According to a recent survey amongst 1,477 entrepreneurs in The Netherlands, 80.2% of them generate revenue via social media. Most important revenue drivers are LinkedIn (48.4%), Twitter (13.9%) and Facebook (7.6%). A year ago only 10% of all interviewed entrepreneurs attracted clients via social media. What caused this enormous trend to effective entrepreneurship via social networks?
Whereas one or two years ago, people just signed up for LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook with a business account without really knowing how to use it, entrepreneurs are now really starting to get the grasp of it: it is all about who you know, what you know, what you give and how you tell your story. Three ways to generate revenue and get your ROI up via social media as an entrepreneur:
In this post, I'll get into three ways of generating revenue via LinkedIn.
1. Get in touch with your dream customer(s)
LinkedIn is all about the people you know, your first degree connections, and the people they know, your second and third degree connections. LinkedIn is a professional network, so get professional: get a catchy headline that states who you are, add your pitch, your company name(s), try to get recommendations - give a few and you'll receive one or two - and add a company presentation and link(s) to (an) important landing page(s).
Now, you're ready to generate revenue. You need customers. Step one: as an entrepreneur, you know who's your dream customer (please, tell me you have one!). Step two: find out who you need to reach out to at this particular company (CEO? Marketing VP? Buying manager?). Step three: find two to four profiles that are working for your dream customer that match this/these title(s). Now, send a request to connect, or better, send an INmail. The latter shows your serious about your business, and this will increase your chance of success.
Now, get your message right:
- Choose the right tone-of-voice (try to think like the receiver of your message: does he/she like to be addressed formally or informally? Also, think about yourself: your message needs to match the DNA of your company/offering)
- Present yourself via a one-sentence-pitch (e.g. "I'm Jeroen Sakkers (25) and I am the founder of Victor Mundi - the digital workspace for entrepreneurs")
- Very, very short (!) version of your company story (max. of 3 sentences, e.g. "Inspired by X, we started working on fixing problem(s) Y/Z for companies/people (...)")
- The occasion of you sending him/her this message (a mutual connection? a common interest/group? a news article/blog you just read?)
- Tease: don't tell what you're offering your dream customer (yet!), just tease him/her by offering a great cup-of-coffee or lunch and ask him/her for one hour of his/her precious time
- Talk business: the receiver of your message probably doesn't have a lot of time (who does, nowadays?), so be direct and propose two or three dates for you guys to get together, best in two or three weeks at a place nearby your dream customer's office
- It might feel strange, but number these date options: this way, your dream customer can easily reply to your message by saying "Yes, option 2" - this saves both parties a lot of time
- End your message with a way out for the receiver, so it doesn't feel bad to turn down your offer (e.g. "Please let me know whether you're interested. If not, no hard feelings!")
- Add your contact info (email address, (mobile) phone, Twitter)
Now you got yourself one hour to pitch your proposal to your dream customer. It's still up to you (not to the social media!), so hit it!
2. Find your tribe (and monetize)
Another way to build your customer base or tribe and generate revenue is by starting a LinkedIn group. Most successful LinkedIn groups are build around big brands or common interests. Since you're probably not a big brand (yet), you have to find a problem, a quest or a common interest that makes you and your potential customers tick (e.g. "Freelance Jobs in HR", "Beating Dunbar's Number" or "Running in business"). After you created this group, it's important to raise awareness and build your audience: you need to find your tribe, the people that are (also) interested in your niche group. You can do this by writing blogs, asking questions and adding polls that make sense. Invite people from your network to this group, but also ask the people in your network whether they know others who might be interested. Moreover, become active in other groups - with a lot of members - that are more or less covering the same subject or are focussing on the same target customers, and start new topics or react on existing ones. In the meantime, make camouflaged promotion for your group.
To get ROI out of starting your own LinkedIn group, you need to do the following:
- Add a request-to-join message: you can ask people something in return, before they'll be able to join (e.g. subscribe for a certain newsletter, sign up for a certain community)
- Add a welcome message: in this message, please elaborate on what the group is all about, and ask people to add the group name/logo on their profile and spread the word (offer incentives, if that's possible)
- Facilitate: get your group members together by actively setting up matches, connecting discussions and inviting people for new topics/polls
- Send announcements to your members (e.g. like a newsletter), in which you can give updates on the company/offering(s) you're working on - of course, try to connect it to the main topic of the group, and communicate in a playful way
Now you'll be seen as an expert in the field you started a successful LinkedIn group in. Your dream customer(s) will hire you for being an expert, just because the people in your group will call your name whenever the problem/quest/common interest your group is built on, comes up.
3. Experiment: the ROI of Q&A
Last but not least, an experimental way to get revenue via LinkedIn. Whay do you think will be the ROI when you (or even better, your whole team) open yourself up for a full week to only answer questions and help people via LinkedIn's Q&A section. The questions answered don't need to be related to your business (offering(s)), it's all about helping people without asking anything in return. In a few days, you'll see you're creating goodwill. If people are really helped by you, some of them will be asking: "can I help you, or do something for you and/or your company in return?". Then, ask them if they know anyone that needs you(r business (offering)(s)). That's the best way to become successful: build relations, give-give-give, ask and get to (a) transaction(s).
I hope this article is helping in your quest of generating actual revenue from LinkedIn, instead of generating leads only. Feel free to come up with other suggestions of ways to generate (even more) revenue in the comments. By the way, if you decide to execute the experiment under #3, please let me know about the outcome - I'm very interested!
