Relationship management on LinkedIn

Getting your profile optimised is only the first step in getting LinkedIn to deliver business leads.  A good profile will definitely attract more people and engage them, but if you really want LinkedIn to bring you business, you need to be proactive.

Step 1: Sort out your contacts.  It's not a numbers game - the first thing you need to do is to look at your existing contacts.

Do they match your ideal client profile?
If not, are they possible suppliers or joint venture partners or advocates?

Use LinkedIn's relationship tab to categorise your clients.

This appears on each of your contacts' profiles (but you can't see it on your own) and provide you with the option to keep track of your relationship.  If you do nothing else use the tag option to categorise each contact.  

The list is already populated with the same options that you find when you request a connection and the LinkedIn system asks 'How do you know X?' and provides a tick-box list.  But you can add your own tags.  My recommendation is that you do a bit of forward planning and work out how you'd like your connections organised - by job title, by industry, by where you met, by location - and create those tags to make tagging easy as you start using this facility.

You can add more than one tag to a contact's profile, so they'll appear in each list you've tagged them for.  This means that you can message sections of your contact data-base with relevant information - not spammy sales messages, of course!  For instance:

• If you're attending an event in their area suggest meeting them there
• If you've read a blog of interest to a particular segment send them the link and why you think they'd like it
• If you've published a post that is relevant tell them about it
• If you've got an offer that you think would be a good fit then tell them about it - but be careful that it's focused accurately for the group and consider how you phrase the message.

If you haven't done this and you have a lot of contacts then it's easier to work through batches from the Connections area.  All your contacts are in one place and you can filter them by 'New' and then work backwards.  As you hover over each profile avatar you'll see the option to Tag or Message them.

Get into the habit of tagging new contacts when you accept the connection request.

Better relationships

When you ask second level contacts to become direct connections LinkedIn asks how you know them - and then provides a standard message:

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

If you use this you're really saying 'I can't be bothered writing a personal message.'  I have my own personal piece of text that I drop in here.  

I find LinkedIn really useful to talk business-to-business - it would be good to get connected and hope that we'll both benefit! 

It's more personal and gets better responses.  I recommend that when you accept contact requests you also send them a message and open the conversation.  So few people do this that it immediately sets you apart - and gets you remembered.

This is just the start of building relationships and when you've got your contacts organised it will be much easier to develop them.

LinkedIn to get attention

If you're selling business-to-business (B2B) LinkedIn is a powerful platform - but only if you invest some time and effort in setting it up to work for you.  What does that mean?

Your profile needs to tick two boxes:

• It needs to be found when people carry out searches for your key skills
• It needs to get people's attention when they visit and keep them engaged for long enough to understand the benefits of working with you.

To turn up in searches you will need to optimise your profile.

• Ensure that your professional headline includes two or three of your core skills.

• Use the summary section to present your company services (and/or products) in an attractive way, highlighting the core deliverables with keywords.

• Rewrite your experience so that each position contributes keywords to your current deliverables wherever possible.

• Review the list of endorsements and select only the ones that are your specialisms and remove the rest.  This will position you as an expert rather than a generalist.

This makes your profile much more focused and full of  keywords and relevant content.

To engage the human reader you'll need to:

• Your professional headline should include a statement that helps your ideal client to recognise themselves.  (Mine says 'Helping time-poor entrepreneurs to communicate with impact')  If they see something that looks like it relates to them most people will explore further.

• Use headlines and eye-hooks (graphics like stars or diamonds) in the summary section to keep the reader engaged and draw their attention to key pieces of information.

• Position your previous experience to highlight transferable skills.  People aren't interested in a list of the tasks you used to carry out, but are more likely to find relevant achievements, projects you've delivered and contracts you won useful to give them an idea of your energy and drive.

• Ask your clients to write recommendations for your current role so you have plenty of third party validation. 

These are all things that keep people engaged and give them information that's of interest TO THEM.

Visible and Memorable

Almost everyone is connected up via one online platform or another.  If you want to know something most people reach for their phone, tablet or computer, not for a book or magazine.  Information is freely available - and there's so much of it, it's impossible for anyone to keep up with everything.

We get so much information by email, social media, blogs and websites that very little actually sticks.  We're consumers and we scan and skip online - there simply isn't time to do anything more in depth - until we find the specific thing we're looking for.

Our brains are becoming wired differently.  Instead of reading and digesting, our eyes race down the text looking for specific words.  So, if I'm looking for 'widgets' and I'm faced with a page of writing on screen my brain and eyes will be programmed to skip over anything that doesn't say 'widgets'.

It's a bit like being in a room full of people all chatting away - if someone says your name on the other side of the room your brain will register that.  You won't hear the conversation, just that very familiar sound of your name.  It will stand out from all the other conversations going on around you.  It's the way our brains work and it's useful when you're searching for something specific - but from the other side of the coin, it means that people are not reading your message the way you'd like them to.

So how do you get people's attention long enough to get them to engage?

The first step is to be very clear about who your message is for.  The more specific you can be about your ideal audience, the better you'll be able to create the content they want to read.

So, step two is about knowing what is important to your ideal audience.  What are they keen to find out?  What are they really interested in?  What gets them excited?  What problems are they experiencing that you can solve?

Step three is to know where these people 'hang out'.  Which social media do they use?  Which forums are they active in?  What do they already read?

Step four is to put together your plan - what do you want to achieve?  What tools can you use to succeed?  It will include the answers to all the questions in the first three steps and then creating the content that will fit the profile you've created and then delivering it.

Using social media, blogs and other online tools is more than simply a means of connecting with a large network, it's about being visible - not just today, but every day, consistently and congruently.  If you deliver high value content regularly you'll not only be visible, but people will actively look for your posts.