How to Generate Inbound Leads Using Linkedin?

A common perception prevails among social media natives that Linkedin is used only for building professional connections. There is something more beyond the scope of professional networking through Linkedin that most professionals and businesses fail to recognize and leverage. As a professional networking tool, Linkedin has all the capabilities to help you create a powerful lead database. Let’s understand how you can leverage these exciting features of Linkedin to generate more inbound leads.

Increase Your Network Strength

This is the first thing that one can do while connecting with professionals. Build first-degree connections through direct acquaintances – your friends, schoolmates, colleagues, and customers. Once you develop sizable first-degree connections, Linkedin will display a list of second-degree connections, which are the connections based upon your first-degree connections – people from the organizations you worked with, the institutes you studied, and the groups you have been affiliated with.

Here you can figure out the professionals in the second-degree connections who you think can be of future importance. Once you zero in on them, check out the professionals in your first-degree connection who are also the first-degree connections of the chosen profiles. Then you can send a request to your first-degree connection asking for a reference to connect with the desired profile. LInkedin has the inbuilt feature to send such requests to second-degree connections. Once you get connected to the profile, you can start professional interactions and discuss business interests with the new connection. These valued contacts can sometimes work as a lead for your business.

Search and Connect

Search is an extraordinary feature that Linkedin offers. You can search profiles and companies by entering the name of the person or company in the search field. While profile search can throw you many results on the same name, a combination of company (if you know) with the name can give you the precise result. Then you can connect with him/her using the methods as discussed in the previous section.

Join Groups of Your Industry

Linkedin offers the facility of joining a professional group of your interest. Some professional groups are open and you can join them instantly; however, for closed groups you need an approval from the group owner. Yet there is a limitation to the number of groups you can join. Whether you are a basic or premium user, the limit is 50. So you need to be very discrete while joining a group, else in future you have to weigh the benefits of a new group and withdraw from an old group, if you have achieved the limit.

Linkedin groups are a powerful professional community that provides features such as discussions, polls, and job postings. Here you can start a discussion or post your suggestion to an existing discussion. This is the right place to blast a message to maximum audiences of your professional/business interest. Groups can help you generate maximum response on a query posted by you. Trick here is how you respond to the query so that you can implicitly express your business needs without hurting the feelings of other members.

Manage Groups

You can also create your own group and invite users to join it. Remember owning an exciting professional group is like having a strong PR platform. What matters is the critical number of users. Linkedin by default has limit of 20,000 for number of members of a parent group. This is bit time consuming to achieve that level, but the outcome is certainly exciting. Be consistent in posting powerful discussions in your group. This will garner a lot of professional traction.

Participate in Discussions

Influence the audience by participating in discussions appropriate for your business or professional interest. While responding to any query, you can emphasize on your business interest (but with subtlety) and provide contact details for further communication. This sometimes converts to leads.

Linkedin InMail

This is a paid feature. If you are a premium user, you can avail this facility. While you contact a person through InMail, Linkedin claims that a response to your message is mostly certain.

Linkedin Ad

This is again a paid feature. You can post an ad on Linkedin and expect people respond to that ad. If you launch a new service/solution/product, you can both start a campaign by posting an ad or initiating a discussion in a specific group.

Combine the Power of Linkedin with Twitter

Linkedin provides a feature that enables you to post a comment to public on Linkedin as well as to your Twitter account audience. Once you configure Twitter in your Linkedin account, every time you post something on Linkedin, your Twitter friends can also a have a chance to view the posting.

Post Articles

Blogs or articles are not limited to a specific platform now. You can share those via social media like Linkedin. If your article is exciting, readers will definitely post their comments. This is a great way to connect with your target customers. Apart from promoting your company and products/services, you can develop an ecosystem to generate external advocacy. Linkedin editorial team also features some exciting articles written by users on Pulse. This is an icing on the cake. If your article appeals to the editorial team, you can garner a lot of traction through comments and discussions.

While these methods are used to expand your professional network and spur your professional reach, the underlying principle to succeed is getting closer to people of your business interest. When you build up rapport with these people by participating in discussions, forums, and giving feedback, you leave behind a trail of business information that might be interesting to your target customers. You never know when these activities would help you generate more powerful leads than you ever imagined. Remember, consistency is the synonym of success. Be consistent in your approach and make your presence felt by the users. Leads will automatically flow in.