Top 14 LinkedIn B2B-Social Selling Hacks

Top 14 Tips for Online Reputation Management & Social Selling on LinkedIn 

Today I was admiring some of my friends at Black Marketing, in Singapore. They are champions of LinkedIn, and B2B marketing highly interests me, I'd like to make a quick contribution to how to best utilize LinkedIn in 2016. Check out the interesting pulse articles of Anu Menon, Sofianna Ng, Paul Greenwood, the very clever Praitiwi Ng, Sharan Nanwani, among so many others on their team. This post is going to have elements of the following themes: 

#Social Selling #Online Reputation Management #LinkedIn Growth Hacking #B2B Marketing #Integrated Marketing and more...

Top Strategies for using LinkedIn in 2016 

Be a Content Creator 

1- Content Marketing, post Pulse articles frequently to stand out. See what is trending on Pulse and try to get featured. Find out what their theme is and contribute to it. If you see many articles on "Peach" fore examples are featured, then write about what's "hot"

Network Omnichannel 

2- Use LinkedIn for outreach, then find them on Twitter, and start to gain rapport via DMs. This is because in 2016, LinkedIn Mail is more full of spam than ever before, so Twitter will be a more "intimate" channel. 

Social Selling is Just Relationship Building 

3- Think of every interaction as a social selling opportunity. Diversify your interactions, comment on pulse articles, Inbox people you know, participate in LinkedIn groups, and respond to comments on your posts. 

Share Updates that Inspire - do not self-promote

4- Create Inbound leads through smart sharing of updates. Do this methodically, use a service such as Edgar or Buffer to schedule inspirational updates, not just self-promotional ones. Use images, infographics and tie them into what you do, those will go viral the most. Remember, it's algorithms and not your entire network that will have access to your updates or pulse articles. 

Do Integrated Marketing - Make a Personal Instagram that is your casual visual selfie resume 

5- Do social selling on an integrated channel basis, what does this mean? If you find a contact you are interest in, a real prospect. Google them, add them on Twitter, Instagram and anywhere else they have a presence - interact with them and follow them, not just as a LinkedIn follower (which means very little these days) but as a person across channels. They will notice this, and you can reach them as a human being and not as a target in this way. 

Optimize Short-form Content for LI - Post Frequently 

6- Create Content that's readable, LinkedIn pulse is a short form content channel, that is under 500 words is best. Don't think the occasional content is going to drive you fans, create meaningful content frequently to compete and stand out as a true story-teller and to bring value to your brand in its own right. I write daily, but weekly contribution makes sense to a lot of professionals. 

Make LinkedIn the Light at the End of your Online Identity 

7- If you are into B2B Marketing, don't just rely on LinkedIn, but make LinkedIn the CTA of your funnel, what do I mean by this? Develop other channels that lead to your LinkedIn profile. Examples of this are about.me, the Twitter link in your profile, links from your medium blog, sharing your Pulse articles on Google + (to improve SEO) and on pinterest to link your images to your articles. Diversify your inbound lead generation channels and streams. Don't think your LinkedIn has value as separate from your online reputation management as a whole. 

Facebook Notes - Medium Blog - LinkedIn Pulse (the Triad of Social Content Blogging)

8- Create a Facebook professional page, create Facebook notes there that adds to your content marketing presence online. This will give your pulse articles another kind of visibility for those that research you in more depth. 

Do Influencer Marketing 

9- Follow, imitate and improve upon influencers in your field that you respect. You can do better than them, but they can inspire you. Build relationships with them to improve your reach and find a new level of collaboration and content distribution. Growth hacking is easily done via connections, influencers have immense value in 2016. 

Re-Share, Re-Target and Distribute Content Prolifically 

10- Share your LinkedIn pulse articles often on Twitter, remember you can re-share them many times to keep creating inbound spikes in traffic, no matter how small. This is why in B2B Marketing, never do just LinkedIn or Twitter, but use them together in concert. B2B Marketing is never just about one channel, it's about creating a consistent brand and message that your audience finds valuable, educational and inspirational. To only market on LinkedIn would be to sacrifice the quality and audiences that multiple channels provide. 

Online Reputation Management - Balance Goodwill & Controversy 

11- Answer each Mail, each comment and each mention promptly, tactfully and reciprocate goodwill frequently. Being positive online is a big part of your LinkedIn profile being seen. Do this while sharing your honest opinion that may make people more curious about you. 

Be a LION 

12- Decide if you want to be a LION and expand your network accordingly according to keywords related to your industry and locations you want to target. Be as aggressive in doing this as you feel comfortable with, but be aware, it's an algorithm that decides the reach of your pulse articles that has the biggest impact on views of your profile per day. 

Support, Collaborate, Inspire 

13- Empower others, decide that self-promotion belongs to the old world. Instead, focus on helping others, creating educational content and actively supporting other people. This will align your online reputation with a more authentic branding tone, which if you don't come by it natural, is something easy to do. Being a helpful person online matters, because kindness spreads and warms the outreach of actual social prospecting that can turn professional more easily than otherwise. 

Stand Out and do some Millennial Marketing 

14- Be Professional, but remember as Millennials come on to LinkedIn, they will expect more authenticity and less corporate blah-blah. Don't be afraid to break 40+ LinkedIn etiquette, to prepare for what LinkedIn will become. As such, integrate your Millennial marketing tactics in A/B tests on LinkedIn. We know that LI is primary a 40+ Male audience, however, that doesn't mean #hashtags are not useful, or video content is not appropriate, or quotes are not appropriate. Break the rules, if it serves your purpose.