At Social Jack, we say that proper Influencer Marketing is all about “who you know,” but this can also be said about taking a prospect and converting them into a client. When you use your network properly, you’ll find yourself making clients out of your current LinkedIn connections. In this Flash Class, we will discuss the five ways you can monetize your LinkedIn network and add more clients to your list.

Understanding Social Selling

The first step of this process is gaining a basic understanding of the term “social selling,” as this has always been a major part of the sales process.  In our Flash Class, we define it as developing your relationships to make a sale. In this age, what makes this phrase more “social” is that your social media channels are a MASSIVE part of these efforts. These techniques on your channels can range anywhere from sharing relevant content to engagement with customers to social listening. In doing this, you are able to let your prospects know that you exist and are prepared to offer a service that can help them.

Influencer Marketing Pro Tip: If you really want to create a genuine sales lead, social media is your friend. A lot of companies will mine data from their channels to learn more about who is coming to their page and what they are like. This allows you to better find people who may have more interest in your product– something that is much more effective than cold calling and hard sells. If you are looking to help your company find leads, mention this tip to them!

Noting the trends with social sales

In order to better understand why social selling is important, you need to understand the trends surrounding it.  Did you know that 75% of B2B buyers utilize social media in order to make purchasing decisions? Buyers use social networks when they are in the final stage of making a purchase. This is due to the fact that many sellers will lay out as many details as they can on their social channels, so people can see what they are getting into. In doing this, they gain more comfort and confidence in their purchase. Social media is all about transparency and trust building. Make sure it is a part of your plan for sales!

The power of your unseen connections

Making those connections on LinkedIn is an essential part of selling. After all, the more people directly connected to you, the better chances you have of making a sale, right? Well, yes and no. While having more connections on LinkedIn CAN help you with finding sales, you do not need 500+ connections to become a social selling master. In fact, your LinkedIn network is growing in a way you may not realize. Let’s say you have close to 400 connections. While that is certainly an impressive feat for LinkedIn, you have WAY more than that. Each connection can refer you to their own connections, which increases your chances of getting a sale even more! 400 personal connections are a good start, but an actual network of 50,000 is even more helpful!

Stop the clicking roulette!

That’s right, when you are trying to be productive, other marketers will try to utilize disruptive marketing on you. When that happens, other people are trying to pull you in to get you to buy when you need to focus on generating leads. The other issue is that this can also mean you are just clicking that connect button and hoping that something good comes out of doing that. At Social Jack, we have seen this happen countless times to the professionals we coach, so we discourage that. Don’t just endlessly click, make your time online MATTER!

Influencer Marketing Pro Tip: In our experience, we see that the average professional can generate at least two quality sales leads for just twenty minutes of work on a daily basis. Your time online should be meaningful, and it can as simple as spending twenty minutes a day on LinkedIn. If you can get at least two quality connections, you can spend time developing a relationship and booking an appointment with them for a sale. Track this in an Excel sheet so you can see how many leads you get per day. This is a bit of a time audit, so you can hold yourself accountable if you see drops in appointments and find the best way to correct it.

Bonus Tip: We also offer an ROI (Return on Investment) Calculator that can help you track your sales as well.  This will help you see how many sales you are making and if you are hitting your weekly, monthly and yearly goals. Remember, you want to make results quantifiable—the easiest way to do that is by using this nifty calculator!

Your Profiles are Your Professional Brand

We talk about this in many of our Flash Classes; your profile showcases your brand! While it is quite clear that your profiles show your professional brand, many people forget to make sure that they are completely filled out—meaning that you have your most recent position listed, have a (recent!) profile picture and update your bio, because you are so much more than your title! When people visit your page, it should start a conversation with people and answer how you can help and why you are the expert in your profession.

Influencer Marketing Pro Tip: Your title on a LinkedIn page is the first thing that people see, which means it MUST be there! If it does not convey why you are an expert in whatever you are selling, they will leave. Keep it relevant!

Power Move – Home Page Scan

We already said it, but a person’s social media home page can say a lot about them! This can show who they are, what they do, why they are an expert, the list goes on really! What you want to do is connect to others who have similar interests in their fields. Use this to your advantage!  This can help you find people who might be interested in your product and allow you to enter into relevant conversations with them!

Power Move 2 – Network Diving

It’s time for a power move that you can use with those unseen connections we talked about earlier. A network dive is when you go into someone’s LinkedIn network (AKA their connections) and find referrals that way. This is another simple but extremely effective way to find prospects to convert into your clients.

Influencer Marketing Pro Tip: When you check someone’s connections, you can filter the results!  If you want to find people in specific fields or even specific locations, this will be much easier than combing through ALL of those connections just to find the niche you are looking for.

Power Move 3 – Conversation

Now, conversation is extremely important in social media. After all, liking or commenting on posts can help you engage your audience in a more personal way. However, what would you think about someone sharing a post that you created? Now, any engagement is good for your channels but getting a share is GREAT!  If someone is sharing your content, they acknowledge you said something meaningful that their connections should know. This goes back to the power of your unseen connections; one connection may share a post, but it is getting viewed by hundreds of their connections who may also share the post with their connections. It’s simple math, one share = hundreds of views. That is a formula for success!

Bonus Power Move – S.C.A.G.

To explain what this LinkedIn move is, it essentially means scan, connect, ask and get. Remember when we talked about meaningful connections on LinkedIn? Scanning is when you find someone in your field that would be interested in what you have to offer. You then “connect” to that person to get a conversation going. In that conversation, you then ask them by letting them know why what you offer is of value. By doing all three of those, it’s pretty obvious what will happen in the “get” stage!

In Summary

Remember, social media is a big part of getting clients in this day and age. You need to make use of your connections to generate endless leads. Remember that people are more influenced by social media when making purchases. By using this knowledge and your unseen connections, you will find yourself with plentiful opportunities to find a lead and make a sale.  If you need further resources, check out our Free Resource Center at Social Jack. You can access our Free Resource Center by signing up for a Basic Social Jack Account plus browse the worksheets and classes currently available.

We cannot wait to see you online!

We hope to see you in one of our next Flash Classes! Check out the full list at www.socialjackflash.com

 


Notice I titled this ‘Social Influencer’, not ‘Social Media Influencer’. In our Social Influencer Marketing programs, we believe that it is our job to have our clients become Influencers in their world, and Social Media is one vehicle for making that happen. Let’s see if you agree or disagree with me after this article…!

First, a definition: an influencer is, simply put, someone who carries influence over others. An influencer on social media wields influence through social media. You probably know that word-of-mouth is one of the valuable forms of marketing; in our digital age, word of mouth goes way beyond what friends and family recommend to you, and that’s where influencers come in. No matter who you are, if you’re a thought leader in your network, people think of you and come to you first.

Becoming a thought leader in your network is a process, and our standard plan for our clients has about 20 steps, but here, I want to give you the top five things that could give you a head start down this path, something to think about and gain some traction. Even if you do nothing more than this, you will be further ahead than when you started.

Even if you’re not aiming to be a solution provider, becoming a social influencer can help you advance your career; we actually teach this as part of our career advance program in universities. On a corporate level, showcasing a company’s culture on social media can build the company’s reputation. Even more, employees can become corporate advocates – you can empower staff members to share their own insights about their work on their own social media feeds!

#1 – Pick your niche or focus

To be an influencer people need to really be able to easily digest what you can and will do for them — how you will serve them and solve their problems. You are most likely a solution provider of some sort. If you can clearly address a need that your target audience has, and match the skills you have to what you can provide, then you’re well on your way. Make sure your solution speaks directly to their need so that you are addressing the lowest common denominator of the problem at hand.

Example:

Say you’re an accountant. There are thousands of accountants, what makes you different, what is your niche in this very crowded world? I have a friend who over the years has forged his reputation in property tax savings. He completed his law degree and represents his clients from both an accounting and legal perspective. While he has enough knowledge to do your taxes and many other services, he decided over 20 years ago to pick a specialty and maintain that position. He is now one of the most recognized property tax attorneys in Chicago and has a limitless flow of referrals. We are now looking at how to add the social media component to take him to the next level. You might be this same position. Once you know your focus, you’re ready to move to the next step.

#2 – Subscribe and Monitor The Competition

While you may not think there is any, there is always competition. How to find them? Simply Google search either by need or solution discussed previously, then look for blogs, webcasts, podcasts, and other sources of information. This will give you a perspective on how to either refine your message or, if nothing else, what to do better or what not do. This will only make you better. You can also set up Google Alerts with those words of ‘need’ or ‘solution’ as mentioned earlier, names of competitors, even your own name(s).

To setup a Google Alert you will need a gmail account and be logged into google, then simply go to: https://www.google.com/alerts , add as many words or phrases as mentioned above, define the frequency, and you’ll be alerted when this news hits the Internet.

Once you do find competitors or colleagues, make sure you subscribe to them and block out regular time to review the information you glean. This will only make you better.

#3 – Define Your Social Channels

You will never master all channels, so you need to really think of where your ideal target spends the most of their time, and decide what you can manage. We manage channels for many clients who want to be influencers and don’t have the time to make that happen, so you can consider that as well – hire and pay for assistance or find a volunteer help to build and manage. You can also reference our slide deck listed below.

Remember when doing this: one tip is to simply ask your clients where they spend their time on social media. This will give you a great start to making that choice.

#4 – Look like a thought leader (a.k.a. Social Influencer)

Please reference one of my last blog posts on Personal Branding, this is the critical next step. Google yourself and see how your digital footprint represents your position in the market place. Most likely, social media sites like LinkedIn, videos and personal websites with your name will be at the top. You’ll want to make sure the first two pages identify that ‘solution’ niche you selected in step one. Be sure to update all your profiles and remove or rename any content that is not relevant. Your past will catch you up here, so be sure to search, scan and clean it up! Mark your calendars at the first of the month as a reminder to yourself to do this on a regular basis; we create more social profiles by accident than we know!

 #5 – Turn on your content machine – remember your focus!

Okay, don’t get overwhelmed here, but you’ll need to schedule and start posting relevant content about your niche, your focus. This can consist of videos, blog posts, podcasts, interviews, slide decks (like we have done above), photos, articles you write or are featured in, and anything else that can live on the internet. Remember, when you are posting any content, tie it back to your social media sites and websites, and always make sure you include client’s need and the solution you provide. One of the simplest tips here is that you can add videos, slides or articles to your LinkedIn profile. If you author something, make sure to claim it, add it to your profiles, websites, and then post about it on your social media channels. And if you do work with a partner like us, make sure you communicate to your partners and trusted allies that you are posting and want their support to jump into the conversion online with you.

In Summary – you are an influencer – time for the next level!

You are all influencers; sometimes, as we develop and migrate, we get lost in the shuffle of our business or lives, and we need to regroup, focus, reclaim our position, and tell the world. The great news is that Social Media allows us to do this faster and more efficiently than ever before. There are also millions of other people trying the same thing. The important thought to remember is to not get overwhelmed, start with these simple steps, and if you need help, ask those around you for support. If you would like to have a conversion with us, just email me and let’s set something up, you might be closer than you think.

To hear more on this subject, you can listen to a recent podcast where I was interviewed on Influencer Marketing: “Turn Attendees Into Super Fans Using Influencer Marketing with Dean DeLisle

 

Social Jack™ is also a proud sponsor of the Virtual Event: Best Practices in Influencer Marketing, which will be taking place on Tuesday, August 1st, 2017.

 

Can’t wait to see you looking good as a social influencer online soon! – Dean