Our best kept secret: How to use LinkedIn to reach decision makers
In the UK alone LinkedIn is used by 364,000 policy-makers, 406,000 journalists and 19,000 CSR Directors. Just think about that for a moment. With so many decision makers on this platform, is your charity reaching them?
LinkedIn might just be the nonprofit world’s best kept secret for reaching senior influencers in the worlds of business and government. However, these people often receive many connection requests. Even if they do accept you, you may have your work cut out staying top of mind in their network. After all, the average CEO has 930 connections on LinkedIn. Here are my tips to help develop these relationships.
Know who you want to reach
What are your charity’s goals and how can connecting with influencers on LinkedIn support that? The more specific you are the more easily you will be able to search for these stakeholders on LinkedIn.
Start with who you know
Use the add connections tool on LinkedIn to find out who you already know on there. Spend two minutes a day updating your network by connecting with people who you’ve worked with or had meetings with.
Ask for introductions
If you can see that someone you really want to get to know is connected to someone in your network, ask for an introduction. Whenever people ask me to do this I’m happy to help.
Remember that connecting is just the start
Post regular status updates and blogs. These should differ slightly from Twitter and Facebook; as LinkedIn is a professional network, you should use a more professional and formal tone of voice. However, don’t use LinkedIn to broadcast. Your aim should be to increase engagement and start conversations. So share something you’ve found useful (e.g. a great article or insight), news about what you’re working on, or ask a question that’ll get people talking.
LinkedIn is a competitive network to get noticed on but if you follow these tips consistently you should be remembered by all the right people. To help charity chief executives on social media we’ve put together a free guide, with JustGiving, packed full of insights to help leaders reach decision makers through digital. To download the guide, click here.