If you’re under the impression that LinkedIn is only a place to display your qualifications and find new job opportunities, then you might want to think again. Although it lacks much of the glamour of Facebook and it doesn’t have the lightning-fast timing of Twitter, LinkedIn nonetheless is the place where business happens.

1. Developing & Nurturing Actionable Leads from LinkedIN
If you’re under the impression that LinkedIn is only a place to display your
qualifications and find new job opportunities, then you might want to think
again. Although it lacks much of the glamour of Facebook and it doesn’t have
the lightning-fast timing of Twitter, LinkedIn nonetheless is the place where
business happens.
After all, it’s filled with profiles for Fortune 500 executives, and nearly 60%
of social media users rank LinkedIn ahead of Facebook and Twitter as their
most important social account. All of this means that it’s ripe for using social
selling tactics to mine new leads and create client relationships.
Step 1: Set Up a Keyword-Optimized LinkedIN
Profile
Image via Flickr by Shields Can Make You Defensive
Outreach is the name of the game when it comes to selling through social
platforms, at least most of the time. However, before you start trying to

2. actively create new connections with potential clients, you’ll want to get your
profile straightened out. Begin by doing your due diligence in learning how
keyword research helps on LinkedIn, and then optimizing your profile with
the highest-value keywords for your industry. In particular, focus on adding
them to your title and summary sections, because these are the most likely to
appear in SERPs.
It’s also important to keep in mind that this visibility mostly extends to
members of your own network, even if they aren’t direct connections. The
principle at play here, then, is this: Work furiously to expand your network to
include people across your industry.
After all, this isn’t Facebook, where you’re building purely social connections
of real-life friends. Rather, this is your professional network, so the farther
your reach extends, the better you’ll be because your profile will get more
views. Just keep in mind that LinkedIn caps your invites at 3k, so don’t go wild
and just invite everyone on the Web. Quality still counts when it comes to the
connections you’re making.
Step 2: Leverage Peer Relationships and Actively
Search for Prospects
For your endgame of developing and nurturing actionable leads, the first part
of this particular step is crucial. Before you start mining for prospects, put
some time and effort into creating some meaningful relationships with peers
in your particular industry. With a little work, these individuals can become a
pipeline of referrals (not to mention these relationships will make also make
your profile more visible according to the principle above).
In order to do this, though, keep in mind you’ll need to be ready to
reciprocate with your own referrals as well. Assuming you do this well, you’ll
go a long way in terms of establishing 3rd party credibility — not only is this
an important concept for any content you might create, but it’s also an

3. excellent general tactic for creating meaningful relationships with prospects
and for shortening the sales cycle with them.
With credibility established, you can move on to actively searching for
prospects. Begin by targeting high-value LinkedIn groups for your desired
demographic. Look for subjects relevant to your field, and craft your
interactions so they’ll resonate with a broader audience.
The platform’s Advanced Search options are also light years ahead of other
social networks, allowing you to apply various filters to narrow your search.
You can also save your searches for later reference, and so you don’t have to
continually input the same criteria every time.
Step 3: Make Sure Your Message is On Point
As with all aspects of marketing, the rub lies in your messaging. While your
communications need to be personalized to each individual prospect, you
also need to create a seed of interest in whatever services you’re offering.
This is not a place to do hard-selling: Your prospect probably won’t want to
continue communicating with you if they feel you’re pressuring them into
making some kind of purchase.
Begin by making your request to connect appear as natural as possible. Your
message to them should be short and sweet, and it should inspire your
prospects to accept the connections. Above all else, the request should not be
a form letter, or you’ll risk getting relegated to the spam box. If you make too
many requests too quickly, or if you get tagged as spam enough, you’ll have
to add the user’s email to each request you send; this will severely hamper
your outreach efforts if you allow this to happen.
LinkedIn’s paid feature, InMail, is another way of reaching out to your
prospects. While it’s well-known for having a higher-than-average open rate
on its own, there are some meaningful methods for getting a higher InMail
response rate that you’ll want to explore if you end up going this route.

4. Step 4: Develop and Nurture Your New
Relationships
By far, this step is the most crucial in the whole process. Unless you put some
meaningful work into developing and sustaining your relationship with these
prospects, you’ll never be able to convert them into customers. One way of
doing this is by offering them some kind of valuable content — a well written
blog post or an interesting article posted as a status update, or an eBook /
white paper as a download.
When you offer this content, you need to think in terms of their problems and
their needs to create a crystal-clear statment of value. Otherwise, your
offering might appear spammy or self-serving. If this happens, it will fall upon
deaf ears at best; at worst, it could cause your prospect to sever the
connection.
Follow-ups could also be a part of this tactic, if you so choose. The LinkedIN
contacts feature has reminders, notes, and tags that you can use to add a
level of organization to how you pursue following up with prospects in
different stages of the sales cycle.
Stay current with what’s going on with your prospects; this will help you to
stay top-of-mind and relevant to their lives. Use the Your Day feature to keep
track of significant events like birthdays, title or avocation changes, business
anniversaries, and more. It’s also important to note that developing and
nurturing these relationships requires a great deal of connectivity, so it would
probably be in your best interest to research DSL internet in your area if
you’re in need of a new ISP.
Step 5: Establish Offline Relationships by
Proposing Solutions

5. This might seem like a no-brainer, but your final step is to take these newly
established relationships offline once they’ve reached a certain level of
maturity. Consider trying to get them to speak with you on the phone or
possibly even in person once you’ve gotten a warm response to one of the
aforementioned personalized messages (Note: A simple response to a
connection request does not usually qualify in this capacity).
The crux of making this happen lies in accurately identifying your prospect’s
problems and proposing interesting and innovation solutions to them. If you
can communicate these solutions in a way that’s confident and not
aggressive, then you’ll greatly increase your chances of selling through this
platform.
By sticking to these five steps, you’re much more likely to find new leads and
establish meaningful relationships with clients. With a little tact and some
spot-on execution, LinkedIn can be a valuable part of your marketing
strategy. Now it’s time to have your say: Are you using this platform to find
new customers? What other tips can you offer?
source : http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/10/07/5-steps-for-developing-nurturing-
actionable-leads-from-linkedin/
http://www.socialappshq.com/