LINKEDIN PLATFORM IS A SOCIAL OR BUSINESS CHANNEL?

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“LinkedIn platform is mostly considered as a business channel in building a strong business relationship, is it possible to do it online?

How can businesses build trust around them nowadays?

Has the mandatory shift to the digital world and online platforms changed the way the consumer views the company they do business with? How about the relationship-building online? Is it work right now? And how was previously? If your potential customers do not trust you as a person, how can you deliver proper services to their business? Hopefully, there is no one way to make you more familiar with people online, but my recommendation for all experts and leaders is choosing a LinkedIn platform to ‘selling by being’ as just a human.

As the ‘human to human’ era is already times we currently live in.

I will try to convince you why it works.

Having experienced it many times, that meaningful interaction which is ‘face-to-face meeting’ is crucial as well to the success of any business, but what can we do in the times of “new reality” during and after the COVID19 period? What can you do to leverage meaningful relationships from the offline world, consequently can it evaluate and transform even more significant deals online for you and for your business? Have you had any ideas or experiences so far?

It is obviously known, that your success as a sales manager, entrepreneur, or business owner is about building the right relationships. And that means connecting with more than just prospects.

Typical sales professionals who focus all their activities only on engaging prospects aren’t seeing the big picture. Those who develop bonds with their peers, existing customers, and the entire buying committee also through marketing channels are seeing real value. As such, any marketing effort on your part may be taken as an intrusion by people who don’t know you personally, it is obvious. So how to handle that challenge in the digital times? Try to use the social channels designed according to your business needs with the right goal.

The success of many CEO’s, experts and business owners coming after building a personal brand online. We do observe it many times “the of social kings or queens” are around us, in social media – including LinkedIn.

Building a business relationship starts at the storytelling and having known your mission and the goals you want to achieve. You have to know what are the most important values for your community or group of people that you aim to target. It helps you shorten the time to be noticed in the community.

Try to start with your first step on LinkedIn through the process of building your personal profile successfully. It is not so difficult as you assume. Do you think that your LinkedIn profile is an only virtual CV? or your mindset is one of the following: “LinkedIn is for graduates”, “I’m not a job seeker”, “I do not need another social network for wasting my time online”, “I’ve got Twitter and it’s enough”. Unfortunately, you couldn’t be more wrong, and honestly speaking you can lose a lot of money for you or revenue potential for your brand because of such an approach. Let me describe the strong features of LinkedIn and it’s usability:

– Social marketing perspective for your brand visibility;

– A worldwide business networking platform with easy access to VITO; and.

– An expert knowledge database you can reach from your home desk.

I hope some of these factors can convince you for building a relationship with your network.

My prior recommendations are as follows:

1. First, put all the necessary data, which make you fully professional before you start building your network community and building relationship.

2. The next step is to attract the attention of other people within your community according to the main thought from the book: “Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition” written by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin by posting with the specific goals and objectives of your personal brand; and

3. Be professional, but also be social – since the founding of LinkedIn in 2003, this site has successfully evolved from an online recruitment platform into a strong community of business-to-business social media.

What can help you in building the image of professionalism? Please find my top 5 tips and recommendations below. The same are also thought during my online webinars to my students.

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Additionally, what is worth to highlight to all leaders, experts, and freelance workers is having your own custom unique URL address on LinkedIn, and customize it to your name or the name of your brand to be more clear and easy to search for LinkedIn and Google SEO.

The process of building a relationship online sometimes called a personal branding strategy requires being consistent with your beliefs, brand awareness, marketing goals, etc. The communication which is required to implement to your online activities should be consistent with you as a person.

“Human to human” era requires transparency on LinkedIn activities, do not forget to follow the same belief offline.

People in your community may admire you for your expertise in the particular fields, as well as for openness towards daily news, which you are sharing with them occasionally. There is many examples as well on LinkedIn around sharing your hobbies, achievements, pictures coming from weekend trips, or book recommendations. Do show off as a human – ‘social being’ is a quite new topic, and I do believe all of the active social users can be interested in it.

Remember the building of a relationship is a 4-step process from the psychological point of view.

1. LIKE ME – people think, there is something to learn from me or it will be interesting soon.

2. KNOW ME – I tell you more about who I am (including storytelling) in a few words, make me more familiar.

3. TRUST ME – You prove over a period of time you can be trusted; it takes time – because it is a process.

4. BELIEVE ME – And buy something from me; I am already your authority.

Joel Comm, author of the NYT Bestsellers says that the mistake that most people make in creating relationships is they jump to ‘#4 Sell me something’ right away and their outreach efforts do not work.

The keys to building and maintaining a strong and effective long-lasting business are building relationships with decision-makers by finding a pathway to connect. Think of your colleagues as conduits, offering pathways to extend your network, and consider LinkedIn as the platform to unlock those connection channels. Your networking possibilities are worldwide, the sky is the limit. As human beings, we have a fundamental need for connection with others, there is a fact. The need to connect is so deep within us, that simply seeing connections makes us feel connected.

Researches show that buyers are 5x more likely to engage with people when introduced through a mutual connection. Just remember that you need to give to get – continually offer value and support to your existing network/customers so they will be happy to repay the favor.

In addition to co-creating a business development strategy and tailoring sales content, you and your marketing colleagues can build a synergistic relationship. By sharing your LinkedIn connections with marketing, you position them to better engage your target accounts. Does it sound like the marketing process in the settled strategy? YES! The LinkedIn activities should be based on marketing social plan strategy to be more effective.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by training to do hard things well. Do not forget TOP5 must have prior action in your activities.

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social media channels which exists for businesses worldwide. As it was said, it is necessary that you have to spend time, make an effort to build a relationship with high-quality connections, but it is also very important that you strengthen those connections and make them work for potential contracts. The stronger your connections, the more successful you will both be in your respective businesses. Remember that your success at strengthening your online relationships is dependent not only on you but also on the general overview of the company you are working /brand awareness/.

In today’s digital times, be aware that you have valuable connections all around you. Furthermore, you have easy access to people all over the world and you can reach them out in a minute.

If you want to make more money, build a relationship, by being online as a human being using the following elements of true and long-term cooperation scheme.

Convert face-to-face interaction to video-calls, online summits, or dedicated webinars for your customers – and make them know you better.

I do strongly believe the talent to effectively build relationships can be learned.

It is similar to any other skill-learning process.

It is even possible if you are an introvert like me.

It is hard to believe, but it is. It does take an effort and focus, just like learning other skills that you need to achieve objectives you have set, and nano-learning can help in that. Start with 5 minutes of LinkedIn networking as a daily routine, then prolong it to 20-30-40 minutes according to your business needs.

I keep my fingers crossed for all your e-partners.

I will be more than happy to be one of them.

Sources:

Author: Kate Bednarska – Founder & Owner ConnectingPeople &Co. – international B2B consulting agency, an expert in personal branding, networking and matchmaking people& businesses online, worldwide.

How can businesses build trust around them nowadays?

My prior recommendations are as follows:

I do strongly believe the talent to effectively build relationships can be learned.

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