A recent study revealed that of all B2B leads generated through social media over 80% came through LinkedIn.  It offers business professionals a great opportunity expand their professional business network through search, group discussions, direct mail, targeted advertising and much more.

There are a number of direct and indirect ways to generate leads from LinkedIn and here are five to get you started:

1. Optimise the personal profiles of team members

It is important to ensure the personal profiles of team members, particularly the company’s leadership team, are optimised. Expertise and experience of the team must be highlighted on their profiles to show the range and depth of skills within the business:

• Individual team members’ work history should be complete and up-to-date. Visitors to the page should be able to easily see the person’s background and relevant experience.
• Use an informative headline that goes beyond just the job title and company. Create a headline that tells the reader who they are as a professional beyond what the title says.
• Avoid generic wording of responsibilities but use descriptive examples of what they do. Use an active voice rather than a passive voice.
• Ask for recommendations from current and former colleagues as well as clients. Reading what a former client has to say carries more weight than what people say about themselves.
• Use an appropriate, professional photo.  Not one with your kids or at a party; profile photos that look unprofessional are 
• If senior executives at your company don’t have the time to update their profile themselves, do it for them. A strong executive leadership presence on LinkedIn can be just as important as the company page itself.

2. Join Groups

LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups.  One of the keys to expanding your network is to join as many relevant groups as possible.  One of the biggest mistakes people make is only to join their industry specific groups.  To effectively use LinkedIn you should join groups that are specific to your target clients.  For example, if you are targeting professional services companies such as lawyers and accountants you should join their industry specific groups. When reviewing groups pay attention how many members are in the group and how active it is; it may not be worthwhile if the numbers are small and no-one is contributing.  When you are a member of a group you can send message to other members for free rather than having to send an InMail which is a good reason to join 50 groups. Participate in discussions with helpful information and include links to your blog or other relevant articles.  This will help position you are a ‘helpful expert’ and widen the reach to your target audience.

3.  Utilise the advanced people search

In ‘Advanced Search’ facility will help narrow down your target audience.  Criteria like ‘company size’ and ‘seniority level’ means you only target those companies and decision makers you are interested in. Another useful source of connections is the ‘who’s viewed your profile’ tool which also provides details of how they found your profile and what type of keywords they used when searching.

4. Optimise your LinkedIn company page

Creating a company page is becoming an increasingly popular tool for marketers to engage with their networks, generate leads and showcase their products.  To make the most it this you should:

• Create a helpful “Company Overview” description, with the most important info at the top.
• Post news and blogs from your company to show your expertise and how up-to-date you are with current affairs and industry best practice.
• Add ‘Company Specialties’ (or keywords) to help your company get found for specific terms to make sure your company appears in relevant searches.
• Get team members to join company page and post updates in line with your content strategy.

5. Use LinkedIn sponsored updates

The advice from LinkedIn on best practice for updates is:

• The audience size that works best is 300,000 – 1 million.
• Your “intro” text (the text you enter manually before any link) would be concise and compelling, with a call to action!
• Include several different updates within each campaign
• Shut off low performing updates within 48 hours
• Make sure targeting matches content
• Make sure to bid within the provided suggested range

I am running the Chamber’s LinkedIn Masterclass on Tuesday 30th of June. For further information and to book please view here.