We all lead such busy lives that the thought of having to give up even five minutes a day can seem almost impossible. In reality though, five minutes a day is not very much. It’s about the same amount of time as we spend cleaning our teeth each day. And if you can find five minutes a day for a week, you will have created more than half an hour for yourself.

When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem like a huge investment to improve your LinkedIn profile and reap the business rewards, does it?

LinkedIn is a unique social media tool because of its business and networking focus. It is designed to help you build relationships and strengthen existing ones, as well as build your personal reputation amongst your peers and potential customers.

Once you’ve got the basics of your profile working, LinkedIn can be a great place to promote some of the content you’ve developed for lead generation.

To help you put LinkedIn to work for you, I’ve broken down some common tasks into bite-sized pieces that you can mix and match to build your LinkedIn profile in just 5 minutes a day.

1 minute a day tasks

Accept invitations to connect
You will receive invitations from a wide range of people who want to connect with you on LinkedIn. Don’t just connect with people you know well, or people you want to do business with in the near future. Even though you may not know someone, LinkedIn can help you support your sales process, find staff, grow your personal brand and much more.

So take a minute to check your pending connection requests and accept any that are relevant.

Send a connection request to someone
LinkedIn will frequently prompt you to connect with people you may know. Grow your network by connecting with at least one new person each week.

The easiest way to start is to hover your mouse over the icon of the person with a plus sign in the top right of the screen and review the list of people that appears under ‘People you may know’. How easy is that?

Organise to catch up with one of your contacts
Need an excuse to get out of the office for half an hour? Why not invite one of your connections you haven’t seen for a while to grab a coffee with you. I bet a lot of your connections are based in your area. It only takes a minute to make a time to catch up and you never know what opportunities it might lead to in the future.

Customise your URL
When you first sign up with LinkedIn, you will be assigned a URL that contains random numbers and symbols. You can easily change this by editing the link underneath your photo on your profile page. A short URL is easier to use on an email footer or business card. It is also better optimized for search engines.

2 minutes a day tasks

Comment on a status or content shared by someone in your network
When one of your connections shares a story or status it will appear in your news feed on the ‘Home’ tab of your LinkedIn profile. Take two minutes each day to see what your network is talking about and make a brief comment on one of the posts. This is a great way to stay in touch with your network.

Share your own update
Got something to say? Simply select the ‘Share an update’ button on the ‘Home’ tab of LinkedIn profile and share it with your network. It could be anything from news about your current project, a recent success or something of interest to your network. You can also include a link to a webpage where people can find out more.

Share content with your network
Beyond sharing an update, if you have written an article recently you can easily share that on LinkedIn. You can even add the link to your profile so that it consistently shows up when people look at your profile.

Once you’ve added the link to your profile be sure to share it with your network, as outlined in the previous tip.

Check who has viewed your profile
LinkedIn cleverly offers you the opportunity to review who has looked at your profile recently. This includes both your current connections and people you are not connected to. Again, whether they are people you see as current leads or even potential employers, consider connecting with people you may want to network with in the future.

In fact, it’s a great idea to take two minutes to send them a message and connect personally.

3 minutes a day tasks

Send a personal message to new connections
Whether you know the person or not, take a few minutes to thank them personally for connecting with you. This will strengthen your relationship, or start to build one if it’s someone new. While you’re sending the message, take a moment to consider if you could share some useful content with them.

Review your settings
LinkedIn make frequent updates to the way the platform works, so it’s important to review your settings from time to time to make sure everything is working the way you want it to. This includes your privacy and visibility settings, as well as the way you’ll receive alerts and updates from LinkedIn.

Hover over your image in the top right of the screen, and then select on ‘Privacy and settings’ from the drop down menu.

Join key groups
One of the biggest networking opportunities with LinkedIn comes from joining groups relevant to your industry. There are thousands of groups covering every topic imaginable. By joining groups you can listen to what your peers and potential customers are talking about, and get the latest news and views from a range of sources.

Start by taking 3 minutes to search for and join up to 10 groups that focus on the industry you work in, and be sure to choose some that include your potential customers as members.

Become active in groups
Once you’ve joined some select groups, really put LinkedIn to work by becoming involved in the group. Make sure you start by listening and watching how others use the groups to share news, ask questions and point to resources, then start contributing yourself.

This doesn’t have to be time consuming, and is a really effective way to raise your profile among your peers and potential customers.

Summary

LinkedIn is a powerful networking and business development tool. If you can find just five minutes a day, you can start to build your LinkedIn profile and really get it working for you.

Start by reviewing your invitations to connect, and send some invitations of your own. Comment on content shared by your network and be sure to share your own updates and content.

Take your LinkedIn profile to the next level by joining and becoming active in groups relevant to your industry. I guarantee you’ll learn a lot and meet a lot of interesting people.

Before you know it, in the time it takes you to clean your teeth each day, you will have grown your network and opened yourself up to a world of business opportunities.

Feeling overwhelmed about getting started with LinkedIn? We’re experts at using LinkedIn to tell stories and build professional networks. If you need some expert advice, give b:content marketing a call today.

We’ll get people talking about you, and to you.

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Content marketing is the talk of the digital marketing industry right now, but for most business owners the term means very little.

The reality is, content is the heart of your website and content marketing is one of the most powerful lead generation tools available to businesses.

Whether you are targeting businesses or individual consumers, you can harness the power of content to build awareness, create connections, generate leads and achieve your business objectives. Done well, content marketing will allow you to build valuable trust with your potential customers before they even have a conversation with you.

So, how can you use the power of content marketing to generate more leads?

1. Solve your customers biggest problems

Most online search queries start with a desire for more information or a question that needs to be answered. It’s important that you take the time to understand what it is your potential customers are searching for so you can be present exactly where they are looking for answers.

Split your target customers into different groups and define their personas. Different customer groups will have different problems or questions, so establish a content plan to ensure you cover off each topic area over time.

Having a strategy that is highly targeted in this way will ensure you don’t just generate leads, but the right type of leads for your business.

2. Choose a format to deliver your content with impact

This can sometimes be the hardest part of content marketing. Once you have identified the content your customers are searching for, choose a format that will deliver the information with impact.

Generally speaking, for lead generation you want to choose a high quality, longer format such as eBooks, case studies and white papers. If you really want to go all out, host a webinar!

Make sure your content piece has a call-to-action, but keep the branding light and avoid the hard sell when using a content marketing strategy. It’s all about quality over quantity, so take the time to research the topic and make sure the finished product is polished.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out Econsultancy’s fantastic Periodic Table of Content Marketing which has heaps of ideas for different formats to delight your audience.

3. Promote your content

Once you have a shiny piece of content ready to go, make sure you tell people about it! Promote your content through your blog, social media and email to your database.

Depending on where your customers are searching online, you may even want to promote your content through paid channels. This might be as simple as promoting your Facebook post or Tweet in order to reach more readers, or using services like StumbleUpon or Outbrain.

Once you have a potential customer’s interest, you want to drive them to a landing page on your website where they can explore your content and offer.

4. Use landing pages to build your database

Content marketing for lead generation is all about give and take. You want to give a little away for free, and then in order to access the content, ask for a name and email addresses. Don’t ask for too much detail from people at this stage or they may go elsewhere.

Using a landing page for content like this will allow you to effectively convert visitors into leads. Once you have a potential customer’s email address, you can nurture them with subsequent emails, content and offers and hopefully turn them into a customer.

KISSmetrics have developed this great diagram showing the anatomy of the perfect landing page.

So, that brings us to our last point which is make sure you provide quality content for each stage of the buying process.

5. Provide content for different stages of the buying process

At any point in time you will have customers in the research or engagement stage, right through to the buying stage. At each stage, the questions are different and the content will be different. Map your content to the buyer journey, and be consistent by publishing new content regularly.

No matter which stage you are creating content for, the key is to focus on creating value and a tailored call-to-action. The best content marketing strategies make potential customers feel nurtured without being pressured to buy.

Done well, a solid content marketing strategy can also help you turn your customers into vocal advocates of your business, sending more and more customers your way. The ultimate lead generating tool!

HubSpot has a great diagram that illustrates this perfectly.

Summary

To effectively generate leads with content marketing, you need to focus on your potential customers’ information needs and solving their biggest problems. Once you have identified this, you can start to define your customer personas and map your content to their buying journey.

Use a variety of formats and promote your content through email, social media and paid channels where appropriate.

Over time, a solid content marketing strategy that provides targeted content and offers will help you build trust, turning leads into customers, and customers into advocates.

Not sure where to start with content marketing? We love telling stories that engage, motivate and change people. If you need some inspiration and expert advice on your content marketing, give b:content marketing a call.

We’ll get people talking about you, and to you.

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