existing Connections on LinkedIn
If you want to foster positive relationships and begin the real social selling adventure on LinkedIn, you may need CRM software as well.
They provide a centralized place to facilitate collaboration and cement your relationships with prospective customers. They also help you gather and analyze their likes/dislikes, pain points, motivations, etc. to personalize your communications and establish an authentic connection that will last for years.
Make the Most Out of LinkedIn for Social Selling
You can do just one click of your mouse to send a connection request to your prospect, but building a strong network on LinkedIn with social selling in mind takes much more effort than that.
The best practices for LinkedIn networking and social selling are at your disposal now. Use them wisely and make your company a heavy-hitter on this social media channel.
