Richard Van Der Blom Dropped Some GOLD!

I want to talk about the algorithm. I also want to talk about how to use LinkedIn for sales and how to combine those 2. I published a report back in 2010. I have been very busy training over 300,000 people. So you optimize every post based on your findings, right? Which is absolutely not true. If you know some of the key rules and you write for your human audience and you optimize it, you tweak it, that's where the magic happens. That's where you get like 3, 4 times more reach. The 5-step social selling method. You need to identify your clients. You need to engage prior to do your outreach. Then we need to build trust before we convert into our first business meeting. If you want to do LinkedIn sales successfully, you have your branding, you have your content strategy before you do your outreach and try to convert them into a first business meeting. There are 4 reasons why you should publish in a consistent way. First, because it drives people to your profile. It offers also conversation starters to your target audience because, hey, if you post valuable stuff, people drop comments. It also identifies stakeholders, ambassadors, future clients. Some of them might be willing to buy from you in the future. There are 5 main pillars. So the first pillar is storytelling. Any story that comes from your personal experience. Second pillar, thought leadership. This emphasizes your position as an expert. Third pillar, event content. If you're going to organize an event and you create posts about that, you offer your target audience touchpoints. Fourth pillar, this is where you share your unique selling point. This is actually positioning yourself as the expert that your target audience needs to fix their challenges and needs. And then the 5th pillar, this is very obviously industry-related content. Don't write all your posts yourself. Just identify very valuable content that has already been written on a trusted source. Share the link to that content, to that article, and give your opinion. I always use these 6 building blocks. So every post I start with a hook. If you don't catch the attention with the first 2 lines, People don't click on see more. You don't get a lot of dwell time. Then positioning yourself. Give every post that single element that everybody directly knows who has written this post. Add value. Why would I read your post? What do I get from this post? Then the body, the big part of your post. End with a conclusion and a call to engage, which could be a question, a statement. We have discovered that formatting your post results in 2.1 times more reach. Make your posts easy to read. Short sentences. Sentences, a very clear structure that makes it easier for people to screen, scroll, read your post. Don't use any explicit CTAs. Visit our website, give me a call, provide a comment. More comments still means more growth. Consistency over frequency. I don't care if it's twice a week or 3 times a week. I publish myself 6 times a week, but be consistent in the frequency. LinkedIn engagement. Why should I spend my valuable time on engaging on others' posts? Okay, because it triggers reciprocity. If you engage on other people's posts, LinkedIn sees that, and in return, they make your post visible to more other people. It also filters buying signals. If I comment on a post from a peer or potential client and I get a response, I know that this person is open to start a conversation. And it increases your visibility inside the author's network. Some people struggle with providing comments. So we have found 5 ways to add value. You can summarize a post. You can ask a question in the comment. You can add a valuable insight. That's probably my preferred way of commenting. You can offer someone to the stage. So if it's a topic that I'm not an expert in, but I know in my network I have someone who is really like a trusted person, or simply share emotions. A post about something that they're proud of, an achievement, a result. Be kind because comments also build human relations. This is the LinkedIn commenting framework that we have been working on. I'm just doing the first line. And in an informative post, then you need to focus on the insights, data, research, tips. How to respond is share an additional insight or add supplementary data. Comments from second and third degree add more growth than comments from your connections. The more people outside your network that comment, the more additional reach you get. So have your network tag people and bring more people to your post. Posts nowadays have a longer lifespan, up to 5 days they keep growing, but they grow 3 times slower. And the last one I already said, format your post. If you want to have early access to all the good stuff, you know, join my community. There's a discount code especially for the people joining us today. Thank you, Esti.