Are You ‘Doing’ LinkedIn?

 

You log into the platform.

You connect with people on here.

You post about your deal that closed, or your new listing, or some valuable content for business owners.

Then are you disappearing?

Maybe in your mind, you did your part…you checked the “Log into social media and ‘do’ marketing this week” check box.

Because what I keep seeing is brokers who…

  • Get direct messages that they don’t respond to
  • Have pending connection requests that they don’t ever accept or reject

Are you actually on LinkedIn?

Are you using some bot service to make your posts so you can avoid logging in?

Do you have a VA doing it—but only the part you are asking for (posting content) while missing out on any other value within LinkedIn?

I get it. Maybe you think people are just going to try and sell you something, so you don’t respond.

I know I do the same (however, if someone comes on too aggressively with trying to pitch me, I just remove the connection so they can’t keep at it).

If you are going to be on a platform, then BE on it.

 

Engage.

Post.

Respond to connection requests (and accept most of them…you never know who can help or who knows someone that could help).

Respond to DMs.

If you are posting, and you have less than 10,000 connections…you should treat every potential interaction, connection request, and follower like the potential gold that it is.

Want to be fully engaged on LinkedIn?

 

Here are some key activities and tips to focus on:

  1. The number of connection requests you get each week has been limited over the years. It used to have basically no limit, which means you could send tons of connection requests a week. Now the max is 100 a week for free accounts, 250 for premium/sales nav. Use it or lose it – so make sure you use all those requests each week.
  2. To include a connection message or not to include – that is the question…and the big debate. I do it pretty much each time. Many things I see say not to – that people get a higher connection rate without a message. To me, that doesn’t make sense unless you know that including a message will make them think you are a pushy salesperson who is going to pounce on them. If you offer to connect, share, or help, I vote to always include that. Pro-level – if you have a podcast and send a connection request with the offer to chat with them about being on your podcast, that will get a crazy high response rate from people who are active on the platform.
  3. Use the LinkedIn Inbox the best you can. In my opinion, the Inbox is the absolute worst feature of LinkedIn. It has always been, and unfortunately, it always will be. It can feel overwhelming and messy. It’s really easy to lose conversations. And those lost conversations could be opportunities that die on the vine like unpicked fruit. The main tip is to utilize the ‘unread’ button at the top of the inbox – use that to see all your unread ones. The key is to spend the time/effort to clear them out (which will be a struggle if you are the kind of person with 18,729 unread emails in your inbox). Then you can make a habit of going in there, clicking Unread, then catching up. This will also help you avoid missing anything. Now, if you know you aren’t on LinkedIn much, but you care about the messages you could be receiving, LinkedIn does have an ‘away message’ feature in the Inbox. At the top of the Messaging center, there are 3 dots. Click on there, and you see additional settings/options and the ability to set an ‘away message’. I have seen many people who use that more for ‘slow to respond’ with an alternative way to reach them.
  4. Maximize engagement with your top contacts. Who are the people you would put on a list of those prospect targets? Who is on your top referral partner list that you want to engage with as much as possible? As you know, each person has their own profile URL. They also have their own ‘activity’ URL. For that person you want to engage regularly with, go to their profile, scroll down, find the Activity section, then click Show All Posts. The URL at the top is static. Save that, and you can always come back to their activity section. One way to use this is to save a list of them, then make it a weekly habit (or a portion of the list daily, if it’s a really long list) to open the Activity URLs, see if there are any posts you missed, and engage with the posts. Don’t rely on the algorithm to always show you the posts by the people you want to focus on. There is a good chance the people you put on this list aren’t going viral or have their posts prioritized in your feed.

Hope that helps you get a little more out of LinkedIn while you are on there. I do have one more secret weapon that will make you stand apart from everyone else out there when it comes to engagement. DM me, and I will share it with you.

Until next time,

Jason

PS. Take the Digital Impact Assessment (free) →https://get.businessbrokergrowth.com/assessmentNL