As the most popular professional networking tool worldwide, LinkedIn is an obvious place for economic development agencies to focus their social media strategies. However, most users take advantage of only a small fraction of its business development potential. This hands-on, interactive, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) session in the Exhibit Hall will walk you through the practical ways you can put this online tool to use for networking, lead generation and business intelligence. What you will learn: • How to implement strategic improvements to your personal and organizational LinkedIn profiles • Ways to employ an organizational profile for business retention and local community engagement • Proven strategies for introductions, referrals, recommendations, and prospecting

1. A Practical Guide to
LinkedIn for:
Economic Development
Marketing and Attraction

2. P
B
Talent
LinkedIn helps connect you to the network you !
need to achieve your goals !
(ie. Marketing, research, business development, executive leadership)
S
L Board Members
Community
Partners
Leads
Supporters of
Your Brand T

3. Leveraging LinkedIn's Network
L
B
S
Strengthen relationships !
with Leads
Find the right quality
Board members quickly
Identify key community or
Company partners
Identify top talent to work !
for your organization/
Build your brand and spark
dialogue among supporters
P
T
An introduction to new business
prospect
A board member with strategic
connections
A company with a particular skill
set
A new Business Developer
Professionals following your
organization’s LI page

4. Build Relationships With Leads
Chances are you have connections to many of the Leads or
Prospects you are currently pursuing. Use LinkedIn to uncover those
ties and improve your relationship with your prospects.
– Work with your business development and marketing to identify
prospects
– Explore your network to uncover your ties and inroads
What if instead of
cold calls, you had
warm introductions?
You Your Prospect
L

5. Quickly Connect With Companies And
Board Members
B
LinkedIn makes it easy to explore your existing connections to find
potential board candidates. Connect with your current board in order
to fully leverage their connections.
Use “advanced search” and
filter by:
Keyword
• Geographic location
• Desired skills
• Company or affiliation

6. Find And Engage Community Partners
P
Looking for a particular skill set? Interested in building relationships
with partners from a particular company or industry?
§ LinkedIn’s advance search feature makes zeroing in on the exact
talent you need easy.
A strategy consultant to
help build your 3-year plan
A local Bank to maintain
invest in your EDO
A Leading Employer to
provide additional project
support

7. Identify Top Talent For Your Organization
T
With LinkedIn you can use “advanced search” to identify potential
candidates and then see shared connections. Speed up your talent
search and cut through the crowd to find a perfect match
LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved

8. Build Meaningful Supportive Relationships
With Companies
LinkedIn is a vibrant community with hundreds of millions of
professionals worldwide. Your friends, fans and supporters are
already on LinkedIn. Invite them to become your advocates.
– Create a company page, grow your follower base,
and post updates to spread your message across
the LinkedIn network.
– Ask your supporters to list your organization on their
profile in the Volunteer & Causes section.
– Join a Linked Group that is relevant to your cause
and help drive the conversation.
S

9. Use LinkedIn Ads and Sales Navigator
For Targeting Prospects

10. Knoxville Estimated Reach
3Million
Target Users By
Title, Geography,
Group And More
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10

11. 5 Things To Do With LinkedIn
Right Now

12. 1. Create a Buyer Centric Profile
Your profile shouldn’t be about
you, it should be about the
prospects you’re trying to attract.
After all, your intended targets
aren’t recruiters, they’re leads.
But most economic developer’s
profiles are digital resumes, or
worse, a copied and pasted
marketing value proposition.
By the way, don’t use these
types of photos…

13. 2. Grow your Network with a Purpose
• Connect with anyone with whom you’ve had a meaningful interaction.
Want to reach out to people you’ve never actually met? There’s a right
way to go about it. Check out all the NEW profile sections and fill them
in (LinkedIn has changed for the better)If there is not a group around
your area of interest or expertise, start one

14. 3. Share Relevant Content (Often)
• Connect with anyone with whom you’ve had a meaningful interaction.
Want to reach out to people you’ve never actually met? There’s a right
way to go about it.

15. 3. Share Relevant Content (Often)

16. Remember Professional – Save this for
Facebook, unless you work for the CDC

17. 4. Leverage Business Intelligence Tools
• Look for three types of information: role-specific, goal-specific, and
common ground.
– Role-specific: What are they responsible for?
– Goal-specific: What are the targets they need to hit in their role?
– Common ground: Find some sort of tie back to you, whether it’s a common
connection, a college, a hobby, or an experience.
• You should also try to glean trigger events from your prospect’s
LinkedIn profile, although this can be tricky. Look at the stream of
content they’ve shared recently to see if you can find any press
releases or other articles about new leadership, acquisitions, or
significant changes.

18. 4. Leverage Business Intelligence Tools

19. 5. Use Multiple Tools for Effectiveness
• Just like emails, InMails are an appropriate -- and perhaps even more
effective -- channel for an introduction to your product or service.
Research from InsideSales.com found that:
InMail with the exact same copy as an email will get a 33%
higher response.
• Pair emails and InMails. Send the email first, and then follow up with
an InMail. Insert one or two lines at the beginning of your InMail,
explaining that while you sent an email, you’re also reaching out on
LinkedIn since you weren’t sure which channel was preferable. Then
simply copy and paste the email copy into the InMail, and send. If
your buyers are social, this is an easy way to boost response rates.

20. We Asked Site Selectors: What is the
applicability of LinkedIn to your
profession?
“I have used it along with Hoovers to check who is on LinkedIn and contact
people for business meetings.”
“I think it has good application. I have gotten proposals through this tool.”
“Good for seeking independent information.”
“Good for finding contacts, and to keep in touch
with peers.”
“More of a business site”
Useful networking tool
Don’t know yet.

21. An indication of what is to come?
“Young companies are all about social media. Their whole concept is open source
everything. They rely on an online community. They’re building enthusiasts for their
product online. I have a current client in the auto manufacturing space that loves
social media. These guys are choosing their locations based on what their online
community says they want.
“If you can find companies on social media, you can reach them. Big corporations not
using it this way (Yet), but small guys are for sure.
“As people who live in the community find these great companies, they could
connect ED with companies. Blog with your citizens about what they like and what
they know about. Tips are good. Fear is how do you know you have the good
information in these channels? I am just learning myself.”
-A Site Selector, early October 20013

22. Social Prospecting for LinkedIn
As an Economic Development marketer or
business developer, you already understand
the importance of social media as part of your
Business Attraction Strategy. With more than 3
million companies on Linkedin, one billion
monthly active users on Facebook, and over
230 million monthly active users on Twitter,
smart marketers know there’s more potential
than ever to use social platforms to get their
name out there, spread their community’s
information, and draw more people to their
site.
Awareness
Interest
Engagement
Action

23. LinkedIn Workshop Exercise - Prep
(1) Prep
Write down the top three keyword phrases that people use to find you
on search. You'll be able to use this content to draw prospects back to
your profile or economic development website.
1.
2.
3.
Pro tip: Remember, more business-focused keywords are favored on
LinkedIn.
Write down three pieces of content that are related to the search results
of your keyword phrases.
1.
2.
3.

24. LinkedIn Workshop Exercise – Get Started
(2) Get Started:
Sign into LinkedIn, and to the left of the top search bar, select “Groups”
from the drop-down icon menu, which will search all LinkedIn groups.
Pro tip: You can narrow your search results in the menu on the left by
choosing what your relationship is to members of the groups, for
instance if you want a category of “Open” or “Members only,” or if you
want search results for groups that are in one or multiple Languages.
Notes:
Based on the group’s description (and a quick scan), identify five
LinkedIn Groups that could have potential prospects for your business
and join them.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

25. LinkedIn Workshop Exercise - Action
(3) Take Action:
Now it’s time to start sharing the pieces of content you identified earlier.
Start engaging with potential prospects by:
Joining in on conversations in the group where you can add value with
your content “Liking” content that others are sharing in the group
Sharing your own content and posing your own questions to the group
Marketing:
When you find a particular post within the group you want to monitor,
you can choose to “Follow Discussion” so you’ll be updated when content
for that post is added.

26. LinkedIn Approach for Business
Development and Marketing
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26
Improve your EDO
competitive position in
the new economic
environment
• Put out relevant content
• Execute as part of a larger
campaign
Enhance awareness and
positive perceptions of
your EDO’s business
climate both locally
and nationally
• Collaborating with
• Driving leads and conversations
Focusing on the
targeted industry
sectors with highest
impact and opportunity
for sustained growth
!
Use Research!
• Sales Navigator
• Groups
• Competitive markets and
geographies
• Services & programs
Developing a
meaningful profile that
is built for your
prospects, not you
!
Profile Strategy !
• No Frat Pics
• Fill out completely
• Increasing community visibility and
engagement

27. Take Home Exercise – Extra Credit
Take-home exercise]
Spend 20 minutes a week:
- Reviewing the content in the groups you’ve joined (5 mins)
- Commenting and adding value to posts from others in the group (5 mins)
- Evaluate those you engage with the most to see if a prospect is a good fit (5 mins)
- Share one piece of organic content to the groups you've joined (5 mins)
And if your profile picture looks like this, change it.

28. 28
Thank you!
Contact information:
929 Broadway
Denver, CO 80203
Contact: Guillermo Mazier
t: 303.292.3300 x 232
Guillermom@Atlas-Advertising.com
www.Atlas-Advertising.com
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