Using Linked In as Sales and Marketing Tool

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Bunker Project Episode 133: How to market your business with Linked In

Summary: We talk about how are each using Linked In currently in the Round Table Intros and then get into the details of how Ian Nethercott is using Linked In to generate sales and make  money in his business.

Norm calls in to ask how powerful a tool Linked In really is? And what can you do to make your profile more marketable?

Bunker Mavens in attendance:

Bonnie Sainsbury @bsainsbury  (joined us at the end of the show)Margaret Reynolds @bc_insurancegalAndrew McGivern  @podcastheroBob Garlick @bobgarlick (Made it for the end of the show)James Karg @twisted_majicPaul @paultherockgodNorm (The Norm Maven) via voicemail feedback Listen to the episode and read the full show notes to get all the details.

Linked In Educationaire with Ian Nethercott

Round Table Intros:

Bonnie Sainsbury @bsainsbury  (joined us at the end of the show)
Margaret Reynolds @bc_insurancegal
Andrew McGivern  @podcasthero
Bob Garlick @bobgarlick (Made it for the end of the show)
James Karg @twisted_majic
The Norm Maven ( via voicemail feedback )

Round Table Intro Question: Name, Twitter Handle and how are using Linked In right now?

• Bob is going to do a major overhaul of his Linked In profile. He has been hanging out with Ian and is going to follow Ian’s advice to get his profile up to speed. He also recommends visify which creates a visual interface for your social media life. It takes his Linked In info and makes it look cool and they have an email signature. Bob is also changing his profile picture which he has used forever.
• Andrew has watched some videos from Lewis Howes and Kevin Knievel and is looking forward to learning more from Ian Nethercott.
• Paul The Rock God is interested in learning more about Linked In and is stoked about the show.
• Sanj used to be more engaged with his Linked In account and now only goes there every once in while. He is looking forward to what Ian has to say.
• Margaret posts to Linked In and is not getting as much engagement as she’d like and knows she has more to learn and is interested in Ians Linked In experience.
• Bonnie has always focused on keyword optimization on her Linked In account. She also gets a lot of traction by posting book reviews on Linked In.
• Brian Street joins is here for the first time and his Linked In secret weapon is recommendations. Brian is also a paid member of Linked In.
• James uses Linked In for networking but he is using a picture from when he was five years old. James like the Endorsements feature but doesn’t like the groups because too many people are doing hard sells there.
• Bob says Linked In has the best B2B opportunities on the web.
April Fools Jokes:
• Bob’s favorite April Fools joke was Google Nose. His daughter fell for that one and was not too happy about that. Bob is impressed with the amount of effort and production that Google puts into these jokes.
• Brian’s pick is Google Blue. All Google did was change the whole GMail interface and turn it blue. “how can we totally change the interface while leaving it exactly the same?”
• Bonnie’s favourite is from CIRA where they said they were changing all .ca domains to .eh.
• Margaret’s favourite is Youtube pretending to be one big contest and they are going to shut down and go through the process of picking a winner.
• Paul The Rock God picks West Jet and their announcement that you can bring animals into the cabin.
• Andrew liked Tech Crunch’s article about Facebook buying Bang With Friends in anticipation of Google’s new product Google F*ck.
• James likes the Vancouver Canucks April Fools joke.

Marketing With LinkedIn – with Ian Nethercott:

• While were doing the intros Andrew got two Voice Mail Feedback calls…
• Norm called in to ask how powerful a tool Linked In is? And called back to ask what you can do to your Linked In profile to make it stand out or more marketable?
How powerful a tool is Linked In?
• Ian has used a lot of database products over the past 20 years in sales. Right now Linked In is the largest business database.
• 220 million users, older users than facebook, average income is over $100 000.
• Profile Optimization is important. Ian stresses that it is very important to be on the first page of a Linked In search. Optimization isn’t too hard.
• Use a professional and current picture.
• Ian looks at his daily use on Linked In as part of a sales process.
• The person with the most connections on Linked In got there by spending two hours a day on Linked In and utilizing his contacts.
• Ian advises putting yourself in a clients shoes and figure out what your clients are searching for. Put those keywords in your profile.
• Ian says look at the people at the top of the search results and see what they are doing right. Just optimize your page to outperform those results.
• With Linked In you can see who viewed your profile. Ian looks at the people’s profiles who have viewed him. Ian can send a message to them or send a Linked In InMail which is a registered digital email that they have to respond yes or know to. If your a paid member you get access to better tools and support.
• James gets Ian to search for Barack Obama and then says hahahaha you are now on a watch list.
• Ian says it is a mistake to look at Linked In as an online resume. It can be, but what it really is good for is a Sales and Marketing Tool.
• Andrew questions the search results because he is getting slightly different results. And he is coming up at the top of the list for the term “podcasting”. We determine that the results have to be weighted based on your personal Linked In network.
• James says we should talk about Maven.
• Ian brings up Slide Share which was acquired by Linked In. You can now put Video in every section of Linked In.
• The Project section is important. Use projects as a capture page. You could do five different capture (squeeze) pages by creating five projects. Very cool tip.
• You should have at least 20 recommendations because people won’t read more than that anyway. The endorsements are different and you can get up to 99 per skill. You can hide skills if people recommend skills you don’t have.
• Ian says make sure you use every character. If they give you 200 characters in a section use them all for the SEO. But don’t keyword load because it won’t read like english and people won’t want to deal with you. Make sure your writing your profile in way that both looks good (natural) and has the right keywords.
• Paul asks if he should add people that he doesn’t like. James says no. Ian said it is up to you. Ian said you can set up tags and categorize contacts and that way you can target people for specific niches.
• Paul says he has an arch rival and its better to keep your enemies closer. James said that is a lie.
• Andrew asks about open networking on Linked In. Open Networker, Open Endorser, etc. Ian said that he has no problem with it. Putting words in your profile that say your an open networker is against the terms and service but more importantly it wastes space you can use for more relevant keywords. Don’t put it in your Profile title… put that type of stuff inside the profile.
• If your a Power Point  person you can use Slide Share on your profile to put your presentations there.
• Bonnie asks what is stopping someone from stealing someones profile and tweaking it for themselves. Margaret said if you steal from one it is plagiarism but if you steal from many it is research.
• Bob says it isn’t what is in your profile but how you use it.
• Bob accepts invitations from everyone. James says no way… and emails them and says who the F are you?
• Andrew asks how Ian is converting his leads into sales. He has some very good answers… listen to the show to find out.
• Andrew asks what CRM Ian uses. He prefers Pipeline but there are many others. A new Social CRM that focuses on Linked In for sales people…. Oktopus!
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