For years, marketers have been growing their personal networks through attending business events, joining local industry groups, and mutual friends. Then, LinkedIn came along and changed everything.
When did LinkedIn become such an important place for the B2B marketer, and why?
Picture Facebook’s early algorithms circa 2012 or so. Individuals and businesses had free range to promote content and receive plentiful organic exposure, without needing to worry about an algorithm burying their posts or sponsoring content in order to be seen. While Facebook eventually evolved its algorithm to the sponsored format we see today, LinkedIn is still in the budding stages reminiscent of early Facebook, where organic content shines.
Thanks to this easy spotlight, LinkedIn is actively helping B2B enterprise marketers establish rapport with their target audience, get more industry exposure (without having to pay for it!), and build up a following who value their expertise. An added bonus is that LinkedIn provides up-to-date job titles, locations, and company size, so that conversations can easily spark. It’s a great starting point to understanding your total market size and the perfect place to start a real dialogue with relevant industry players.
Let’s take a look at how B2B marketers are leveraging LinkedIn to grow their personal networks, and how Demand Frontier’s LookBack Tool can help you achieve a new way of networking.
How Successful Marketers Use LinkedIn To Their Advantage
Unfortunately, all too many executives looking to grow their network make the same mistake: They create a templated introduction message and send the same canned message to dozens of potential contacts.
Not too surprisingly, this “spray and pray” method does not get anyone the results they’re looking for. Users who personalize their InMail messages over sending canned solicitations see a 15% increase in responses. That’s because when it comes to LinkedIn, you’ve got to put in the work.
The most successful networkers on the site do a few things differently: They spend time actually reading people’s posts and creating valuable content, they tag relevant players and companies when they write their own posts, and they value the quality of their posts over the quantity. At the same time, they commit to consistency with their brand’s content strategy, and finally, they create genuine outreach messages to contacts with whom they want to have real conversations and connections.
If you begin following these steps, it’s only a matter of time until your network starts responding positively. Even more exciting: There’s a new tool that can help you achieve this type of success on LinkedIn even more quickly and effectively.
Imagine you’re at a bar and make eye contact with someone from across the room. You’ve found someone of interest – just as you would using our List Magician tool – but you still need to make the first move.
Our new LookBack Tool gives you that opportunity to start the conversation. It works by navigating to profiles of interest identified by the List Magician and automates the views of those profiles. This subtle move encourages users of interest to view your profile in return, allowing them to explore your recent content and start a conversation. By automating the views, the LookBack Tool helps you make more “eye contact” than you ever possibly could on your own, aiding you in your targeted outreach efforts on a mass scale. This is the first step in an entire process designed to simplify your unique targeted outreach strategy, saving your team valuable time and resources.
This method is simple, easy and cost-effective. If you’re interested in learning how the LookBack Tool can elevate your personal network, contact us today!
