I’m constantly baffled by how many people neglect Linkedin.

The number of times we’ve onboarded clients who have prospects spending their entire time hanging out on Linkedin and the client doesn’t even have a profile. Shocking 😭

I’m guessing that’s not you though. You don’t read an article about optimising your Linkedin for leads if you don’t already understand the power of Linkedin.

There are endless Linkedin gurus out there who will tell you exactly what to do to 10x your lead gen. The problem most of them have is they’re trying to get you to replicate the behaviours of major influencers on the platform without understanding how that influencer built their account up first.

Gary Vaynerchuck might find himself getting tonnes of engagement for fairly inane content (don’t believe me? See screenshot). But, that’s because he has a huge audience. He’s built it to that point. If you want thousands of likes for posting a picture of a crayon drawing you made with the caption, “LFG”, you’ll have to build to that.

That’s not what I’m going to do though.

Let’s look at some real things you can do *right now* to start building your Linkedin profile. There’s no shortcut to success, by the way, some of this is about consistently executing against a proven strategy.

The battle-plan

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I’ll walk you through 3 categories you can optimise to start seeing Linkedin return on your time investment.

  1. Aesthetics/branding
  2. Content strategy
  3. Outreach

Nail all of these, and apply them consistently and I’m convinced you’ll increase leads and convert more followers into customers.

Branding/aesthetics

No one likes to admit it but social media is a highly curated environment.

We want people to see us in a certain light.

Obviously, that’s not always a great look. If you’re obsessing about your personal Instagram grid looking picture-perfect then you might want to consider talking to someone about it. However, we’re talking about a social platform you’re going to leverage to get more revenue for your business. It’s important it looks attractive to your prospects.

I really like Katelyn Bourgoin’s profile on Linkedin. She’s really nailed the aesthetics.

Obviously, when it comes to aesthetics, our tastes may (and probably do) differ. That’s ok. We’re thinking more about principals here than specifics.

Let’s look at what works for Katelyn Bourgoin:

  1. Her profile picture is clutter-free – you can see who you’re interacting with even on a teeny scale.
  2. Her banner is simple, eye-catching and effective. You know what you’re getting when you decide to follow
  3. There’s a relationship between her profile picture and her banner. It’s smart and looks coherent.

If you scroll further down her profile, you’ll notice something else on the aesthetic front…

These are her featured posts. The branding (that vibrant two-tone colour scheme is 👌) is consistent here too. Not only is it eye-catching and consistent, it also says a lot about her personality. It’s bold, confident, fun (check the emojis and smiley photos) and highly clickable.

I think we can distil this glance into the aesthetics of Katelyn’s profile to a few key takeaways:

  • Keep your banner simple: try to communicate just 1 thing with it
  • 70% of your profile picture should be your face
  • Set your face against a single-coloured background in your pfp
  • Link your profile picture to your banner (colours help here)
  • Theme your content with your banner and profile picture’s colour palette.

Content Strategy

There’s no cookie-cutter formula here. It’s going to be unique to you, your business and your resources.

With that in mind, this is really about principles.

Your content strategy needs to first consider how frequently you will be posting. Set realistic goals here. Quality always trumps quantity however, aim to post regularly and at similar times.

I think a good rule of thumb is to post anywhere between three times a week to once a week.

Here are some things I see all the time that, to be honest, I wish I saw less of:

  1. Half-baked virtue signals: it comes across as a wee bit self-righteous
  2. inauthentic language: It’s social media, speak like a human
  3. “buy my sh*t” marketing – LinkedIn is a SOCIAL platform, build relationships and sales will come

Outreach

Do me a favour and open up your DMs on LinkedIn.

What do you notice first?

I know I’m not alone on this one. My LinkedIn private messages are choc-full of copy-paste cold outreach from people trying to hock their terrible services.

It’s NOISY. I don’t like it.

But, there are always two ways to look at a problem like that (the image below illustrates this well).

How can I take the terrible hellhole of LinkedIn DMs and use that situation to my advantage? Or, should I just whine about it on my blog? I’ll opt for the former.

There’s a huge opportunity waiting for anyone wanting to take advantage of the dire situation of LinkedIn private messages.

Here are 3 DO-NOTs (and I mean NEVER EVER):

  • Do not write an impersonal message – it just reads as spam and it’s not worth it. No one will read it even if you cast a really broad net.
  • Do not make your message too sales-ey – better yet, don’t sell anything in your message. The sales will come but see DMs as your foot in the door, not the sales pitch.
  • Do not write a message all about yourself. It’s narcissistic and sucks.

Conversely, here are 3 DOs:

  • DO make it personal. No, I’m not just talking using their first name. Write like you’re trying to build a relationship with the person. Reference them, their life, and the things you’ve discovered that make them tick.
  • DO give more than take. This is not about getting them to sign up to your email list, buy a product or download a guide. This is about helping them to achieve what THEY want to achieve by giving without the expectation of reciprocity.
  • DO send a video message. It will instantly stand out from the crowd and people will appreciate the extra mile you’ve travelled to get their attention. This little trick works wonders for reply rates.

I think people opt for a scattergun approach when it comes to trying to sell via LinkedIn DMs. They think, “I’ll send this message to 1000 people, if 10 bite I’m quids in”. The trouble is, 10 won’t bite.

Much better to refine the list of contacts you’re reaching out to. Learn a few key details about each person and go in with the intention of establishing a relationship. It’s a slightly bigger initial time investment but the ROI is exponentially higher.

The takeaways.

I wanted to walk you through a few key ways you can optimise your LinkedIn to increase leads for your business.

Ultimately it comes down to:

  • Looking better than your competitors (trust me, it’s easy to do on LinkedIn)
  • Putting out content (will automatically put you ahead of many competitors that don’t post regularly)
  • Not being cheesy with your sales pitch.

Use LinkedIn as a social network where you see it as a means to the end of establishing relationships with the kind of people you’d love to do business with. Stop seeing it as a means to the end of getting more business and you’ll see a much greater rate and quality of leads in your business.