Using LinkedIn for b2b outreach
Posted on: January 11, 2012
With over 100 million professionals worldwide Linkedin is a practical option for businesses who needs to reach other businesses. Here are the main areas marketers should consider for any b2b outreach on the platform:
Formulate guidelines
Begin by clearly laying out the objectives and strategy for your activity on Linkedin. Summarizing this at the beginning of your guidelines helps to keep you and your team clear about what you are doing on the platform and what you hope to achieve from it. Then add guidance on tone of voice including use of slang, scientific language, etc. Depending on the size of your team and specific sensitivities around your company or brand (s) include issues escalation procedure and pre-approved FAQs to enable community managers to answer queries fast and build relationships
Create a group
Create a group and manage actively:
- Post/feature members discussions and consistently respond to discussions
- Feedback important customer leads discovered in group discussions to your marketing / sales team
- Create polls
- Links to further advice:
Consider apps, events, profiles and answers
- Create event pages for company sponsored events relevant to your target audience
- Use the LinkedIn API to create an app like American Express did (theirs enabled users to nominate people in their LinkedIn network for Administrative Professionals Day)
- Create a company profile and post updates
- Participate in answers - Social Media Examiner reports an example of a lone businessman generating three to five new clients a month via answering questions (you can include ideas on questions in your content calendar as part of forward planning)
Develop a content calendar
Develop a rolling content calendar for your group and any other activity including items such as:
- Questions for group members on latest industry issues /successes
- New trends in your industry
- Company blog posts and videos from your YouTube channel / other video service
- Upcoming company, customer and industry events
- Press releases and major announcements, as appropriate
Linkedin image via lovell.com
