LinkedIn for B2B sales

6 Ways I Use LinkedIn for B2B sales

Although it may be the least glamorous social media platform out there, LinkedIn, is the best for B2B sales. I use LinkedIn for B2B sales every day at work to help me stay connected with contacts, keep top of mind, reinforce subject matter expertise, and for researching target accounts. Here are some of the different ways I use LinkedIn for B2B Sales.

 

Connecting with New Contacts

After meeting new contacts through email or at an event, I connect right away. For me this is a great way to stay in contact with customers, prospects and partners. The percentages of connection to requests is very high for people I have met or will be meeting. I don’t often connect with people I don’t know, unless we have a big overlap in connections or focus. Also I take the added step of including a note before pressing send. This way, you not only could refresh someone’s memory but it is a great way to open up conversation.
 

Posting and Sharing Updates

One of the best ways to use LinkedIn for B2B sales is to post and share updates regularly. This helps keep you top of mind and reinforce subject matter expertise with customers and prospects alike. At VA Partners we have a team member post a mix of our content and 3rd party content to the company LinkedIn page. This makes it easy to share already formatted posts. I would also share or like other posts that I found interesting and would appeal to my connections. A share is more valuable than a like, so for your own or more important content consider a share.
 

Interacting with Others

There is nothing worse on social media than a person that just shares or promotes their own content…and only their own content. It is important you don’t forget about the social in social media. Look for opportunities to provide comments, answer questions, and like/share posts. One of the other things I often look for is when contacts appear to be between jobs, a kind word of encouragement or helping with a connection can go a long way.
 

Research

 
LinkedIn has consistently been one of our top B2B sales research tools. It can be used a number of ways from look for 2nd connections for intros, finding the right contact for a prospecting effort, and better understanding target customers. Over the years LinkedIn has reduced the functionality of the free accounts, but there is still good information there.
 

inMail

 
inMail is a great tool for cold intros. This is a paid service, but can be valuable. In the past I have had great success with inMail when I was able to identify the perfect target and send a tailored message. Look for common connections when you reach out through inMail. I have found that the response rate is at least as good and often better than cold emails.
 

LinkedIn Navigator

 
As LinkedIn changed their plans and the search functionality it became necessary for our team to get LinkedIn Navigator. It is an extremely powerful tool for searches with many different filter settings. You can select industry, size of organization, job title, words in their bio, and much more.
 
If you would like to talk about sales tactics and strategies for your growing organization please contact me.
 

6 Ways I Use LinkedIn for B2B sales