LinkedIn Unlocked

Build credibility and create new opportunities on LinkedIn

To do social selling on LinkedIn, you must first have a good network, made up of potential customers, that is based on authentic human relationships. In conjunction with these factors, your brand must also be credible and have authority. Building an online reputation requires persistence, patience, and a good personal branding strategy. In her book LinkedIn Unlocked: Unlock the Mystery of LinkedIn to Drive More Sales Through Social Selling, Melonie Dodaro explains the method that she personally devised to exploit the enormous opportunities offered by LinkedIn, which is aimed at helping people to improve their personal branding, and to get better results from social selling through this platform.

Read in 15 min.

Listen in 19 min.

Many useful tips to:

Improve your presence on LinkedIn.
Increase the credibility and authority of your brand.
Create sales opportunities through LinkedIn.

The author of the book:

Melonie Dodaro is an entrepreneur, a best selling author, and a leading social media expert, specialising in the platform LinkedIn. She is the founder and CEO of Top Dog Social Media. She has created an online coaching program called "Cracking the LinkedIn Code 3.0" in which she helps professionals and companies to improve their online authority and credibility, with the aim of increasing the sales of their products or services through social selling on LinkedIn. In addition to this, she runs several training courses and seminars in which she teaches participants to take advantage of the opportunities offered by LinkedIn to improve their personal branding.

IDEA CHIAVE 1/11

To attract new customers, you need to transform your network from a simple collection of virtual contacts to a set of social relationships

In the age of social media, success is not guaranteed by having many followers. You need relationships, not just contacts, to help develop your business and ensure that it prospers. People like to know who is behind a business, and are more likely to buy if the brand stands out from the others, as a result of its transparency and authenticity. So-called “social selling” or “digital sales” refers to the use of social media platforms and other digital means to find potential customers, and establish an authentic and personal relationship with them that, over time, will translate into an increase in demand for a specific product or service.

The sales paradigm has also changed: brands no longer wonder what they should sell, but how they can help their target customer. It may seem to be a subtle change, but this shift in mindset gives potential customers the sensation of being placed at the centre of a business’ focus, and, consequently, makes them more likely to buy.

LinkedIn is a social network dedicated to business. According to recent studies, LinkedIn is 277% more effective than Facebook or Twitter at creating B2B (business-to-business) sales opportunities, i.e. between professionals. There are two main mistakes a user makes on LinkedIn when deciding to use this medium to sell a product or service. The first is to maintain a purely online relationship with a potential customer. By doing so, they are unable to really get to know a person, and understand what their needs are, which is an essential step in transforming a potential customer into a real customer. The second mistake is immediately proposing their product or service after the initial contact with the potential customer, thus ruining the relationship between the two parties forever, because the trust in the authenticity of this relationship is lost.

The key ideas of "LinkedIn Unlocked"

01.

To attract new customers, you need to transform your network from a simple collection of virtual contacts to a set of social relationships

02.

To define a winning social selling strategy on LinkedIn, you need to understand what differentiates your business from others, who your ideal customers are, and what they need

03.

A professional’s LinkedIn profile must be studied in detail, and convey an image that is consistent with their business, much like a business card

04.

To do social selling through LinkedIn, you need to have a quality network

05.

Being kind and polite, respecting others, and collaborating with your contacts helps improve your sales skills on LinkedIn

06.

To understand if a piece of content is suitable to be shared on LinkedIn, all you need to do is consider if you would talk about it with your colleagues or customers face-to-face

07.

Sharing quality content that informs your potential customers, and increases their awareness, is a winning social selling strategy on LinkedIn

08.

To be successful on LinkedIn, you need a solid action plan, accompanied by a list of activities to do day-to-day

09.

Social selling on LinkedIn requires the use of many resources, and so you need to establish measurable objectives

10.

Quotes

11.

Take-home message

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