2. Link up your Twitter, Blog, and YouTube accounts. LinkedIn makes it easy to connect profiles from other social media outlets and display them on your profile, either directly or through “Applications”. Keep in mind that the intent of your LinkedIn profile. While the YouTube video of your 3-year-old daughter singing, “I can do it by myself” may be adorable, it is probably not relevant to your business contacts. Keep those kinds of posts for your personal Facebook page, and keep LinkedIn strictly for business.

3. Ask & answer questions. LinkedIn provides an Answers section that allows all users to post and respond to questions. These are divided by industry, and are an excellent way to show your expertise in a matter. Because the answers section is not limited to your connections, it allows you to engage with a much larger network of people. It also helps you build connections with people you don’t share connections with.

4. Join groups. Groups introduce you to others with shared interests. You can participate in discussions with fellow group members, post articles, poll members or post jobs. These are basically sub-communities within LinkedIn and allow you to choose who you interact with. As with all communities though, it is never enough just to be there, you have to participate. An active user will be a welcome user. An inactive user is not even known. A side benefit of being in a group is that you can send other members direct messages without having to use (and pay for) InMail.

5. Refer people to one another. I know you’re looking for referrals, but the Law of Reciprocity says you have to give to get. So figure out who in your network should know each other. Several years ago, sales guru Gill Wagner let me in on his secret for becoming the go-to guy for connections – every week he makes sure to connect 2 people who don’t already know one another. This means he has to listen carefully to the needs of the people he meets so he can connect them to people who can help. In the process he has become known for having an amazing network, and he wins tons of great karma for being the guy who makes that happen. You can be that guy (or gal) too.

6. Reach out to your extended network. The power in LinkedIn lies in your 3rd degree connections. These are the people who are 3 steps away from you. Reach out to them by asking for introductions or using InMail. Of course, you must make sure you have something to say that is relevant to them (for goodness sake, don’t try to sell them in that first contact!).

7. Download your contacts! Did you know that you can download your contacts as a CSV file and upload that to your existing CRM system? No … well now you do! This way you can leverage your relationships with your LinkedIn connections through other outlets – like email newsletters, print campaigns, direct mail, etc.. And better yet, you can track your efforts right alongside your current system without having to change or duplicate that information.

8. Use your status update wisely. Changing your status means you are put on the home page of every connection you have. Make sure to change this regularly and only update it with messages that are consistent with your strategy. Ask for what you need and post what you want. Specificity allows people to connect you with the right people and opportunities.

I’m sure there are tons of additional ways to get the most out of LinkedIn, but I assure you that if you are employing all these tips, you will be richly rewarded with success. Let me know your thoughts and what I missed.

2. Include a photograph. This is not the place to be cute, or overly creative (even if you are in the business of creativity). Your photo needs to make it easy for people to tell what you look like. Everyone has at least one good photo of themselves. Keep in mind that this is a small picture, so choose a close-up of your face so people can really see you. This makes it easier to identify you when you meet (again) in person.

3. Personalize your URL. Because LinkedIn is SEO friendly, use your public profile URL to reinforce your personal brand. Use your full name (www.linkedin.com/in/heatherloftiss), your twitter handle (www.linkedin.com/in/natatclearpoint), or a keyword phrase that has meaning to you (www.linkedin.com/in/loudcreative). Once your desired URL is gone, much like domain names, it is gone. So do this as quickly as possible to ensure YOU get your name!

4. Give and Ask for Recommendations. Recommendations are one of the most powerful tools in LinkedIn. These serve as a third party endorsement of you and your work. As with all things, you should always give before you get. Go through your connections and endorse people who really stand out in your mind asremarkable contributors. Let people know how great they are to work with and they will most likely turn around and do the same for you. Don’t be afraid to ask for a recommendation either. You know when you did good work, so seek out those people who know it too and ask for their help.

5. Grow your network. After you initially enter in your contacts, you are not finished. You need to continue to grow your network. This means after every networking event, try to link to every person you have a business card from. This becomes another drip in your marketing cycle, if you are hoping to sell to your network eventually. Be careful though – many people mine LinkedIn and ask anyone to connect with them so they can have a large network. Only connect to people who you know, or have some shared connection with. Remember, you are judged by the company you keep.

6. Make your profile public. Why would you go to all the trouble of optimizing your profile, only to hide most of it from people who have not yet connected to you? Open your profile up and make it easy for people to see who you are. To do this simply click the Edit button next to the Public Profile heading. You can choose how much unconnected people are able to see about you. An added bonus to an open profile is that is helps your Google rank when searching on your name. Thank you LinkedIn for being so SEO friendly.

7. Promote your profile. Add your (personalized) profile to your email signature so people can easily find and connect to you. This way every email you send helps direct people back to your profile so they can learn more about you. After all, you’ve gone to all the trouble of setting it up correctly, why not make sure people see it?

These are just the basics of using LinkedIn effectively. When you’re ready to step it up, watch for LinkedIn 201: Getting the most out of LinkedIn (coming soon).

Here are my 6 reasons social media works in B2B:

1. Search LOVES social media. And people love to search. Over 60% of all purchase research begins with an internet search. As the prospect moves through the sales cycle, they search for more specific keywords. Think about your most recent searches. How many YouTube videos, blogs, and Facebook comments appeared in the results? These trends are not going to change. Social media allows information to be created and updated quickly, which is something that search engines like Google and Yahoo have always favored. They also favor pages with inbound links, which means those with the best information win the popularity war.

2. Sales & Marketing need some common ground. We all know sales and marketing have some trouble getting along. Especially in a long, complex sales cycle. Even if you assume they are working together, traditionally sales has difficulty closing the deal with the materials that marketing provides. The best answer for relevancy in “push marketing” consists of getting case studies or articles published in trade publications and having sales deliver reprints to the prospect. While this is still a valuable approach, it only works when the case study published is relevant to the prospect’s problem. It is also backwards focused, meaning it does not take into consideration upcoming industry trends.

Social media can help fill in the gaps left by traditional public relations. Marketing needs to be providing sales with content that is engaging to the prospect and pulls them into conversations. Both sales and marketing need to be monitoring industry trends and what real people are talking about in your industry. A simple Google Reader account allows your team to monitor the conversations that are happening out there, right now.

3. “My customers aren’t talking online.” I’m not buying it. Odds are you just aren’t looking for them in the right places. You need to be tracking who is talking about your industry, where they are, and what they are saying. Until you have done your due diligence, you really don’t have any idea where your prospects and customers are or what they are talking about. But, let’s assume you are right, and they aren’t engaging online yet. They will be soon. And now is the perfect time to jump in and make your mark so your name is top of the list when your prospects do show up.

4. Early adopters get the name recognition. Because the online social media world is still the wild west, it is anybody’s game. There is a low cost of entry (basically time – but lots of it) and a relatively low learning curve, this is an arena where any company came make their name by providing valuable information that your prospects and clients want to know about. You establish your credibility through the content you put out there. And the best posts will encourage readers to comment and further engage with you in the discussion.

5. Actual conversations with your customers. What makes social media powerful is the fact that it is a 2-way dialog. According to a 2007 Keller Fay Group study, “Business decision makers most value communication channels that provide a two-way dialog.” Allowing your readers to respond to your comments makes your brand vulnerable, but it also makes it human. People want to do business with people. They also want to talk to people. And joining the conversation means you get to make your voice heard as well. Because whether you are part of it or not, the conversation is happening.

6. Word of Mouth is the #1 influencer on B2B purchase decisions. That’s not just my opinion. That same 2007 Keller Fay Group study found that 50% of respondents were highly likely to buy based solely on word of mouth recommendations, and that 49% of respondents passed on what they learned to others. That was a study performed 2 years ago. Just as social media has grown over the last 2 years, so has the influence it has in purchasing decisions. If I said B2B sales are made through relationship selling, no one would argue. Social media is simply another tool that can be used to start forming relationships.

I hope that my six reasons have sparked some thought and even some disagreement with you. If so, please take a moment to share your thoughts. I promise to take the time to respond back. Let’s start talking.

• “Decide what you want” – Clarify your company’s mission and values to focus your team re. what you do best, for whom you do it, and why it matters – to them and to you.
• “Discover what your customer wants” – Help prospects discover what they emotionally want and rationally need to more deeply understand their current problems/opportunities and the painful costs of their current solution, then educate them about the unique benefits that “perfect” customers of your current products enjoy – and finally, allow them to make a wise purchase decision on their own.
• “Deliver plus one” – Over-deliver by fulfilling 101% of the above promises AND show your customers that you genuinely care about them and appreciate their business.

Shaping customer experiences around these three sets of activities builds strong brands and proudly engages customers and employees in the honorable professions of marketing and sales.

Nine Communication Tools to Help Prospective Customers Make Good Purchase Decisions – and Thereby Help You Create Raving Fans

Decide

1. Product/Company Brand Identity
2. Team Education (Internal Brand Messaging)
3. Industry Education (External Brand Messaging)

Discover

4. Inside Sales Conversations (Lead Generation)
5. Field Sales Conversations (Lead Qualification)
6. Field Sales Leave-behinds & Follow-up (Qualified Lead Conversion)

(Over)Deliver

7. Account Management/Customer Conversations (Retention & Referrals)
8. Account Management/Customer Conversations (Up-sell/Cross-sell)
9. Former Customer Conversations (Win-back)

• Product leadership can focus on quality or quantity (i.e. depth or breadth) of your range of goods and services.
• Price leadership can be paid for in money or time (convenience).
• Personal Relationships can emphasize the service aspect of the offering (e.g. offering to customize/personalize the product, thereby minimizing customer impact) or alternatively create aspirational/experiential images of their products and the people who use them so that customers feel better about themselves because of the relationship.

Crawford and Mathews similarly argue that disciplined focus on a single attribute, coupled with a strong supporting secondary variable is the consistent business strategy of top market share winners. Example strategies of familiar brands are listed below:

Some brand leadership combinations are more believable by prospects than other combinations. For example, product quality leadership tends to be linked with expected outstanding personal service in the minds of most people. In contrast, price and quality are typically viewed as counteracting variables – the lowest price for the highest quality products is not a credible proposition. The claim that a product saves you time AND saves you money usually (though not always) elicits a skeptical response. An analysis of brand positioning credibility is shown below as a function of the cross correlation of primary versus secondary attributes:

A recommended method for arming your sales team with focused sales literature is assessing competitive positioning of key players in your industry relative to your differentiation.

In 2000, Compaq’s ProLiant server group was rapidly growing and diversifying their product line. The sales team was having a hard time differentiating the technical details of each of the servers and understanding which segments were best served by which servers.

Enter Heather Loftiss, Creative Director of Water Design Studio.

Heather was brought in to develop a sales playbook which could be kept close at hand during calls and that would easily and quickly highlight the differences between server products.

What started as a guide to ProLiant servers evolved over the next four years into an annually updated sales tool detailing the full Industry Standard Server product line. The 2001 merger with Hewlett-Packard added many new products to the book, including software and services.

The sales guide simplified the complex selling process by documenting best sales practices for each product in every server line. Each product chapter includes customer testimonials; product messaging; key features; target market; customer problem, sales script overview; ideal customer profile; competitive landscape; common objections; assessment questions; and product architecture diagrams.

The guide features ample white space to keep the dense information from becoming too overwhelming. Whenever possible, illustrations and charts were created to show the features and associated customer benefits of the product rather than simply listing the details.

The results? The original sales guide had to be reprinted twice because it was in such high demand. Over the next four years the guides proved to be a favorite with the sales staff, with calls coming in at the beginning of each quarter to find out when the next series would be released. In the end, the book was retired when the information was migrated to a secure online portal. But the manner in which the sales cycle was explained and illustrated remains the same.