LinkedIn is the place to be if you want to grow your professional networks. Any business person worth their salt will most likely have a personal profile on LinkedIn or at least one for their business. LinkedIn is where you go to make connections, interact with customers, and share your content. But, LinkedIn offers so much more than just a newsfeed and connection request capabilities.
Here are some of the best LinkedIn prospecting tools you may not know about:
Linkedin AutoFill Feature
LinkedIn is a trusted marketing outlet and prospecting tool for many business professionals. If you’re just starting out with LinkedIn, check out the video below for some basic steps before you move onto the more advanced tips in this article!
You probably have some sort of conversion forms or information forms on your website. Maybe you want to know the visitor’s name, email address, and company name or perhaps you’re requesting other information depending on the circumstance. Regardless of what information you’re asking your web visitors to provide, they may not want to comply if your information forms are long or seem complicated.
Your site visitors don’t want to spend a lot of time filling out a form on your website to get access to a newsletter or a free service. It’s your responsibility to make that process as pain-free as possible. But, how do you do that? Especially if you have required fields you need filled out. This is where this LinkedIn prospecting tool comes in handy!
LinkedIn offers a form autofill plugin you can embed on your website, social media accounts, and any other pages as well.
How AutoFill works:
This Linkedin autofill feature pulls information from the prospect’s LinkedIn profile and auto-populates it in your online forms. This way your site visitors don’t have to spend a lot of time on your forms, and you can guarantee the information they provide is accurate. This autofill feature will only work if the user is logged into their LinkedIn account.
Additionally, any domain or web address you enter must be white-listed before you can use AutoFill. Here’s the Linkedin AutoFill set up page where you can get the code to add to your web pages.
Linkedin Engagement Pods
LinkedIn Engagement Pods are a sure-fire way to increase your post engagement and traffic with your connections and prospects. These Engagement Pods are not a group, but not just posting to your newsfeed either.
So what is it specifically?
LinkedIn Engagement Pods are private groups of active LinkedIn users who all agree to abide by certain guidelines of that specific group. The idea behind these pods is that all members will comment, share, and like each other’s posts that they publish in the group. With that guaranteed engagement from fellow pod members, your posts are sure to become more popular and drive more traffic to your web pages and website.
Engagement Pods are organized around a specific theme and most have certain guidelines that users follow. For example, some pods may have a requirement of how often a member posts to the group or when. In standard and regulated pods, if you do not abide by that specific pod’s rules, you may be dismissed from it. Studies have shown that pods with 20-30 members with about half who are actively engaged in the group, perform the best. However, in less regulated and established pods, it can be hard to enforce engagement in pod discussions from all members.
These LinkedIn Pods are quite popular, but these types of groups also exist on other forms of social media as well like Facebook or even regular email. At its core, a pod is a group of specific people with a similar interest all committed to the actions within that pod. Pods are a great LinkedIn prospecting tool that puts you and your connections, customers, and prospects in direct, continuous contact with each other.
Engagement Pods are great because it quickly boosts post engagement and traffic, extending the reach of content on LinkedIn. The more people that engage with your post, the more widespread it becomes, possibly even going viral. Instead of your post being buried on your connections’ newsfeeds, your posts can now be front and center! If you’re a small business owner or employee, these Engagement Pods can increase your brand awareness and reputation, while possibly putting you in the pathway of valuable connections and future customers or clients as well.
LinkedIn Engagement Pods are great vehicles for outreach. And, you can pair other prospecting tools tools together in this process. For instance, Wiza can help you scrape and find up-to-date contact information and use it to reach out to relevant prospects. Within a few minutes, you’ll have a list with contact information and real-time data, which saves you hours of work. And, as a cherry on top, Wiza integrates with any CRM or marketing platform – you can easily share the list of prospects with your entire sales team.
There are a few ways you can get involved in a LinkedIn Engagement Pod. You can search out an existing engagement pod (or wait to get invited to one), you can pay to gain admission into an engagement pod, or you can start your own engagement pod. A word of caution if you do plan to start a pod yourself; if you create it, then you have to set the rules and manage it yourself. You become responsible for setting and enforcing the group’s regulations. You will also need to actively work to build up and keep the members of your pod, so you have the best results for your posts.
How to Get Involved
If dramatically increasing your content reach is something you’re interested in, then Engagement Pods are right for you! Here’s how to get started:
1. Joining an already existing pod
To join an already existing pod, you can search for them or ask your connections if they know of any good groups to join.
An essential part of creating your own engagement group is knowing a network of people to invite to join your pod. Consider growing your network ahead of time and once you are confident in your ability to build a pod of your own – make it happen.
Whether you’re invited to or you seek out an already existing pod, you want to pay attention to who’s in the group with you. Pod members with a lot of connections or followers often make the best members because when they comment on or share your post, all their connections will see your post too.
It’s really simple to create your own LinkedIn Engagement Pod. Just follow these steps!
- Go to the “messages” section of your Linkedin account
- Create a new message
- Name your pod and add who you want
Once you create your pod, make sure to explain the guidelines and expectations of it. Once everyone’s on the same page, get posting!
In Conclusion
Even if you’re a frequent user of LinkedIn, you may not be aware of all the resources it has to offer you and your marketing campaigns. The above mentioned LinkedIn prospecting tools will help you get the greatest returns from your profile. Make sure you’re getting the most out of your online marketing experience by using Linkedin’s AutoFill plug-in and Linkedin Engagement Pods to boost your connections online.
Blog
Case Studies
Infographics
Free Comprehensive Analysis