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The Biggest Mistake To Avoid On LinkedIn

INTRODUCTION

The thing to remember about LinkedIn and any other social media site is that you’re interacting with a LIVE human being on the other side of the computer screen. Not a robot, interaction is key. Successful marketing is about providing value FIRST.

PERSONALISE

How many times have you received a message in your LinkedIn inbox that you KNOW was automated? A hundred other people got the same message, and frankly, it lacked any sort of personalization.

Based on our experience there are far more elegant ways you can use to get your product and service across without pushing your agenda or coming across salesy.

1. EMAIL MESSAGE

Instead of sending generic messages, take a moment to study the profile of the person you plan on starting a dialogue with. Try to get a feeling of who they are and what they value. Then write an email message with a couple of sentences relevant to them and their interests.

Not only is this very relevant but it shows them you’ve taken the time to share something very personal and targeted to their current role. In turn this will start the relationship and trust building process.

If done correctly, this can result in more business conversations, meetings and presentations.

2. SHARE YOUR EXPERTISE

Sharing your expertise with others on LinkedIn is an easy way to add value whilst helping you to increase your engagement with your contacts, your followers, and even people outside of your network.

Sharing news, insights, job tips, and other useful information via a status update will put you in front of your network. Studies show that status updates lead to high engagement rates.

Below we’ve listed a few ideas you can share within your updates:

SHARE LINKS

Share links to interesting articles, websites or videos. Use words that grab your reader’s attention and encourage them to click on those links. The links you provide don’t necessarily have to be to articles you’ve written, as long as they add value to your network.

If majority of your network are accountants it would make sense to share links to articles, reports or info-graphics that highlight key insights in the accounting industry rather than general articles on business.

MENTIONS

Mention a person or situation that might be helpful to some of your connections. For instance, “I just met with @johnsmith from @ABC Accounting and found out they’ve just won the award for coolest company in Australia.” The “@” before an individual or company name allows the reader to click through to that person’s LinkedIn profile or company page.

SHARE

Share upcoming events, trade shows or conferences you’re attending and encourage your contacts to join you or simply ask the question on who else will be attending. I’ve done this on many occasions and in the lead up to the event secured a few meetings with key partners and journalist.

3. PUBLISH ARTICLES

The LinkedIn publishing platform gives you the opportunity to expand your reach in a major way. Since all LinkedIn members have access to the platform, it’s critical for you to create high-quality content that differentiates you from the crowd.

Every time you write an article, your connections and followers will receive a notification on their profile that you’ve written a blog. If your headline is catchy and relevant enough they will click through and read your article.

BENEFITS OF PUBLISHING

The publishing platform matches your blog topic with users who share an interest in that particular vertical. Every post you write and publish is distributed to the news feed of your current connections. Sharing quality content is crucial whether it’s a matter of increasing influence or SEO purposes.

If your contacts like the article and decide to share that on LinkedIn or Twitter, those who aren’t connected with you may like your work that much that they end up  “FOLLOWING” you to receive more posts.

Additionally, published articles are searchable when people use the post search box.  So, if you use the right keywords, your article could be easily found in a Google or LinkedIn advanced search.

4. BUILD SOCIAL PROOF

And last but not least, you have the recommendation feature within your LinkedIn profile, something that it is commonly overlooked by many LinkedIn members we speak with. This is by far the most powerful feature to use on LinkedIn when you’re looking to build credibility, trust and authority on your subject matter within your profile.

As your contact list grows and your contacts turn into clients, you will get to know them little by little.  

In the meantime, start contacting your existing clients and ask them for recommendations using the tips below:

TARGETED RECOMMENDATIONS

Never ask for a recommendation for the sake of adding more to your LinkedIn profile. When you’re asking for recommendations it’s important to think about the most common objections you normally face, the number challenge your product or service solves for your target market and what makes you unique in the market place.

MAKE IT EASY

Make it as easy as possible for your connection to give you a recommendation. If you know a particular contact well and they are a good client of yours, write up the recommendation for them and send it through for their approval.

Let them know that it is only a draft and if they don’t like it they can replace the entire copy with their own version. Obviously, only write based on the results you’ve achieved for them.

AUTHENTICITY

And finally stay away from tacky and unethical recommendation tactics where someone you don’t know promises to write you a recommendation if you write one back.

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve received an email from someone in our network suggesting that we should give each other a recommendation even though we have never done business.

These are not people we want to do business with let alone recommend.

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