3 Key LinkedIn Processes that will change your 2022 Game Plan

LinkedIn is a Social Media platform. Right?

Not really!

The Business Insider defines LinkedIn as: “A social network that focuses on professional networking and career development”

That is more like it!

But I view LinkedIn as the most powerful marketing tool for B2B business professionals available.

Why?

Because in LinkedIn you have a tool, a system, to engage and interact with your ideal clients on their level – meaning focusing on what matters most to them for purposes of establishing business relationships long before the actual sales presentation.

Now that is powerful but be careful. It only ever will yield the desired results if done correctly. Fact remains when done incorrectly you can damage your personal and business brands. And what is done in the online world stays in the online world!

The overzealous business professional, owner and even marketers view LinkedIn as social networking and approach it as such – just be social. How is that working for you?

I want to introduce you to a totally different approach within this article.

I developed this approach over the last 16 years since I first discovered LinkedIn. Today it is serving MarketingCX and its client base well. We work within this framework daily, and the results are phenomenal. Most of all we work with insights and can predict the outcomes of our marketing activities with accuracy.

I focus on three (3) main marketing processes:

1.     Networking

2.     Brand Awareness

3.     Lead Generation

The order is important in that we first focus on Networking then Brand Awareness and Lead Generation is the last focus area.

Let me detail each of these processes.

Networking

Business networking is the process of establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with other businesspeople and potential clients or customers.

This should be your main LinkedIn activity or focus. We are on LinkedIn to Network – period!

And networking is done from your LinkedIn Profile!

Networking requires a detailed, well mapped strategic game plan. For some networking is simply being social and engaging with others via their content. It needs more!

You need to know when you are going to network, what is the process to follow, and how you are going to measure your results. This is important as brand awareness will flow out of your networking activities.

Let’s say you discover my profile via a search and decide to invite me to connect. What happens so often is once I accepted your invitation then silence… for months. No reaching out to thank me for accepting the invitation, no introduction, just silence. And I feel ignored.

I feel like a ‘collection to your connections’

What you need is well defined and mapped out strategic game plan, detailing:

1.     Who are you going to connect with and why – your ideal client persona?

2.     How are you going to invite them to connect, what is going to be your invitation message and why?

3.     How will you welcome them to your connection list, your online community?

4.     How are you going to introduce yourself as a Thought Leader that will serve them well plus how will ask them to reciprocate? You need to learn more about them to ensure that the value of the connection will be mutually beneficial.

5.     How are you going to introduce your business brand, as a brand leader? Do you have a LinkedIn Page?

6.     How are you going to add them to an online community to ensure that they do not get lost in a pool of thousands 1st connections that you cannot interact and engage with easily? Do you have a LinkedIn Group?

Only once you established and implemented your networking strategic game plan are you ready to start networking. Now you can follow their content and add valuable comments. More so you can learn more about them by encouraging them to participate in your LinkedIn Profile, Page and Group conversations.

Now you know them but most importantly now they know you!

Powerful! I know.

The next process, which also starts, within the Networking Process is Brand Awareness

Brand Awareness

Brand Awareness is a general term that describes how familiar and aware your ideal clients are with your personal and business brand.

On LinkedIn, brand awareness is the process you follow to make your personal and business brand known to your ideal clients you selected to invite as 1st connection or those you chose to follow.

It is a process whereby you use content as the vehicle to drive traffic to your LinkedIn Profile and Page. The LinkedIn Profile represents your personal brand positioning you as Thought Leader. The LinkedIn Page represents your business as a Business Leader. The introduction to these brands happens in the Networking Process.

The major emphasis of achieving success in creating brand awareness lies within your content strategy, creating an overlap between your brand awareness strategic game plan and your content strategy.

Content therefor plays a vital role in brand awareness.

Now is the time to distinguish between creating good and great content.

Good content is focusing on making your LinkedIn community understand your brand with its product and service offerings.

Great content is focusing on making your LinkedIn community feeling understood.

Focus on creating Great content!

You are now ready to create outreach Lead Generation Campaigns.

Lead Generation

Lead generation is the process of attracting your ideal clients and converting them into someone who has an interest in your company's products and services.

Without executing the Networking and Brand Awareness strategic game plan first, Lead Generation will always be viewed as spam or your efforts being too ‘salesy’. This could lead to some serious brand damage, personal and/or business.

For LinkedIn Lead Generation you will use the LinkedIn Messaging system. The idea is not to start sending ‘buy my stuff’ messages but rather to obtain permission to gain market insights, and to start conversations to initiate interests around your specific offer(s).

As the focus must be on creating conversations you need to ask relevant questions by mapping out the Lead Generation Process including:

1.     What questions will you ask and why?

2.     What will you offer them in return (preferably a free offer within LinkedIn)? Remember now is not the time to farm email addresses!

3.     How will you follow up, including the timeframes to determine their views?

4.     What process will you follow to invite them to an offline or online meeting?

What is important to understand is this is an active Lead Generation process to follow. You will generate leads during the Networking and Brand Awareness processes as well but without a defined lead generation focus.

As a last thought, remember LinkedIn is a powerful marketing platform but it is not a lead database. Focus on these 3 processes and your activities will be targeted with the results known.