March 27, 2023 / in LinkedIn, Marketing / by Jason Terry
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Hello friends! In this week’s Marketing related video, I wanted to talk about something that keeps coming up in my LinkedIn training sessions. I have been doing a lot of LinkedIn training so far this year, and one of the biggest problems that I see is that people are missing out on HALF the value of LinkedIn.
Most people understand that they need a good looking profile on LinkedIn. They also understand that their success as a networker/connector can in some ways be measured by the number of connections they have on LinkedIn. (For example, if you have 32 connections on LinkedIn and are doing sales for your organization, it’s not a good look.)
Having a professional looking profile on LinkedIn and being connected to a lot of people in your community is important. It is one of the first things a prospective new customer will see when they check out your profile… and if they know what they’re doing, they will absolutely be checking out your LinkedIn profile.
What I see when doing research on the majority of people’s LinkedIn activity is that they rarely post their own content. And they rarely comment on other people’s updates. Instead, they click the “easy button” known as Likes. I’ve talked about this before, but Likes on LinkedIn get relegated to the toilet of obscurity.
So here is the problem. You do all this work to connect with people on LinkedIn and then you rarely (or never) say anything. You aren’t reminding them that you exist. That you are their supplier/friend/customer/past co-worker/vendor/peer. You aren’t telling them what you are doing and what your company is doing to make a difference. It’s cricket, cricket… and a huge missed opportunity.
I interview every company I do LinkedIn training with, and one of the important questions that I ask is, “How are you getting new business today?” The answer is almost always, “Through word of mouth referrals and repeat business from existing customers.”
So if that is true, it makes complete sense that you would want to stay top of mind with your referral partners and customers. And one of the easiest ways to do that is by connecting with them and then doing status updates on LinkedIn.
Don’t miss this massive opportunity to stay relevant with the people that care about you. They want you to succeed, and often, they are willing to actively help you achieve success. If you aren’t doing status updates a couple of times a week on LinkedIn, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to magnify the effects of your sales efforts. It’s probably time for you to start reminding people why they like/love you and trust you on LinkedIn with status updates and comments.