Mon, 31 Jan 2022
Production companies and freelancers who have their calendar packed with jobs tend to be really good at staying front of mind. One thing to remember is that a lot of referrals and recommendations for projects can come from outside the industry.
The trick is to ensure your network immediately thinks of you when someone in their network asks for a vendor recommendation. Given the everyday hustle and bustle, it’s not uncommon for even close friends to forget about what you do. Social selling on LinkedIn is an effective strategy to regularly remind your network of your craft.
What is LinkedIn Social Selling?
LinkedIn social selling helps build awareness of your personal brand or area of expertise without hard sales tactics. This is achieved by regularly publishing interesting content and making intelligent comments on other peoples posts. The outcome? Over time your 2nd degree network (your network’s connections) will grow into your primary network where inbound leads are generated.
Social Selling Tips
Headline: a one liner that connects your area of expertise to the desired outcome for potential customers. Your headline is visible on top of any comment you post.
Example: “Helping brands attract world class talent through storytelling.”
The objective of the headline is to attract curious parties to your profile and learn more about your services.
LinkedIn Summary
This section, when structured correctly, can convert profile viewers into customers. A good summary has 5 parts.
Specifically call out your customer.
A question to a problem they may have.
A credible insight that could solve their problems.
Social proof of your history solving this problem for other customers.
CTA - contact details for a free quote / consultation etc.
Summary Example
Are you a music producer or artist ready to launch?
Indie music now represents approx 33% of all streams, up from 17% in 2019.
We help artists including (x, y, z) launch and build followings through video.
Feel free to contact us for a chat on how powerful storytelling can help launch your career.
[contact details].
Thought Leadership
Once your profile is set-up correctly you are ready to go out into the content battlefield of LinkedIn to start building and engaging an audience.
Tactics include,
Publish original content.
Post behind the scenes of upcoming work (if allowed).
Post other people’s content with your own take.
Make intelligent comments with a goal of starting conversations.
Niche
LinkedIn social selling works best when you focus on a specific customer type to keep content relevant. It is better to be loved by 10 people, than liked by 100. And in a similar vein, one intelligent and thought provoking comment will be better received than a scattering of cliche comments.
IE if you were to focus on talent acquisition, you’re more likely to build a loyal following and win work in that domain than jumping across several disciplines like social media, product, and talent.
Think about the type of work and customers you’d like to work with, follow them, and begin engaging with their content.
Key Takeaway
The key principle of social selling is to publish relevant content and authentically engage with potential customers in a low touch manner to build friendly online relationships and generate inbound leads.