What is the first word that comes to your mind when we say LinkedIn? Job? Employment? Well, these are the common phenomena that LinkedIn is mostly associated with. It is perhaps the most popular forum for job seekers and job providers. However, it does not imply that this platform is solely dedicated to and effective for job related concerns. On the contrary, LinkedIn is quite a valuable tool for lead generation in the B2B arena.
Believe It Or Not!
The following facts vindicate the popularity and success of LinkedIn among B2B social media marketers:
- According to HubSpot, LinkedIn generates the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate of about 2.74% which is about three times more than that generated by Facebook and Twitter. The same survey suggests that LinkedIn is about 277% more successful at lead generation than the other two mentioned social media forums.
- LinkedIn redirects almost four times more users to companies’ homepages than Facebook and Twitter.
- Of all the leads generated through different social media forums for B2B marketers, more than 80% come from LinkedIn.
- Discussion groups play a major role in lead generation. About 96% of posts in these groups result in profitable leads.
- While only six percent of all the LinkedIn posts made by B2B marketers are published on their respective company pages, more than ten percent of the leads are created from them.
Now that you know how important and valuable LinkedIn is for generating leads, here is how you can actually do it. Following are a few tips and ways that can help you make the most out of LinkedIn for generating leads for your business.
Q & A
This is one of the most effective ways to promote your brand and generate leads. Sometime back, there was a section on LinkedIn called “LinkedIn Answers”. It was a page where LinkedIn members could post their queries and other members used to answer them. This feature is no longer available; however, it hinted at a great way of generating leads for B2B marketers.
You can post different questions that do not necessarily have to be about your brand. It could be about anything, a recent happening in the economy, a popular political or sport event or any other topic that you think may capture the interest of your target audience.
You can also encourage other users to post any question that they may have in their mind, or that they may want to talk about. Asking questions and providing answers initiates healthy professional discussions which in turn results in lead generation.
The Q & A technique may sound quite easy to you; however, it is a bit tricky to handle as well. Make sure you are an expert in whatever topic you intend to talk about. Most importantly, be very thorough in your answers. The information that you are giving away in your answers must be genuine and authentic.
Remember, your intention should be to answer the particular user’s query and not promote your product. Do the former earnestly and it will pave roads for the latter. Here is a handy tip for you to track answers of interest and importance – create RSS feeds for the particular sections, and then follow the new questions with the help of your favorite RSS feeder tool.
Groups
If you are planning to make the most of LinkedIn for generating leads, joining groups is a must for you. It is perhaps the most important and effective way of promoting your brand and getting leads for your business.
The attraction behind joining groups is that it allows you to interact with people that are not even part of your LinkedIn network. You can communicate with all those who are members of your group, regardless of whether or not you are directly connected to them on LinkedIn.
The best thing about joining these groups is that you get to interact with concerned people and potential clients. That being said, there is no doubt about the fact that joining groups on LinkedIn is a must strategy for you. However, it does not mean that you join the first group that comes your way.
This is the tricky part here. Since you are allowed to join a limited number of groups (about fifty), make sure you join the ones that you think will provide maximum benefit to your business. Browse through the Groups Directory or you can use the Search Groups feature.
Here is another tip: If you plan to expand your exposure and scope, join a couple of groups that are outside your field of work. For example, if you are running a beauty salon, joining groups of international fashion shows, cosmetic trade shows and other such groups can help you grow your business.
Facts to Remember
Here are a few more facts that will help you devise your B2B lead generation campaign on LinkedIn.
- One out of every three posts that are converted contains a question mark (?) in the subject line of the underlying post.
- The average length of a converted post on LinkedIn is 248 characters.
- LinkedIn is more used during weekdays and working hours whereas Facebook and Twitter are normally more crowded during weekends and after working hours.
- Normally, the leads for B2B marketers are converted at 14:00 hours.
- Try to make at least 20 unique and interesting posts per month. This can help you reach about sixty percent of your target audience.
- LinkedIn is more popular among men and those who are freshly out of high school and universities.
Summing Up…
There are an uncountable number of tools and features on LinkedIn that you can use to generate leads for your business. The more you explore LinkedIn, the more ways you will find to increase your lead conversion rate.
Just remember one thing: Stay Focused! It is very easy to start browsing and then exploring extraneous things and wasting time without even realizing it. Keep your goal in mind always while working on LinkedIn.
From MavSocial | Complete Visual Content Management & Social Publishing Software
