How to Build Your Influence Through LinkedIn

Are you looking to build your influence on LinkedIn, but have no idea where to start? Maybe you know LinkedIn is the platform you need to be using, but no idea how to leverage it properly to grow your online presence?

Well, if you’re like many who have always just seen it as a place to put your CV online, but now starting to realise how powerful it could be if tapped correctly – you’re reading this at the right time. As it currently stands not many people completely understand how to truly leverage the platform to build their businesses.

Therefore this is great for you as it’s an opportunity to learn the ins and outs to take advantage now and really leverage it to build your influence and grow your business. So in this article we’re going to share with you three ways you can leverage LinkedIn to build your influence to generate more leads and become the go to person in your industry.

Growing Your Network

Firstly, when starting to build your influence you need to develop a network of targeted followers. Influence comes from having a powerfully engaged network that respect and listen to you.

To do this on LinkedIn you need to define who your target market is. Then once you are crystal clear on this you begin connecting with that target demographic on the platform.

We recommend using the Sales Navigator premium option that extends your abilities on the platform allowing you to search for specific people. You can then save potential clients as leads, engage with their content and connect with them. To do this you first need to get clear on your target audience, when doing so we suggest looking at the following key metrics:

– Position Title
– Industry
– Seniority Level
– Company Size
– Location

Once you are clear on that go onto LinkedIn and sign up for a free trial of the sales navigator. Using this tool will enable you to drill down from the millions of members on the platform to ONLY those within your target audience.

After you have signed up for this search for your target market through using the Lead Builder and begin saving your target market as leads. Another key feature of the platform is that you can actually begin engaging with the content they post before you connect with them.

Thus once you do reach out and connect your requests get a lot more cut through. Once you have engaged for a week or so reach out and connect, but make sure you send a personalised connection request.

You can send out 72 connection requests a day – don’t send out any more than that as it flooding the network and could get you banned. So start building up this network now as that will grow your database of your target audience and slowly create influence. If you want to turn these into potential leads you need to start a relationship building process and you can do that through sending valuable content as private messages to your leads through Sales Navigator.

Connecting With The Media

Hands down one of the most effective ways to build your influence and personal brand is by getting featured in the media. When people see you featured in high authority media publications they automatically see you as a thought leader as it elevates your brand.

Most people don’t realise this, but LinkedIn is a treasure trove for media opportunities. 94.2% of journalists and editors are on there and they are hungry for news worthy content.

The best way to get featured in the media through LinkedIn is to firstly decide on what publications you want to get featured in. Then search through the publication to find the relevant topics that you could potentially comment on.

Then find the journalists, contributors and editors who are writing content that is relevant to your expertise. Once you have done this, search for the person on LinkedIn and reach out and connect.

Now it’s not as simple as just sending a message to them and asking for media exposure. That’s not going to work. In fact that’s going to get them to block you as a contact.

You need to build a relationship and you do this through communicating with them directly and seeing where they need help right now and how you can add value to them. Do something for them first and then next time they are writing an article around something that you are an expert in – they will come to you.

Using this exact same strategy has seen us get featured in over 60 media publications over the past few years and we now write for some of the biggest media outlets in the world including Business Insider, Huffington Post, Hubspot and many others… Time to start planting those seeds to get featured in the media.

Creating Joint Venture Partnerships

The third key way to build your influence through LinkedIn is through Joint Venture Partnerships. This is where you partner with other companies or influencers who share your target demographic who don’t compete with you. This is one of the fastest ways in which you can build your influence as you are leveraging someone else who has a database of your target demographic to build your own.

In terms of leveraging LinkedIn for this, you would firstly define who you would like to partner with. To do that ask yourself this one powerful question: Where are my clients going before, during and after my service/product?

Once you are fully clear on the type of business or individual you need to partner with, you follow the same process of generating leads by connecting and building relationships with them through LinkedIn. Once you have built that relationship you need to come up with a win – win solutions that get you exposure to their database. They might promote something of yours, feature you in their blog or podcast.

It really depends on what your main outcome is. If it’s to build your influence and you’re not so worried about generating a lot of leads right now then get them to promote your content or feature you in theirs. If you’re looking to generate leads see if they’ll promote your offering to their network.

Whatever it might be you need to come up with a win – win solution so they benefit from it as well. Building your personal brand is something that takes time and consistency to achieve results. If you think you’re not going to have the time to stay consistent then you need to either find the time or find someone who can implement on your behalf so you can begin investing in your most important asset – you.