LinkedIn doesn’t work for me.

I can’t recall how often I have heard this sentence over the past couple of months, maybe even years:

“LinkedIn doesn’t work for me. I have created a profile; I’m following and liking stuff; but nothing.”

Sure it doesn’t work for you. It’s just a XaaS, something as a service, or as some might call it a business social media platform.
Assuming LinkedIn works for you is like expecting your Rolodex sifting through your contacts and making your phone calls for you.

The good old Rolodex days

We went to events and meetings, received business cards, added a note who the person was, what we talked about and probably how / when we’d follow up. Next step, add to our Rolodex.
And how did we follow up?

  • Roll it around
  • Select a contact
  • Pick up the phone
  • Call
  • Take notes
  • Set a date to follow up

And the difference with LinkedIn is?

Same, same but different. Not so different at all, you’ll see!
Unfortunately, many users make the mistake to assume once they have a profile, post and like a couple of things, maybe even write their own posts, business will come to them.
I would compare that to sitting at your desk, staring at your Rolodex and hoping the phone would make a call or ring without you taking any action.
For the rest, it’s like with the business cards: meet, connect, follow up.

LinkedIn is so time-consuming!

Is it now? That’s a bit of a surprise.
You’re doing your cold call routine, research opportunities. Or how else do you get cold, well, maybe even luke warm contacts?
By buying a database? What’s the advantage of that? You’re spending money on something you don’t know what it’s worth (unless you’re spending real money on the so-called prequalified thing, but remember it’s got to link into your CRM system, else how can you monitor what you’re doing, whether you’re making progress, what you pipeline looks like – and don’t tell me a spreadsheet is good enough!).
At least, LinkedIn’s basic account, offering a lot already, is free, and you get a lot more information from the average profile. And it keeps track of your emails.

Listen and follow up

Sometimes you might get lucky, and someone responds, or contacts you. I’d rate that as the exception.
For me, LinkedIn is a listening and contact making tool – a proactive approach to networking and ultimately selling:

  • What are users saying, asking?
  • Can I engage with them based on what they post?
  • If I post something, is it relevant to my target audience?
  • If I write something, is it relevant enough to be published?*

The real-life example

Some of you might have seen my recent post asking for help when one of my clients was considering improving their printing environment. Out of a 4-digit number of followers 3, THREE, LinkedIn members contacted me.
Maybe what I was looking for was a too small deal for some, for others, for sure it was in the wrong geographic region. Even though, I’d say there were, at least, a couple of dozen of contacts left who could have replied.
Interestingly enough 2 out of the three were rather young sales reps (sorry if I got your job title wrong) and not even in my contact list (until then), super quick, super polite, super helpful (when you read this, thanks again for your help!), the third one got a gentle nudge from a very social media savvy colleague but by then I was already talking to the other two (and am now in the follow-up phase with my client… don’t ask…)

Age or training?

So is working with LinkedIn an age thing? Maybe. But have you heard of the life-long learning curve? LinkedIn certainly is a part of this curve.
As the world around you evolves you should evolve with it. And if you feel, you’ve tried and still don’t get it to work, well, let me share a secret with you: as with almost everything else in this world, there are experts out there, who are happy to get you started with successfully using LinkedIn.

My conclusion

Be proactive on LinkedIn.
Keep an eye on what people are posting and respond promptly.
Make suggestions but don’t push it.
And for the rest: do business as usual.
*Note to self: beware shooting yourself in the knee with this remark