Every time you post a piece of content that no one engages with (e.g. product content usually gets very low engagement), the social media platform’s algorithm learns that users don’t like your content.

As a result, the algorithm will show your next post to less people, so your opportunities for engagement have now decreased.
Thus, your 2nd post will most likely get less engagement than your 1st post.

The algorithm will now show your 3rd post to even LESS people, which will further decrease your opportunities for engagement.
And this keeps going and going in vicious downward spiral, so that posts that used to get 1,000s of views, now get 100s of views (or less)!

Unfortunately, I’ve seen many companies go down this path by consistently posting product-based content. You can see their engagement dramatically decrease quickly and then you just don’t see their posts at all anymore because the algorithm has learned not to show it to you.


So, how do you avoid this? Post content that will add value to your target audience!


Solve their pain points, give free tips and content and information they can’t get elsewhere. When you do talk about your company, talk about DEI initiatives or things you are doing to help local communities.

The focus your content should be about THEM, your target audience, and what will add value to their lives.

If you do that, you will get more views and engagement, and generate more awareness and more business opportunities as a result.

Some quick profile tips to help you get a larger viewership on LinkedIn

The first thing people check is your LinkedIn profile when you reach out, so it has to sing. In your profile, show you are smart, trustworthy, and an industry expert, and entice them to learn more (but don’t pitch).

Your target audience = potential clients + centers of influence. Ensure your profile is written with them in mind.

Use keywords that are searched for often in your field. Use Google Trends to compare search terms (e.g. “sales professional” vs. “sales representative”).

Section-by-section tips:

– Headline: Describe what you do + value you provide (instead of just your title)

– Contact info: Use your work email and phone number

– About: Describe who you are, what you do, and what value you provide in detail

– Experience: Be factual and write from the perspective of a potential client (without being sales-y). Include major accomplishments with data

– Volunteering, Organizations, Publications: Include all of these – they are great conversation starters and show your human side

#SocialMedia #Sales #Marketing

1. You meet them in-person.

Don’t give a key contact a chance to forget you.

For example, if you are at a conference, regardless of how late you get back each night from dinner or drinks at the hotel bar, open up LinkedIn, grab the stack of business cards you got that day, and send each one an invitation to connect. At the conference where I was a speaker 2 weeks ago, I used this strategy and got 16 acceptances to 16 invites.

2. They’ve engaged with your content.

They have shown an interest in what you have to say, but if they liked your content, they probably liked other content as well, so proximity again here is key. Within 3 days of their like/comment/share, send them an invitation to connect thanking them for their like/comment/share, tell them you would love to connect to share ideas/referrals/something back and forth.

Remember, it’s all about them, so make sure mention the value to them to connecting (without selling).

3. A mutual connection has given you a warm introduction. If this happens, send an invite within 2-3 days. Anything longer, and the person might forget who you are or why you reached out.

Recently, LinkedIn asked me (since “you’ve been posting some great stuff on LinkedIn” – wow, pretty cool!) what trends I see for 2019.

My answer: MORE

Strategy-level:

MORE mobile, digital, social and more data-driven and customer-centric decision-making and experimentation with innovations like AI and AR.

Tactics:

MORE social selling. I get so many spam calls, I don’t budge when my phone rings now, and I get so much spam email that I only view my Focused folder in Outlook. Social media will go from a “nice to have” to a “must have” for sales + business development.

MORE creativity with advertising. TV and traditional display ads get less eyeballs by the second. Companies will get more and more creative with advertising. For example:

• “In-game” TV ads – so you can’t DVR past them – that appear during sporting events today. These will become more prevalent,
• Ads on voice technology like Alexa – or even sponsored results, which gets dicey because you wouldn’t know if it’s the “best” answer or a sponsored answer
• “Anti-beacons” like Burger King’s new Whopper campaign. I’ve never understood why mall stores don’t have anti-beacons set up for their competitors’ stores. If I’m running Gap, I’m sending someone an offer every time they walk into H&M.
• Ads inside of video games – Roblox already does this. I saw an Aquaman movie ad on the wall of a building inside my son’s Xbox game recently. Integrated video game advertising!
• As automatic cars start to take off, how long will it be before we start seeing ads on our windshields?

MORE automation, and not always in a good way. Everyone wants to automate everything in marketing and sales, but many companies lack processes to support the automation, so they end up spamming the heck out of people, or they never follow-up outside of their automated sends, and thus, miss opportunities.

MORE video. As video comprises more and more of the internet’s content, everyone will be doing video in 2019. Facebook and LinkedIn already favor video over all other content. Those that are reluctant to do video in 2018, will be forced to do it in 2019 to sustain their current reach.

This will be an exciting year with a lot of big leaps forward in marketing in sales. It will be fun to watch it all unfold!

1.  To spend more time with my family
2.  To work with a variety of exciting clients
3.  To HELP people, especially non-profits.

So, I looked back over the past year. This year we were able to:

• Work with 23 clients including 3 Fortune 500s
• Help 4 non-profits make a real difference in their communities
• Set 5 start-ups companies up for success in both the short-term and the long-term
• Give away a lot knowledge that will help a lot of people via content and speaking events

And at the same time, I was able to:

• Pick my kids up from school almost every day
• Coach my sons’ soccer team (not once, but twice – including an all-star game)
• Take family vacations (plural – you can’t do that in corporateland!)

THOSE are the things that matter to me. Thus, I’m calling this year a landslide success.

Maybe you should too.

I’m not saying rest on your laurels, but I am saying to appreciate the good times – they don’t always last for long.

And most importantly, there are more important things than revenue.

Words matter. For example, “financial advisor” is searched for 10x more than “financial professional.”) When your team writes LinkedIn profiles, websites and sales materials, use words your prospects typically use. This will allow you to get found and be more easily understood.

Other surprising results:

• “Sales” 70x more than “business development” – no one wants to say they do sales, but you are much more likely to be found if you do
• “Innovation” 2x more than “innovative” – craft your content to use that tense instead
• “Strategy” 50% more than “strategies”
• “Online” 10x more searches than “digital” – an oldie, but a goodie
• “Digital marketing” 10x more searches than “online marketing” – but not when it comes to marketing
• “SEM” 20x more than “search engine marketing” – abbreviate this one
• “SEO” 15% more than “search engine optimization” – this one doesn’t matter at much
• “Social media” 80x more than “social networks” – it may not be grammatically correct at times, but using “social media” will get you found more
• “Facebook” 80x more than “social media” – if you are talking about Facebook, say “Facebook”

Want to run some searches on your own? Check our Google Trends (https://trends.google.com) to do comparisons between 2 or more words or phrases.

Since LinkedIn introduced articles, more and more LinkedIn users are writing them. They are a great way to provide value to your connections, and help establish yourself as a thought leader. Many LinkedIn users are still sitting on the sidelines, though.

I’ve suggested posting LinkedIn articles to many of my connections. However, some are reluctant because they are afraid of putting themselves out there (or afraid of compliance). I gave a friend of mine some tips last week, and I thought I would share them with you as well to make it easier for you.

Step 1: Have an objective in mind.

We are not writing for writing’s sake. Your 10-page X-Files fan faction is great, but it’s not necessarily right for LinkedIn. Think about who your target audience is, and what you want your personal brand to be. What do you want to be to that audience? A trusted partner? A disruptor?

Answering your objective will help you determine what you want to write, as well as how you want to write it (e.g. challenging vs. helping).

Step 2: Write your article.

This is 95% of the work. Pick a topic you that you know a good deal about, and will accomplish your objective. Then, write a few paragraphs about it. Remember to keep your target audience in mind – what do they know about this topic already? What information would be helpful? Where do you need to push the envelope?

Nothing is more challenging to read on your phone than
20-line paragraphs.

Step 3: Make it easy to read.

Your article doesn’t have to be War and Peace, and in fact, should probably be less than 1,000 words. A majority of LinkedIn articles are read on mobile devices, so keep that in mind when you are writing – keep it short and get to the point quickly.

Nothing is more challenging to read on your phone than 20-line paragraphs. Keep paragraphs to 3-4 sentences maximum.

Break up your copy with bulletpoints, callouts, or in a list format, so it’s easier for users to read. Many readers will scan the text and look for signals to stop like bolded text, bulletpoints, callouts (e.g. the “Nothing is more challenging…” callout above) or numbers.

Step 4: Make it compelling.

This is a blog piece, not a dissertation, so find ways to keep your readers interested like quotes, embedded video that tells your story, or an image that illustrates a point you’ve made such as this one from ComScore about mobile device usage:

Step 5: Summarize what you have said

Even if the user reads nothing else, give them 2-3 key takeaways at the bottom of the article. If the reader is simply scanning the article, this may be the only thing he/she reads, and that’s okay. They will have gotten the gist of the article, and you will have accomplished your objective.

Step 6: Have a call to action

You don’t have to have a giant, toll-free number inserted 10 times into your article. However, you do want to give the reader the ability to easily follow-up with you. I usually add this to the end of the piece.

Don’t go too far, though, and have a link every third word about great pieces you have written before (see how annoying that is). I find it frustrating to read an article that is 50% promotions about previous articles.

Step 7: Don’t overthink it

I wrote this article in 20 minutes. Again, it’s not War and Peace.

• Make sure it makes sense
• Make sure it sounds professional
• Correct grammatical issues
• Find and image
• Post it

(Note: If you are financial services, add “run it by compliance first” to that list).

Don’t ask 15 people to edit it before you post. Remember, if worse comes to worse, LinkedIn has an “edit article” button, which allows you can make changes to the piece after you post it.

Step 8: Find a key image

Each article has an image at the top of the page. Yours should represent your article, and also be eye-grabbing. Images of people usually tend to grab people’s attention.

Another, more risky route is to use something that people don’t normally see. I once used two apples for a post because I was talking about the need for an apples-to-apples comparison when measuring data. Nobody clicked on it. I don’t recommend using an apple image!

You don’t have to have a giant, toll-free number inserted 10 times into your article. However, you do want to give the reader the ability to easily follow-up with you.

Step 9: Think of a lead-in

When you post a LinkedIn article, you have the option to write a lead-in just like you do when you share someone’s else’s post. Use this to write something that will entice people to read the article (but stop short of sounding like click-bait).

Step 10: Tell people about it

Everyone has strong advocates in their networks, energize those advocates by letting them know you posted a new article, and ask them what they think. Your frequent engagers will be happy to share your piece. Offer to share feedback on their work as well.

Remember, if worse comes to worse, LinkedIn has an “edit article” button with which you can edit the piece after you have posted it.

Key takeaways:

• Have an objective
• Write about something you know
• Make it easy to read on mobile
• Don’t overthink it
• Tell people about it

About the author

Robert Knop is Founder and CEO of Assist You Today, a company dedicated to helping organizations GAIN + RETAIN clients using digital strategy and social media. He’s a proud member of the Wave3 network of consultants, and always happy to talk strategy, digital and social selling. To learn more about how to evolve your marketing and sales approaches for the digital age, reach out anytime at 323.972.3566.

Photo: jseliger2

Since the launch of the new LinkedIn user interface, users have lamented that the Advanced Search is gone, it only exists in Sales Navigator now, and you have to pay for it.

I was upgraded to the new user interface last night, and I noticed something interesting: Advanced search isn’t gone.

The “Advanced” button that used to be next to the search bar is gone. That’s true:

OLD top nav:

NEW top nav:

However, you can still do advanced searches in regular LinkedIn. They are just more integrated into the regular search functionality.

To start, type what you are searching for in the search bar. For example, if I wanted to find VPs of Marketing at Wells Fargo in the St. Louis area. I would start by searching for “Wells Fargo,” waiting a second, and then clicking “People who work at Wells Fargo” from the possible options. Here are the results I get:

Okay, so 394,392 results. If I’m looking to find, connect, and start a relationship with VPs at Wells Fargo in St. Louis, that is an unmanageable number.

However, if you look on the right side of the page, you will see many of the filters you used to see in Advanced Search. They’re not gone, they have just been moved.

So, I will filter by 1^st and 2^nd for Connections, the Greater St. Louis area as Location, Wells Fargo as the Current Company, and finally, Financial Services or Marketing and Advertising as the Industry. (Note: you can also filter on Profile language, Nonprofit interests and schools).

Once I add these filters, here’s what I see:

Now, we are down to 170 results. That’s muuuuuch better. If I needed to, I could review this list one-by-one and find those VPs that are in Marketing roles, but that would be time-consuming.

The biggest challenge is that the title filter is no longer available in the regular version of LinkedIn. With the new LinkedIn interface, it’s only available in Sales Navigator.

BUT…actually, that’s not entirely true. If you click on “Structuring your search,” LinkedIn gives you helpful tips on how to write your search queries:

The page overlay that appears shows you how to do complex searches…in the regular version of LinkedIn, AND YOU CAN STILL SEARCH BY TITLE!!

(Here is the URL for that page: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/76015  – note: besides that page there are also a lot of other helpful tips in that same section of LinkedIn Help)

So, let’s start over. With this new information, I would type my search like this:

title: (VP OR Vice President) AND company: “Wells Fargo”

Here are my initial results:

My new initial results set is a much smaller number (29,209 vs. 394,392), and they are all VPs, meaning: I JUST SEARCHED BY TITLE IN THE NEW LINKEDIN USER INTERFACE!

Now, if I run the same filters I ran before, my results look like this:

I could trim this further with more advanced Boolean searches (e.g. exclude Assistant Vice President and Senior Vice President), but even without doing that, I’m down to 86 opportunities, which gets me much closer to my target audience.

My advice: I always recommend that my clients upgrade to Sales Navigator. I’ve been using for years, and it keeps getting better and better from my perspective. However, if you can’t afford it, or don’t want to make that investment, I recommend you get really good at writing Boolean searches. Once you get the hang of it, then they roll off your tongue/fingertips. LinkedIn even has videos that help you write them on the LinkedIn Learning site: (https://www.linkedin.com/learning/search?keywords=boolean%20search)

Key Takeaways

• Advanced Search is not gone from regular LinkedIn
• You can still search by title in regular LinkedIn

If you find any other hidden nuggets in the new user interface, please share!

About the author

Robert Knop is Founder and CEO of Assist You Today, a company dedicated to helping organizations GAIN + RETAIN clients using digital strategy and social media. He’s a proud member of the Wave3 network of consultants, and always happy to talk strategy, digital and social selling. To learn more about how to evolve your marketing and sales approaches for the digital age, reach out to Robert.

Photo: Rafiq Sarlie

Recently, I spoke with a friend of mine who is an insurance salesman. He predominately sells life insurance and property and casualty insurance. When we talked at a local bar, he confided in me that for the first time since the financial crisis in 2008, he is not going to hit his sales goal.

He talked about how he has a solid client base. However, every year he loses life clients to lapses and old age, or property and casualty customers that change policies based on $5/month difference.

In the past, he has always been able to replace this yearly runoff. However, this year, he’s had trouble replacing these customers. He complained about his inability to get prospects to talk with him.

“No one picks up the phone when I call, and no one ever calls me back.” He said. “When I email people, they rarely write me back – even if I’ve been referred to them by someone we both know!” He lamented.

After a couple of beers, he said “I don’t understand – I’m doing what I’ve always done.”

“That’s the problem,” I interjected “you’re doing things the way you’ve always done them.”

I’m writing this piece because my friend isn’t the only one having troubles making his sales numbers this year. I’ve been hearing this same story a lot in the past few months.

So what’s the solution? You have to modernize your sales toolbox.

Here’s how to do it:

1)     Have a strategy. Many individuals (and even some companies) don’t have a strategic plan for sales. They just target people in their territory that they get from a list they bought, a tool their company uses, or folks they get as referrals. Are these the RIGHT people to target? Maybe … maybe not. The product you’re selling may not be a fit depending on what life stage the person is in currently.

Here’s a quick way to create a strategy and go to market plan:

• First, define who your ideal customer is – who typically buys your products? Who is your product designed for?
• Next, segment your customers into different groups based on different behaviors like what type of products they typically purchase or where they are in the purchase journey.
• Then, find where they live and breathe and go there with messages that are tailored to their needs via channels where they spend their time. For example, if your target audience is recent college grads, are you going to more successful with direct mail or Snapchat? (Hint: You better start learning how to use Snapchat!)

2)     Remove cold calling and blast email from your toolbox. Notice I didn’t say remove calling and email. It’s the “cold” and “blast” adjectives that are the problem. You need to do research on your prospects before reaching out to them.

These two acquisition methods have declining in value for years, and a recent study by Baylor University showed that cold calling results in a meeting about 1% of the time. I read an article last week that touted the “success” a cold caller had by calling 1,250 people to get 18 meetings. That’s a 0.01% meeting rate!

3)     Add social media to your toolbox.  I get over a 50% meeting rate for some my clients using social media and social selling. Thus, at that rate, they have to reach out to 30 people on LinkedIn to get those same 18 meetings that the cold caller generated (and without annoying and alienating 1,232 other people to do it)!

Social media is also great for getting signals such as buying a home, birth of a child, getting married and switching jobs. These are big pivot points from a needs perspective, and you can get notified when your current and prospective customers hit one of these milestones.

4)     Personalize your outreach. In today’s world, it’s all about the customer experience. Everyone has bought from Amazon or Zappos or has used an American Express credit card or flown on Southwest Airlines. They know what great, personalized customer service looks like.

When you reach out to a customer via phone, email, social media or even by sky writing, if it’s the same generic message, you’ve lost most of them before you’ve started. Go to LinkedIn. Go to Twitter. Go to Facebook. You can find out an enormous amount information on a potential client, and it’s all free.

Use this information to tailor your message to that person. If you can’t think of a problem your prospect has that your product solves, then maybe you shouldn’t reach out to them.

5)     Tailor your message to the medium. Not only personalize the message to the individual, but to where it will be read as well. You wouldn’t use the same words in an email as you would in a face-to-face conversation. However, many business just cut and paste their direct mail pieces email into social media. Don’t be surprised when those messages don’t work! Direct mail and social media readers are different audiences, so the voice, tone and content need to be adjusted accordingly.

In addition, most emails and social media posts are now read on a mobile device, so when you are crafting your message, make sure it is in a short, easily-readable format. Tip: send emails and phone messages (and blog posts too if you are daring!) to your phone before you send them. Do you have to scroll and scroll and scroll to read it? Would a prospect actually scroll that much in an email from a stranger?

Conclusion

Add these tips to your toolbox, and you’ll be well on your way to hitting your sales goal for next year. Remember, you are not reinventing the wheel, you’re just moving the race track.

(Note: I’m happy to say that my friend has enrolled in some training that his company offers to help learn modern selling tools. He’s a great salesman so I’m confident he’ll hit his numbers next year.)

About the author

Robert Knop is Founder and CEO of Assist You Today, a company dedicated to helping organizations accelerate new customer acquisition and increase client retention using digital strategy and social media. He’s a proud member of the Wave3 network of consultants, and always happy to talk strategy, digital and social selling. To learn more about how to evolve your marketing and sales approaches for the digital age, please fill out the form below:

[contact-form] 

Photo: Tara Hunt

Today, LinkedIn rolls out their new Sales Navigator Inbox. I got a sneak preview, and I must say, it’s like a sales and social media dashboard / command center / mini-CRM all wrapped into one page.

Here are the highlights – it:

1)     Allows you to search for someone to write to – both within and outside of your current connections.

2)     Gives you the name, picture and description of the person you have selected to send to, and also allows you to view their profile (opens in a new window). Note: if you are not connected to that individual, the “View profile” button says “Connect” instead, and allows you to send an invitation to connect.

3)     Also pulls in that person’s phone number, email address and website URL from their contact information (so you can follow-up in the off chance that your InMail is not answered)

4)     Shows you the connections in common with that person. For example, I have 59 shared connections with Craig, to whom I am writing this note. These connections are a great conversation starter to get a warm referral (a warm referral is definitely the best way to reach out).

5)     Shows you LinkedIn groups that you are both a part of – another potential ice-breaker for a prospect.

6)     Shows you what that person has posted/shared on LinkedIn recently – another great thing to reach out to someone about – especially if they wrote it. Engaging with someone’s content is the purest form of flattery!

7)     Creates a signature for you…automatically. I didn’t type any this information. I assume the Inbox is pulling this content from my contact information. I like it – less work for me.

Also, in the new InMail experience, when you send someone an InMail, the window pops up on the right side of the page, so you can still see all the vital information about the person, and all the of features I mentioned about the Inbox are available in that window as well.

Conclusion

You used to have to search all over in LinkedIn for this information. Now, the new Sales Navigator Inbox and InMail experience provides it all to you, and at the right time and in the place where you need it most, when you are reaching out to someone. Great stuff. Let me know what you think of the new Sales Navigator Inbox in the comments.

Related Articles:

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Connect with your pizza boy on LinkedIn

NEW FEATURE in LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes company research faster and easier

About the Author

Robert Knop is Founder and CEO of Assist You Today, a company dedicated to helping companies transform their social media programs from driving engagement to driving sales. He’s a proud member of the Wave3 network of consultants, and always happy to talk strategy, digital and social selling.

If you’d like to learn how to evolve your marketing and sales strategy for the new, digital age, train your teams how to use a sales-driving social selling approach at your organization, or talk University of Michigan football, feel free to reach out to us: