If you follow this blog, you will know that I am in LOVE with LinkedIn. LinkedIn and I have a love affair of the most beneficial kind. Besides the one I have with my husband. 🙂 I talk to a lot of people and they tell me that they don’t find LinkedIn to be valuable. If you are one of these people, I have the solution for you. If you do find LinkedIn to be incredibly valuable, I still have a few great tips for you to help you take your LinkedIn game to the next level.
TIP #1 – Connect With People With A Personalized Letter
I encourage you to connect with people on LinkedIn. It’s the only way to really get value out of the network. Your outreach and updates will only be as good as the network you have. Remember that. But, I want you to change the way you are connecting with people.
How do I know you need to change what you are doing? Well, because 90% of the connections I receive are using the “bad” way. The “bad” way to connect is to use the default connection request text that LinkedIn gives you. Erase that out of your mind. Every time you want to connect, I want you to write 1-2 sentences that are personalized. Tell the persons why you are connecting and tell them about what they can expect to get out of your connection.
By doing this you are adding context to the relationship. Plus, you are introducing yourself and making a great impression. Believe me, the 10% of the connections I receive with an introduction or a description as to why they are connecting with me get filed in my mind. That’s a good thing.
TIP #2 – Respond To Connections With A Personalized Letter
So that’s one side of the connection game. The other side is when other request to connect with you. Most times people will connect with you and you’ll never hear from them again. You can change that immediately.
Here’s what you should do. Write a standard letter that you will send to each and every person that requests to connect with you. This should explain your business, tell them a bit about who you are, and have a call to action. YES, a call to action.
Here is an example of what I use. I fill in the blanks with a bit of context if I have time to look at their profile. But in general my letter looks like this.
Sample Letter
Hi (insert name),
Thank you for the connection. (Insert personalized message if they sent you a personalized message) I’d love to learn more about your business and see if there are any ways to work together in the future.
My company specializes in blogging and social media to increase traffic, leads and online visibility. I also consult and do training sessions based on your specific needs and goals.
You can also learn more about our social blogging program here: https://convertwithcontent.com/blog-management
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Stephanie
http://www.twitter.com/stephaniefrasco
End Sample
You see, I have a call to action in the blog management form and I also give them my Twitter as it is important for me to continue to grow.
I promise you, if you do these two things you will see more meaningful relationships come from your LinkedIn connections.
Good luck!
Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn here.
