Every business wants qualified leads. If you don’t use that term, then you want customers lathered up and ready to buy, but they can still be described as a qualified lead. So how do you find qualified leads?
Well, you can create content and drive people to it hoping they’ll ask for more information. You can hang an advertisement or a shingle somewhere and hope people raise their hand to buy or display some curiosity.
Or you can use LinkedIn.
Yep. You heard me right. LinkedIn — part of that big, hollow pit of no return-on-investment — just hands you qualified leads. Don’t believe me? Look:
That’s the notification feed from my LinkedIn this morning. Notice the links the arrows point to. By just using LinkedIn, I routinely get a list of people who have viewed my profile and people who have viewed my posts. So when I share content there, I can see who stopped to look at it. I can also see who had the greater curiosity to come check me out.
Yes, I may have to weed out people who are recruiters or just passers by who may not be my ideal targets for speaking engagements or consulting work. But at least I have a short list to work with.
The only exception to consider is that some people set their privacy so you only get general information like what company they work for. And some visibility is dependent on you having a LinkedIn premium account ($50 a month or so).
But you know what’s awesome? I get qualified leads there every day!
The next time someone tells you that social media is a waste of time, that you can’t get return on the investment or that it doesn’t lead to business, then you’ll know the truth: They just don’t know how to use it.
Have you gotten a customer or client from LinkedIn? Tell us about it in the comments!