I describe LinkedIn as the sleeper social site sensation of the year.  Wasn’t it just last year that we were all speculating about how LinkedIn works beyond just connections?  This year, we just saw that some people see its value.  The company’s first IPO offering started at just $45 a share but raised dramatically on the first day.  No doubt, this is because many people see that there is value in using LinkedIn to build business relationships even if they haven’t figured out exactly how to use it.

For business-to-business professionals, LinkedIn is the definitive social space where you must have a presence or else risk online extinction.  With 10.3 billion people using Google to find whatever they need, your presence is required. The business buyers and decision makers of today are looking for you to help them solve their business problems by offering your company’s unique perspective and solutions.  Think of Google as your new business card.  

What is LinkedIn?

Surprisingly, I still run into many people who ask this question.  LinkedIn is a social media site for entrepreneurs and professionals launched in 2003.  It is a widely recognized business-networking site worldwide.  

LinkedIn is unique and very different from the other social media sites.  It is all business all the time.  You will not find games to play and you can only connect to people whom you know or to whom your connections introduce you. Connecting to someone on LinkedIn equates to giving out your business card along with some information about your company.  However, online you can keep the conversation going longer and more regularly.  LinkedIn is a tool to help you do that.

LinkedIn Demographics

• More than 100 members in over 200 countries and territories
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are members
• 73 of the Fortune 100 companies use LinkedIn’s hiring solutions
• More than 2 million companies have a LinkedIn company page
• The mojority of the members are very influential and affluent

How can LinkedIn Answers help me connect to decision makers?

LinkedIn Answers is an opportunity for you to go beyond your profile by participating in discussions that other members would find helpful.  You can ask or answer a question.  It is a way for you to introduce yourself to other members without feeling awkward or being pushy.

Why should you invest the time to ask or answer questions?

While there are many reasons why answering questions is important, the most coveted reason is Google.  Google indexes questions and answers.  This means when someone searches on a term related to your question or answer it could show up on the first page of Google.  There is, of course, no guarantee that this will happen but the possibility is very high. 

Remember, Google is your new business card.  When you give someone a card, you do not know if it really goes into the person’s active contact list or if it finds a home in the bottom drawer.  Does that keep you from giving them out?  No!  So think of using LinkedIn Answers in the same manner.  You never know when someone will start to see the answers you give as a possible solution to their business problems.   At this point you are one step closer to gaining a new client.

Another reason to invest the time is the This Week’s Expert leaderboard that appears when one goes to the LinkedIn Answers tab.  A person becomes an expert by answering any question that the asker then marks as the best one.  For giving the best-recognized answer, you get a point.  The ten people who have the most points are listed on the LinkedIn Answers tab main page.  Can you say free advertising?  Even when you don’t have enough points to land on the main page, you still get credit on your mini profile of the questions you answer which shows the categories where you have earned expert status.

How can LinkedIn Answers help me generate leads?

It’s true.  You can find people to network with who are ready to buy your product or services.  Here are three ways to do this effectively.

1.  Give clear, honest, good thought out answers.  When you do this, you are establishing that you know what you are talking about.  People will be attracted to you and want to connect with you because you are knowledgeable and helpful.

2.  Ask compelling questions.  This can create actual conversations with other members.    Conversations create something magical.  Ok, it is not magic. However, it creates a type of familiarity that might influence a potential buyer’s decision to pick up the phone and call you when they are ready to solve their business problem.

3.  Never network alone when you can help it.  When you are networking in person locally, invite a LinkedIn connection to join you.  Do you travel for your company?  Try to evaluate whether you have a potential customer in the city where you will be then meet with them before you leave for lunch or coffee.  No selling! Just concentrate on putting a human face on your business at first. 

This is nothing more than Selling 101 for B2B professionals.  But with the addition of LinkedIn Answers as a part of your networking strategy, you are able to connect farther and faster than you can on foot.  It’s true that you can and should use other traditional methods such as cold-calling or print/tv/radio, etc.  However, these methods have very serious limits when compared to using social networking.  Combining them with social networking increases the opportunity to widen the net and catch more prospects.

For many B2B professionals, LinkedIn Answers is still an enigma.  What do you find the most mysterious or confusing about using LinkedIn Answers?  Let’s discuss it in the comment section below.   

Social media has been around for a few years now and is finally becoming useful for personal, professional, and business reasons.

However, many B2B companies still believe social media is just a fad.  Some companies might see that social media is not a fad but believe that it is not applicable to their industry.  Often, even when a company acknowledges that social media is valuable, their online life does not reflect that understanding.

Has your B2B company fully accepted the power of social media?  If not, perhaps the following satistics will be very convincing:

Original source:  Social Media Today

In what ways has your company embraced (or not embraced) social media?

Community Manager Motto: Remember why we party.

When I think of the job title, community manager, I think of a very enthusiastic smiling face that belongs to someone with a lot of contacts floating around in their head.  Ten years ago, the term community manager was not even in existence as it pertains to social media today.  In 2011, the community manager is emerging as an integral part of preparing a company to embrace social media.

Social media represents a big change from business as usual.  It’s disruptive and frightening for the staff member who may be more concerned about losing their job over a tweet than solving a customer’s problem.   On the flip side, it can be confusing and frustrating for the customer who is trying to connect to a company only to hear nothing but echo after they tweet.

So what is a community manager’s role in helping the company shift to a social mindset?

In a nutshell, it is to educate, communicate, and motivate across all departments.  Seventy-five percent (no survey for this number, I’m just saying) of a community manager’s time should be invested in communicating to the staff why the change to social.  Yet, it’s not enough to say, here it is good luck.  People can’t utilize what they don’t understand how to use.  I know how to use Excel but some of my old employers thought that should mean being proficient with pivot tables.  Ok, this is not a common function; a little training class would have been appreciated.  And in addition to all that, the community manager needs to understand how to encourage people to change, make it fun and rewarding.

What is the biggest mistake that companies make when hiring a community manager?

You might think that it is hiring or promoting a person that doesn’t have deep knowledge of social media and that could be a problem.  But, lack of executive support is the biggest issue.  Let’s face it, change must come from the top.  If the CEO and VPs are not actively using social media then a community manger is fighting a fierce battle to change company culture alone.  When I’m consulting at companies where the CEO is at the meeting but not in the meeting, I know this company has an uphill climb.   And there are some very good reasons why a deep cultural shift must take place; Facebook has 500 million users and the sales funnel may be dead.  Need I say more?

What are the two most important characteristics of a great community manager?

Great Communicator

This means a social butterfly or a people person.   A community manager must be effective at communicating the value of social media to customers as well as the corporate employees.  They should listen well then participate in a way that causes others to be interested enough to engage with them and the company.

Great Strategist

This person has to be able to see the big picture for all the schmoozing they will do.  In the end, this whole effort is still about revenue.  No matter the action, tweeting, facebooking, blogging, partying the main reason has to be getting people excited about the brand’s offering without being a hustler.  Now a days we say don’t shill.

Social media is remaking the traditional corporate culture.  Are you a company leader who is wondering how to reach your business goals in this “new media” day?  What are some of the reasons why (or why not) you hired a community manager?  If you have a great community manager, give them a shout out!

Wow, I’m really loving You Tube.  Until now, if I wanted to see someone show me the steps of the latest dance craze then You Tube was my Google.  But since I’ve become very serious about using it to research more serious subjects, I can see that there really is a lot of valuable information to be had.  Many people are very generous.

I’m sharing this video with you because Kyle Flaherty at Breaking Point Systems gave a great talk to the company’s global sales force.  In the presentation he shares some key points about using LinkedIn for B2B sales.  With over 60 million members, of which all Fortune 500 executives are a part, LinkedIn is not to be ignored if you’re serious about growing your business.

In general he reminds us to:

Be a resource: what’s in it for your connections

Don’t interrupt: be helpful

Connect after meeting: keep up with the people you meet in person

Be current: use LinkedIn applications to make your profile interesting

Update your profiles everywhere: when you find yourself listed on LinkedIn like sites update the profile

How helpful has LinkedIn been for you to grow your online presence and prospect for sales?