Every entrepreneur knows that when it comes to lead generation strategies, the most effective platform for generating reach, leads, and visibility remains Linkedin. Linkedin is a social media platform where people expect and seek out business-related content.
4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions. There are 61 million “senior-level influencers” on LinkedIn (Hootsuite.com; 2021). This characteristic of the network makes it easy for normal entrepreneurs, like you and me, to get seen by the right people when posting content on Linkedin.
In fact, if you’re in the B2B business, most people on Linkedin either fit the description of your target market or can easily refer you to someone that does. That’s a fact.
So what do entrepreneurs do to get noticed on Linkedin?
Throughout the past year, we’ve spoken to and received training from various Linkedin experts and there are three things that most entrepreneurs do in order to get noticed on Linkedin.
- Have a complete profile
- Post good quality content daily
- Engage, engage, engage (to build relationship)
Let me explain…
Step 1: Have a complete, accurate profile
Your Linkedin profile needs to talk about what you do, what you have to offer, and who you’re serving. It needs to be clear, concise, and to the point. All the sections in your profile need to come together to tell a complete story about who you are, what you do, and why you are doing that.
Your detailed description section needs to tell a story that resonates with your target audience. You want them to want to read more. That’s why proper market research and defining your target audience is super important as part of the Linkedin Profile writing exercise.
By the way – I have a course that you can take in this regard. It takes you through various creative exercises to help you define and understand your ideal client better. It’s available on Skillshare. This link will give the first 100 readers to click through free access to the entire course – on me.
Your Linkedin Profile also needs to be riddled with your keywords. Keywords are the phrases your target client will input into Linkedin when searching for your solution. So for example, someone that provides Linkedin Training as a service will ensure that their profile contains numerous mentions of words such as “Linkedin Trainer, Linkedin Expert, Linkedin Coach, etc.”
Your headline needs to be eyecatching and needs to tell your ideal client exactly how you can help them. And your contact information needs to be up to date.
Step 2: Post good quality content daily
Each time you post good quality content on Linkedin you have a chance to get noticed by the right people aka your ideal client. By posting once per day, you’re giving your target audience one chance every single day to notice you.
Weekdays are the best days for posting. And whenever you post you have to understand that your work doesn’t stop with clicking the ‘post now’ button. You have to encourage engagement on your post and then engage! This is where many entrepreneurs fall short with their content.
They’ll spend days crafting the most beautiful posts and the perfect content, but because they don’t do anything to drive engagement with their posts, their efforts are literally wasted.
If you’re not going to drive engagement on your posts, you might as well not post at all.
In terms of the types of content, you post you want to stick to the 80 / 20 rule. 80% of your content should give value or provide entertainment, whilst 20% of your content should contain an ”ask”. This means that for every four posts that you post that contains inspiration, insightful commentary, engaging stories, or humor aimed at delighting your ideal client, you may post one post that contains marketing content or asks people to perform a certain action, such as buy a course, sign up for an email list, join a group, subscribe to a youtube channel, etc.
All content should be attached to a beautiful branded image that is the correct size for Linkedin. Images should be designed to get the attention of your ideal client. For example, if your ideal client dreams of traveling and working remotely, you may design a picture that depicts this lifestyle.
Step 3: Engage, engage, engage (to build relationship)
You should find opportunities to connect with people that fit the profile of your ideal client on Linkedin. Once you’ve connected with them you should make a point of engaging with their content (like, share and comment). This shows that you are an active and real person interested in building relationships and will encourage reciprocation from your network.
If your network just happens to be made up of people that fit your ideal client profile, this is where a lot of the magic happens.
On top of engaging with their content, you’ll also want to connect with them in their inboxes. By chatting to them in your direct messages you may further build your relationship with potential prospects, qualify them, turn them into fans and followers and eventually ask to move the relationship offline.
By moving the relationship offline (for example, meeting up for a virtual zoom coffee) you have the opportunity to further build your relationship, qualify prospects and offer value, paid for or not, depending on what seems to be the best for the relationship in the specific circumstances.
Getting Started with getting noticed on Linkedin
It really is not too difficult to complete these three steps in order to get noticed on (and get business from) Linkedin. However, the most difficult part in this whole process, I find, is driving engagement with daily posts. It can be quite time-consuming, and if you have access to a limited amount of active connections on Linkedin that you can trust to always comment on your content, it can become a frustrating, overwhelming process for all parties.
That is why we built the 4-week Linkedin Visibility Challenge for the members of our network.
This is how it works:
Every month we find 20 entrepreneurs that want to work together to increase the visibility of their Linkedin profiles for that month.
These entrepreneurs commit to:
- posting once per weekday for the next month (that’s 20 posts in total).
- commenting at least once on each other entrepreneurs posts each day.
In this way, each of the entrepreneurs participating in our initiative receives a minimum of 20 comments on their Linkedin posts each day. Not only does this get them noticed by each other’s networks, but it also informs the Linkedin algorithm that their content is popular – giving them added visibility and ranking in the Linkedin search engines.
Considering that each of the entrepreneurs that participate in our initiative has an average of about 500 connections, this means that your content all of a sudden has the potential of getting noticed by a minimum of (500 x 20 = 10,000) more potential ideal clients than usual.
The Investment
Each of the entrepreneurs wanting to participate in our Linkedin Comment Group needs to pass a review by our Linkedin Compatibility Expert. This is to ensure that your content is appropriate and of appropriate quality. We do this to protect the reputation of the members that choose to participate in our initiatives.
Should you pass your review you will be required to invest 65 USD to get the ball rolling.
Once you’ve successfully completed the 4-week challenge you’ll be refunded 50% of your initial investment (32.5 USD).
Successfully completing the challenge means:
- posting once per day every weekday during the 4-week challenge
- commenting on every other post entered into the challenge within 24 hours
Explore ProTech Tribe Members do not have to pass a Linkedin compatibility review, as this would’ve been completed during your ‘dating the tribe’ process. Explore ProTech Tribe Members are required to invest a total of 32.5 USD to start the process and will be refunded 50% of their initial investment upon successful completion (16.25 USD).
Explore ProTech Tribe Members and Non-members that have successfully completed a 4-week challenge have the option of signing up a non-member for participation in subsequent challenges in lieu of monetary investment in subsequent challenges.
Getting started
To enroll in any of our upcoming 4-week challenges please get in touch with Sommerville Lombard via email or WhatsApp.
PS: You are also welcome to talk to Sommerville should you need assistance with any of the other steps mentioned in this article, including, but not limited to:
- writing engaging posts that follow the 80 / 20 rule
- designing images to entice your ideal clients
- updating your Linkedin profile
- completing your marketing research
- defining your target client
- engaging with your ideal clients
She will either be able to assist you or point you in the direction of a tribe member that can assist you.
Let’s make 2022 your year of getting noticed on Linkedin!
We’re here to assist you in any way possible.
If you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to leave those in the comments and we’ll get right back to you. 🙂
Lots of love,
PPS: Here are some panel discussions we had with some of the Linkedin experts we’ve been speaking to in preparation for writing this post. You can watch all of them on our Youtube Channel.
