As a marketer or salesperson, you’re probably familiar with using social media for lead generation.

You’ve likely heard how important Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram are for finding prospective clients. Many believe that if you use all three as part of your strategy, you’re all set.

This is FALSE.

Why Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads

If you’re not using LinkedIn, you’re missing out on the chance to promote your brand and grow your revenue, especially if you’re a B2B business.

It has developed into one of the most useful platforms for gaining the attention of your target audience. Here are some of the reasons you should use LinkedIn:

• 722 million business professionals are on the network.
• A 2020 survey found that it’s the top paid and organic social channel for B2B.
• 61 million of senior-level influencers have profiles on the site.
• 55 million companies are listed among their many users.
• 4 out of 5 of their members are in roles to drive business decisions.
• 33% of decision makers use it to research before making purchases.
• 82% of B2B marketers find their greatest success with the platform.
• 76% of executives check their LinkedIn accounts on a daily basis.

The best thing about it is that you can target more than 200 characteristics to narrow down your audience. These span categories from education to job experience to interest to firmographics to demographics.

How to Fire Up LinkedIn Leads Generation

Using the website can be pretty straightforward. You just have to invest time to share your expertise and become a thought leader.

Below are tips to help you achieve that.

Step 1: Optimise your profile for engagement

This means tailoring your page so it’s optimised for search. Also, make sure that it’s visually appealing and full of engaging content. See that it’s completely filled out as well. Do proper keyword research and think of relevant phrases to keep everything SEO-friendly.

Above the fold

Let’s begin with the part that people will be seeing first when they visit your page.

Profile picture

Get your photos done by a professional and in a studio to ensure that it’s of good quality. If a photographer is out of your budget, at least choose a headshot that is clear and friendly.

Title

Define your role in the company and your area of expertise while using proper keywords. Be creative without going overboard as you want people to know what it is that you do from the first read.

Cover image

Prepare a high-resolution picture that highlights your brand or products/services. Ideally, your banner should be 1584 x 396 pixels in size to avoid it from being compressed in an unappealing way.

Below the fold

Moving on, you need to showcase your writing skills if you want to ace LinkedIn leads generation.

About

The perfect place to talk about your accomplishments, expertise, and results. It’s not necessary to include your whole resume here. Rather, turn this into an elevator pitch that summarises who you are professionally.

Featured

Use this space to display your best publications and projects. These are not limited to your landing pages or blog posts. You may also feature external media like links, documents, and images that you’ve authored.

Experience

Much like the references section in your resume, this contains the companies you’ve worked for and are working for. If you’re the CEO or a manager in where you are now, emphasise that.

Recommendations

Don’t be shy to ask your colleagues and clients for recommendations on your skills. Return the favour so they’ll be happy to support you whenever you’re in need.

Optional but recommended

These things aren’t necessary to complete your profile. However, they help you gain the attention of your professional audience.

Vanity URL

These are effective for establishing trust and facilitating online sharing. They’re also easier to remember if you use variations of your brand or name.

For SEO purposes, skip the special characters, symbols, and spaces.

People Also Viewed

The best thing you can do with this section is hide it. Doing so keeps the focus on you and limits exposure to your competitors. Head to Privacy and Settings to configure this feature.

Projects

Supplement your Experience section by spotlighting the long-range and high-yield projects you’ve done for clients. It allows you to add links to external websites to add more context to the projects you’ve listed.

Research shows that users with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities than those who don’t. Taking advantage of the additional features is a good idea as well.

Step 2: Become an active participant on the site

Remember that LinkedIn leads generation is done on a social media site so interacting with other users is crucial.

a. Identify the decision-makers

Instead of connecting with anyone and everyone you see on the platform, use the native search function to spot relevant contacts and decision-makers. Type in a specific role or company then browse the potential contacts you’re presented with.

Choose to follow than connect directly so they get a notification.

b. Publish articles on LinkedIn

To spread awareness and establish yourself as an industry authority, you need to publish insights and experiences along with relatable stories. You can use LinkedIn as a platform for sharing your knowledge to the rest of your network.

Bear in mind the following when posting though:

• Create a schedule for posting and stick to it so you remain fresh in people’s minds.
• Keep your headlines intriguing so people are tempted to click and read the whole piece.
• Add relevant keywords to the title and body of your content without being spammy.
• Cross-promote on other social media sites to direct outside traffic to your profile.

c. Run an ad

Running a lead generation ad is worth your while once you’ve been successful at acquiring organic leads. However, putting together a campaign is a huge job.

In this case, it’s better to outsource lead generation to the Philippines through a remote worker.

d. Maximise your visibility

To be seen by as many users as possible, you must be an active participant on the site. This means you have to react to posts, leave comments, and publish content regularly. Post updates during peak times, such as early afternoons or weekday mornings for optimum exposure.

e. Participate in Groups

Attract new contacts and connect with others in your field by participating in LinkedIn Groups. They provide a place where fellow professionals ask for guidance and share their insights.

If you can’t find any that best suits your needs, select a group to join or create one.

f. Dig into data

Assess the performance of your LinkedIn leads generation strategy via analytics. The platform has their own tools for evaluating effectiveness and gaining understanding about audience demographics.

If you want to go beyond the platform, Hootsuite Analytics and Sprout Social are highly recommended for versatility and ease of use.

g. Personalise your outreach

FocusVision reports that the average B2B buyer consumes 13 pieces of content before making a decision. You don’t want to get lost in that crowd so tailor each of your outreach messages according to your contact.

Concentrate on building relationships instead of simply having connections.

h. Get on video

Note that the algorithm prioritises video over text posts. Considering that videos are the most shared content in general, be sure to include it in your lead generation plan.

For instance, you can pair off article or reports with a quick video.

i. Push employee advocacy

Let your employees or co-workers give you a much-needed hand with promotions. Inform them when you’re about to publish an update so they can react or leave a comment.

It’s a simple request that does wonders for your engagement.

j. Get sponsored content

If you want to target users who aren’t already following you, publish updates as sponsored content. This guarantees that your content is hitting your target rather than a broad range of people.

Test both standard and direct sponsored content to determine which one works best for you.

Step 3: Meet the expectations of your audience

Keep your professional audience in mind if you want your lead generation to end up well. Realise that they will always put their needs before anything else.

Therefore, if you aren’t relevant or useful in their eyes, you’ll never maintain their interest.

Categorise your audience

Craft pieces that influence behaviours, feelings, and thoughts through proper research and planning. This means defining your audience by segment so you know how to approach them.

Categorising people as boomers or millennials is too broad. Narrow it down to demographics by age, education level, income, gender, and job position.

Consider psychological behaviours and traits too. These can be opinions, interests, activities, hobbies, lifestyles, values, or personality types. For example, You may refer to Myers-Briggs or enneagrams for reference.

Provide quality content

Now that you’ve properly segmented your audience, customise your message according to each category. Carefully consider the format, writing style, tone of voice, and other aspects based on the shared traits of your target demographic.

It’s also important that you mind what you post or share on social media. Webinars and white papers might be effective for the older generation but the younger generation may appreciate tutorials and presentations more.

Illustrations and infographics are generally safe choices for media to share. However, pay special attention to the content that is inside. Stay away from any colloquialisms to avoid any misunderstandings.

How to Start LinkedIn Leads Generation Sooner

There’s no guarantee of getting leads just by being on the platform. Scoring them requires a good strategy that optimises your profile, needs active participation, and meets expectations. The tips above should guide you through that endeavour.

Effectively generating plenty of leads on LinkedIn is a lot of work, but it’s certainly doable – even for smaller businesses. If you feel overwhelmed by everything you need to do, we recommend that you outsource lead generation to the Philippines.

As an offshore staffing agency, we at Remote Workmate specialise in finding virtual workers to meet your labour needs. We’ll get you a suitable LinkedIn leads generation candidate faster than if you did the recruitment yourself.

We also provide support and client success management after you hire someone through us.