Top Tools for LinkedIn in 2018

LinkedIn has already grown into one of the most effective lead generation platforms for the majority of B2Bs, startups, mid-sized businesses, and growing organizations. And that is with good reason. The social media site allows each user to connect with their target audience through advanced searches and a formal communications platform. In a nutshell, the general practice is to send a connect request to a potential client or partner and once accepted, send follow-ups to turn prospects into customers. If you really want to harness LinkedIn’s sales and marketing opportunities, consider stepping up your game. We’ve got some great tools for LinkedIn that will help you connect faster and more efficiently.

Get Prospect – The first step in getting prospects is finding them. This neat little tool will allow you to do just that with a few clicks. Select your search criteria to get a list of leads by names, LinkedIn url, corporate email, position, industry and even phone number. Just enter your criteria to get a downloadable list to use for cold calling, introductory emails, and yes, LinkedIn invites.

Find That Email – The self-described “Yellow Pages of Email,” they can help collect the email address of professionals in your industry from their master list in the millions of contacts in companies worldwide. You can use their direct service or get the extension in the Chrome Web Store. To use it:

• Install Find That Email extension.
• Sign up for an account.
• Visit social networks like LinkedIn to retrieve contact information, including emails.

It even comes with a confidence score so you know how accurate the given email addresses will be.

Crystal Knows – Now that you have your prospects, it’s time to prepare content to send to them. But should you do one blanket email with just the title line changed? This tool solves the problem of a one-size fits all solution to content for your new prospects. Crystal Know’s personality assessment helps you learn more about natural communication styles for each prospect. Enter the LinkedIn profile to get a review of the user’s personality, a great tool for speaking to them on their level. In addition to communication style, you can also get information on their motivations and behavioral tendencies.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator – This tool is a must have if your business has a sales department. Use their advanced filters to locate those hard to find connections. Features include but are not limited to:

• Access to those hard to get InMail messages
• The ability to save leads
• Advanced searches
• Territory preferences

You can even use their lead generation tool to do the work for you. Best of all, you can choose your plan for one individual sales rep all the way up to unlimited.

Sprout Social – Analytics is an important part of any social media campaign. LinkedIn already has decent analytics for company profile pages including engagement data such as likes, comments, shares, and new follows. Go beyond the ordinary with Sprout. They give you detailed information on everything you need to know on company updates, visitors, and followers.

• Company Updates – You can see exactly what updates are scoring the most impressions, engagement, interactions, clicks, and even followers acquired all from the company updates section.
• Followers – Sprout shows you your total number of followers, audience demographics, and trends in the growth of followers. It also goes the extra step to show you the seniority level in your followers, which allows you to target decision makers. Other key data includes industry as well as the size of the company, which is especially useful for targeted campaigns.
• Visitors – These are your potential followers. Sprout tells you how many times they have viewed your page, as well as their demographics. You can also see the seniority level of your visitors for better analysis.

LinkedIn Plugins  – Be sure to make the most of your website by installing and optimizing these simple, LinkedIn plugins.

• Share button – Add share buttons to your posts, pages, products, etc. so visitors may easily share your content with decision makers at their company.
• Follow company – Don’t have enough followers? Make it easy for visitors to do so by having a Follow Company button on an easy to access spot, such as the header and/or footer.
• LinkedIn Autofill – Use LinkedIn as a prompt for visitors to fill out a form to ask about a product or service.
• Popup forms – Use a popup form on your site to get visitors to follow you on LinkedIn, check out the latest updates, apply for a job, etc.

LinkedIn is often underutilized, but the above tools can help your business grow by generating a constant stream of high-quality leads, creative ways to engage them, and providing ways to analyze data. Smart marketing strategies can bring success while minimizing the time spent on social media to allow your team to spread their focus.