How to Use LinkedIn to Generate Business Leads

Being the “professional” social network, people are always wondering how to use LinkedIn to generate business leads. LinkedIn is not quite as social as other networks from the standpoint of sharing photos and posting statuses about what you did over the weekend. However, LinkedIn is a great network to be social in generating new business leads and rekindling old business relationships.

6 Tips on How to Utilize LinkedIn to get New Business Leads:

1. Reach Out to your Connections: Every single week, reach out to 3 different people in your network. Send them a quick email saying, “Hi,” ask what they are up to and maybe give a quick blurb about what you have been doing recently. Do not try and sell them your product or services when you are just saying hi.
2. Share Industry News and Articles: Going off point #1, if you run across an interesting article or blog post that one of your LinkedIn connections may find interesting, don’t hesitate to share it with them. Send them a quick note with the link letting them know you were thinking about them when your saw this article.
3. Join Groups on LinkedIn: There are tons of groups and discussions on LinkedIn that are geared around certain topics. This week, join 5 groups that you are interested in (ex: Social Media, Leadership, Coffee, etc.) and for a couple weeks, spend time daily commenting and participating in at least one of those 5 groups.
4. Update Your Profile and Include Apps: LinkedIn is a great tool to showcase your resume and work history, however, there are so many more things other than your work history that can make you marketable to potential business leads. LinkedIn has many apps including things about your travels, the books you are reading, etc. Now you can include volunteer experience on LinkedIn as well. With all of the apps and extra features, LinkedIn makes it easy for you to differentiate yourself from the competition and get those business leads.
5. Link to Twitter: You can connect your LinkedIn profile to your Twitter profile. I highly recommend that you do this. Interconnecting the two will push your tweets to LinkedIn making it look like you are active on the social sphere.
6. Get Recommendations: LinkedIn makes it easy for you to request for recommendations for your profile, however I highly discourage using their tool. Instead, personally email people that you think would write you a nice recommendation and ask them if it is okay for you to send them an official recommendation request from LinkedIn. I can guarantee that no one will want to write a recommendation for you if you just send them the generic recommendation request from LinkedIn.