Linkedin has over 260 million active users per month and over 575 million users in total. 40% of active users use Linkedin on daily basis. By the statistics, users spend on Linkedin only around 17 minutes per month.
So that means, you need to make an impact on them. In this guide, we will take you through on how to have your profile ready for those users who will look at your profile only for a moment, how to make them interested in you and how to generate leads from Linkedin.
We also use these guides techniques to gain new clients ourselves.
Make Your Profile Professional
Everything starts with making your profile look professional.
I have seen many profiles that look terrible without any experience added, no profile picture, no nothing.
And that's their biggest mistake.
Profile Picture
As in every social media website, your profile picture is one of the most important things. That is the first thing people see when they come to your profile.
Have a new picture taken or some that is taken recently. We suggest you take a picture that is on a white background so it looks professional.
Don’t forget to smile.
Don’t use some selfies or pictures from a distance where no one can normally see your face.
Here is an example of a good picture:
A good close-up of your face, nice and happy smile!
And here is a bad example of a Linkedin profile picture:
Can’t see clearly your face, hair in front. This kind of picture you should NOT put as a profile picture on Linkedin.
Cover Picture
The cover picture is needed to show your “authority”. You can explain in a couple words what do you do and also share other social media platforms that you are on.
Here is Neil Patel cover picture that is an amazing example on how your cover should look like:
This is just a perfect background picture and as you can see, his profile picture is professional also.
And there is everything you need to see basically. This time there are no social media, but the services he provides and it clearly states that he offers digital marketing services.
Headline
You need your profile headline just to show to your target audience why they should choose you and who you are.
There are 3 questions that your headline has to answer:
Who can you help?
What specific results do you help them achieve?
How do you do it?
And it has to be very simple to understand like:
I help A with B with Z.
And that's it! Nothing crazy and hard!
Here is mine: “I help big and small businesses increase traffic and get new clients with SEO”
By the way, a hack for you - If you use an iPhone, you can fit more characters in that field.
But don’t stuff your headline with irrelevant things. People can get confused and they will not be interested in you anymore. Our mission with this is to make them curious about you so they would look in other sections you have.
About You Section
Ok, now we are at the most important part of your profile. If you fail at this, sorry, but no leads for you.
This is your chance to write an amazing story about yourself and how you can help your potential clients with their problems.
When someone comes to your profile at first they can only see the first 2 lines of your “about” section.
Those first 2 lines should be so compelling that it makes people click on the “see more” button.
So here is what you need to include:
First part is where you talk directly to your customer. Tell them something that they already know and show that you understand that
Then in couple of sentences talk about their “pain” on how they are overwhelmed, spending a lot of money but 0 results and so on
Talk about what happens if he will not change anything but will just keep doing something that doesn't work. That he won’t grow, his business will stagnate etc
Show that you have been through these situations with other clients and yourself
Now introduce yourself. Talk about why you are doing this and how you landed up doing this
Describe how you do it, how exactly you will solve their problems
Then “call to action” - ask them to DM you on Linkedin, send you an email or even call you.
Featured
I get it, not everyone will have something to add here. But if you do, add all you can.
So if you have more than 3 then listen up.
You can add lots of it there but the first 3 matters the most. Because they are seen as the first ones.
You can add here anything like a video explanation of what you offer, why they need it and things like that. Even if you are featured in some big sites like Forbes, INC, Marketwatch or whatever big site you have in your niche. Or maybe you wrote a post for such a site - add it!
This is the Bill Gates featured section.
Experience
People always want to see what you have done in the past, for whom you worked and so on.
Add everything you have done in your niche. Probably if you, let’s say, in 2011 worked as a car dealer, then in 2012 as a SEO manager, then again in 2013 as housekeeper or anything, and if your experience looks like this throughout the years, you won’t probably land a good lead.
Only add experience that is relevant to your audience. If you are starting a digital marketing business, add experience about that. Of Course you can add where you have worked when you were young like in a Mcdonalds or whatnot but don’t mix it.
It will look like you have changed jobs all the time and no one will think that you are a good worker, because you were changing jobs and niches all the time.
Recommendations
Here is a section where you could shine a bit more in your potential clients eyes.
If you have lots of clients already that you work with or have worked in the past, ask them to leave a recommendation about you.
Accomplishments
Again, this is something that some might have and some might not have. If you have - don’t be afraid- add everything you have.
If you have done some volunteer work with kids or animals or whatever, you can add it here. If you have learned a new language, have a certificate of something.
Even if you did something years ago, still add it there. It can be useful to someone maybe.
It’s like when you find some piece of metal in your shed and think - “ok this can come in handy someday”and you leave it there. Then 10 years pass and finally that metal thing is useful for you in something.
Lead Generation With Content
So now let’s take a look at what will attract people to open your profile and eventually what will make them write to you.
Content Creation
By creating content, that’s probably the best way to reach your perfect audience and show them what you know.
The main goal by creating content is to brand yourself as an expert in your niche.
That means, you will post on your Linkedin timeline content that will prove what I said about you in the above sentences.
You can receive these kind of messages and invites to conferences just because you post interesting and useful content for them:
If they see that you know something in your niche, they will want you to participate in some of their events, some research and so on. This is how you build your brand.
Basically there is anything you can post on your Linkedin profile:
- Text post, a story about something, case study or whatever comes in mind and what will bring value to your audience
- Video post about the same things
- Anything that comes into your mind
For some video works the best, for others, text post, test everything, then you will see what works the best for you and then just continue with that.
I will show you how to write a good post. But you need to understand how your post goes viral and how people that are not connected to you can see your post.
You have 3 degrees of connection on LinkedIn:
1st Degree Connections - these are the people directly in your network
2nd Degree Connections - these are the people who are not in your network but are directly connected to your 1st-degree connections
3rd Degree Connections - these are the people who are not in your network or your 1st-degree connection’s network but are directly connected to your 2nd-degree connections
When someone in your 1st-degree connection, likes, and/or comments on your post,
your 2nd-degree connection may see your post on their LinkedIn feed.
If your 2nd-degree connection likes and/or comments on this very same post, your 3rd-degree connections may see your post.
This is how your post can potentially get a lot of reach.
My suggestion - focus on creating one quality piece of content each day, and if you
have more time, then you can focus on doing 2 or 3 posts per day and that’s fine too!
Here is how a good post looks:
Part one - Is the bait to get your audience interested in the post
Part two - That is the main story
Part three - Is the call to action
Get what I’m saying? If not then:
- Don’t write crazy long sentences, keep them simple
- Don’t write big paragraphs, it will make them crowded - people tend to scan posts and read what they like. It's easier to scan like that with their eyes
- Make the first 2-3 lines very interesting so that they click on “read more”
- Teach your audience something that they can keep in their minds and it will be useful to them
- Lead them through the experience
- Don’t use all the allowed 1300 character limits. Use around 800 or less if you can
Content Ideas
Yes, it's easy to say - create content.
But it can be pretty difficult to find something that people will be interested in.
Here are some ideas of what you can write about:
- Promote your products or services
- Client stories and their experiences
- Your philosophy about life
- What are your values
- About things that you do/offer
- About why people need something you offer (With facts)
- Write about the gains you have gotten for your clients (Case studies)
- Niche related news (Something that is new in the niche and could affect everyone)
- About your losses and wins
- Check something that is viral in your niche and write your opinion about it
- Use tools like https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/ and https://ahrefs.com/ to find new topics and keywords
- Use topic generator (Google it) to find new and interesting topics
When you finish your article that you will post it on Linkedin, read it yourself and think, if this is something that would make you interested in yourself.
Then show it to a couple of your friends, like, 2-3 and ask them if the story was interesting.
Do that before you publish it.
That way you will see the real feedback, because as we all know, friends like to say some bad things just to make you feel bad, but hey - it will make you better.
Some Things About Likes And Comments
I just want to say something to you about the comments and likes on your posts. I can assure that most of your content will not get any engagement from your readers.
But don’t worry about that. It has proven that all of those who will write to you personally on Linkedin or your email will always mention that they liked your content there and that is why they wrote to you.
99% of buyers will NEVER engage with your content!
Lead Generation - Inbound
Here the mission is simple - you engage with your prospects' content and leave a comment on their post which adds value to them and their audience.
This way the potential client might look at your profile and will think that he should add you to his network.
And that can lead you to conversation with him, that might turn into a business opportunity, referral etc.
Also leaving a comment will get the eyes of his contacts. In this way you will receive new followers and connection requests that may result in the same - conversation, business opportunities etc.
And some of them probably are a perfect client for you.
Don’t accept everyone. Just those who would be a great prospect for you. Forget that sentence - “the more connections you have the better”.
If your content will be relevant to your audience then they will start seeing you as an authority in the niche and will start engaging with you asking your opinion on things etc.
That will also show Linkedin algorithms to suggest the right people for you.
So the main lesson here is - engage as much as possible with other clients posts as you can!
Lead Generation With Outreach
By this point, I hope you have understood that there is no point of reaching out to people who are not relevant to you and you already know what audience is the best for you.
And this is what you will depend on, by sending outreaches.
There are lots of ways to approach people, but not all the things that your friend uses or anyone else, will work for you. You have to test what works the best.
I mean, the way you approach a car seller and a doctor will be different from the way you approach some companies CEO or a Vice President.
Get the idea?
So what you need to use is the search bar on Linkedin. That tool is just like no other.
With that you can target a particular industry, with a particular number of employees, particular decision maker in a company, location etc.
To open that, you just need to write some name in the search bar, hit enter and then click here:
And then “All Filters”. And you will be able to filter your audience just the way you need.
The thing is, that only 2-5% of the people might be the ones who can make a decision. That means your offer needs to be amazing that solves their problem backed by the research you have already done before contacting the person.
You need to show him that you can deal with that problem.
So here is what you do:
- Add 20-40 people each day (If someone says more then don’t it can get your account blocked, because then Linkedin will think that you are using bots)
- Once they accept your connection request, engage with their content as we talked before
- Make sure you endorse them for their 3 TOP skills. This will send a notification to them and more or less they will say thanks to you.
- Also, say “Congrats” if someone starts a new job or anything like that, even if they have their b-day. That's a great way to start a conversation with them.
- If no one is saying thank you to you then be different from others. Take your phone and send them a voice message. Yeah I'm not crazy, do it. It will make you stand out from all the other 20 people that are writing to them. This person will see that you made an effort to reach out to them and are more likely to listen to your audio than read some pile of text.
- You can even send a video message
The goal here is to start a personalized conversation with them.
What you should include in your audio or video message:
- That can be just a greeting message and ask them about some question introduce yourself in that way
- Talk about a problem that they are dealing with and tell that you want trough that also and maybe you can help them out
- Something about their content that you noticed on their Linkedin profile, compliment that and maybe say your opinion on that
- If you have some article or research done that can help them solve their problem, send it to them and in the message explain why you are doing this
Another thing that we are doing here is showing that we know this industry, that we have knowledge about that.
Conclusion
All the things written here is something all our employees use and this is also we use for our clients when we manage their accounts.
Remember, consistency is the main thing here. Post content. Relevant content, engage with people you have connected.