Tamir Huberman, 18.2.2021, Aalto Startup Center
Tamir Huberman is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Head of Marketing at Yeda, Technology Transfer of Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. YEDA is ranked as one of the top academic Research Institutes in the world. Huberman has a track record of successful LinkedIn case studies. In his event in collaboration with Aalto Startup Center on February 18th he lectured about the best practices in LinkedIn marketing and social selling to business professionals.
Why is LinkedIn so important? In 2003 LinkedIn was mainly designed for job or employee search. In 2012 the premium profiles and mobile version were launched. Since then LinkedIn has developed to be one the most important lead generation tools in the world with a number of possibilities to engage and build a powerful network of connections. The latest features are related to automation, events and lead generation where tools such as Sales Navigator are useful. The top reasons to automate LinkedIn campaigns are targeted lead generation, events and conferences creation, group interactions, multiple profile activations, circulating articles, finding jobs and hiring people, interacting with 1st connections or recently added connections and refining the personal network – which all lead to maintaining a high social selling index (SSI), that Huberman sees as the most important performance indicator.
The latest features are related to automation, events and lead generation where tools such as Sales Navigator are useful.
Three common mistakes
Huberman often hears explanations how LinkedIn is not powerful enough or it’s a waste of time. People might say that they have a profile but they don’t have the time and energy to learn to use it.
– Without having a powerful LinkedIn profile it’s probably the case. You have to invest time and energy to get the most out of LinkedIn, says Huberman.
In order to generate results using LinkedIn, there are a few basic things to do.
Your profile is the number one: you must have a professional picture, a summary which includes the right keywords and relevant updates. Without these basic updates your profile is redundant, says Huberman.
Huberman encourages to focus on the profile picture, since it has over 40% importance, from all profile elements combined, above all.
– I don’t recommend using Facebook profile pictures, but instead a picture where you are dressed like a professional and where your head fills most of the image. You can try out the impact of your image at photofeeler.com, tips Huberman.
In addition to a good professional picture Huberman lists the things that a profile should include: a background picture, high quality first connections, relevant profile keywords, a profile summary, showcase items, skills and endorsements. Many people also think that they don’t have a network large enough to start engaging in LinkedIn.
– By utilizing LinkedIn’s groups you can connect with like-minded people. There are over 2 million groups on LinkedIn, so finding professionals and building the network is not a problem, says Huberman.
It’s also a common worry, that users in Linkedin feel that they don’t receive replies in their messages.
– There are tricks and tips on how to write an impactful message: in a nutshell the message has to be short, focused and include a clear call to action.
Your profile is the number one: you must have a professional picture, a summary which includes the right keywords and relevant updates. Without these basic updates your profile is redundant, says Huberman.
Harvest and measure
How to begin active marketing using LinkedIn? There are many ways to move forward: the basic profile is good, but with a Premium profile such as Sales Navigator you can do powerful searches which will be much more efficient. Harvesting in LinkedIn means that you prepare a list of connections from groups, events, searches, connections, databases and external sources. For efficient harvesting the Sales Navigator tool is an excellent choice.
– Manual campaigns do have a high conversion, but they are extremely time consuming, says Huberman.
– What if I want to connect 1000+ people, asks Huberman.
That’s where automation tools pay off. When you want to automate your marketing, there are many tools that are available.
– Expandi, Phantombuster, Texau, Dux-Soup, Zopto, MeetAlfred, WeConnect, GrowthLead, lists Huberman.
Automation is handy when you have 500+ connections to interact and you are organizing events, looking for leads or hiring a top talent. Main campaign types for automation are lead generation, finding investors, branding, hiring and growing group members. You can even use these automation tools with a normal LinkedIn profile, but it is not recommended.
– Harvesting takes time, approximately 10–20 times more without a Sales Navigator Premium profile, says Huberman and encourages to begin active marketing on LinkedIn.
Harvesting takes time, approximately 10–20 times more without a Sales Navigator Premium profile, says Huberman and encourages to begin active marketing on LinkedIn.