5 Ways to Use LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

Social media has proved its worth as far as B2C companies are concerned. Even B2B companies have started using various social tools to leverage this technology which can help them to grow their business. Many B2B companies have adopted Enterprise Social Tools like Yammer, Chatter, Socialcast, Qontext etc. But these tools are for internal communication, collaboration & knowledge sharing within employees. As far as lead generation or business development is concerned Linkedin has proved to be a very good tool for B2B companies.

1. Create your Company Page: Company page is like a LinkedIn face of a company. You can provide information on the individuals behind your brand and highlight how consumers use your products. Your Company Page offers tools to bring your brand to life. There is a testimonials tab too on LinkedIn page which can help build credibility and generate business. For reference you can check the LinkedIn page of Digital Vidya (the company i work for).

2. Management Team: It's also important create a team from within your marketing department & train them in the nuances of social media tools & how to utilize them. The roles & responsibilities of the team members should be clearly defined so that there is no mis-match. For a small organization even a single person can handle the account. It's important that the team members should have well polished profiles on LinkedIn so that potential clients should have nice impression of their LinkedIn public profiles.

3. Connect and interact: Participate in the relevant offline industry events & network with people who can be your potential clients or leads. Connect with them on LinkedIn. This can be made easier by including your LinkedIn URL in your email signature, on your business cards and in the contact section of resumes, websites and blogs. Join the groups where these people are active and start & participate in discussions on those groups. This will build your reputation as a thought leader with these people in the long term.

4. Join relevant LinkedIn groups: Joining relevant active groups on LinkedIn is very helpful as many members of these groups run regular discussions on various topics & share insights with each other. This builds up your brand as a thought leader which you can use to the advantage both individually as well as for your organization. You never know when your prospects on these groups will approach you for the business. But be sensitive to the group dynamics, and don't ever try to dominate the conversation. Your materials should be a resource, not a sales push for you or your prospects. Also participate in LinkedIn Answers. They also help in creating a brand for you where you can get rewarded by other users with best answers. These are passive activities but can be very valuable in the long term.

5. Prospect Tracking: An effective keyword search can be used to reach out to the right people. A useful tip for lead generation is to check the list of people who have viewed your profile. This lets you know who is interested in your company, and they are the prospects you can target. To reach them ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts (your prospects) and so on. Evalueserve has done a lot of business through LinkedIn & they swear by this tactic.

What other ways you can think of to generate leads on LinkedIn? We would love to hear!