Young Social Entrepreneur

Fresh back from a visit to the Marketing Week Live conference, I decided that I should comment on the use of LinkedIn as an increasingly important business tool with key benefits for small business.

Kevin Eyres, managing director of LinkedIn, gave a talk about LinkedIn’s use as a tool for expert groups in the medical field. I was lucky enough to grab a word with him afterward to discuss an idea I have for using LinkedIn as a way of supporting gap year students and people on sabbaticals, which he seemed interested in.

An area that Kevin didn’t cover in much detail was lead generation. Aside from LinkedIn being a good place for an online portfolio, career progression, recommendations and keeping in touch with other professionals and clients, I have found it to also be a effective way to create leads. Having had some success creating business through Twitter I gave it a go using the following method.

Step 1 

Establish yourself - Complete your profile to 100%, it is not a CV so only put information that is necessary for those you want to engage with and get recommendations from colleagues and clients.

Step 2

Join a group in the area most appropriate to your business. If there isn’t a group for you then MAKE ONE! I created the Young Social Entrepreneur Group which today gained it’s 200th member.

Step 3 

Get involved. You have heard it before and you will hear it again - don’t sell, just offer advice, guidence and help to those with questions. This is how you will generate leads. You can do it through the groups you join or lead, through your own status updates and through the questions and answers section of the site.

In my experience these steps can successfully generate high quality qualified leads and if you don’t manage the same success you will still have created an effective tool for your personal career progression.