The LinkedIn Audience edition

Hey everyone!

It’s me, Dana - your LinkedIn data fellow, who tries to share valuable LinkedIn insights with you.

I skipped a beat last week due to some personal engagements, but I’m back in full swing.

Writing on LinkedIn for the sake of writing is… odd. Creating an online presence and building relationships is hard work; hence, it doesn’t make much sense to do it just because you need a virtual diary. On Facebook, sure. But LinkedIn has the potential to be much more than that.

Let’s be honest here for a moment: most people (apart from the lurkers, perhaps) do want to monetize LinkedIn in some way. They just don’t know where to start.

Most people think they need to have it all figured out before they get out there. In fact, there are only 2 things you need to clear up with yourself before starting out.

The first and most important thing is:

It could be a backup in case you get laid off; it could be building your network and meeting new people; it could be starting a business and using it for lead generation.

This distinction matters because it will affect how you target your ideal audience.

In this newsletter issue, I’ll review lead generation with priority (it seems most of the audience reading this newsletter is interested in this. However, the principles are applicable to the rest of the scenarios, too).

Let me show you a simple question framework:

• What are your skills?

• What domain do you know where you can apply your skills?

• What problems do people in this domain have?

• How can you help them solve their problems by applying your skills?

This leads us to the second most important question:

Let’s look at an example:

I’m a data analyst, I have problem-solving skills and the ability to translate business problems into data solutions. I know content creation on LinkedIn well because I myself am a content creator. People in this domain have various problems: not generating enough leads, not knowing what in their content strategy generates leads, and LinkedIn taking too much time with little and/or intangible ROI. The way I can help them is to develop an analytical tool that offers an in-depth look into their own activity on LinkedIn, which informs decisions and better strategies, while cutting down time spent on the platform.

Having all this written down, it becomes clear that my ideal audience is upcoming LinkedIn creators. But notice how this became clear only after I answered these questions and figured out how I could help before nailing down who I could help.

Which in turn defines your product/service.

Let’s recap:

• What do you do?

• What kinds of problems can you solve?

• Who has these problems?

• How can you turn your solutions into business?

Having these questions answered will help you target your audience better, and offer relevant solutions.

Where’s the data bit in that newsletter, though? It’s really minimal but here it is: 100% of the people messaging me who try to monetize LinkedIn unsuccessfully ask me this question: “Who do I determine my ideal audience?”. This immediately tells me they don’t know how they can help.

Now, you’ll ask—what does this have to do with the connections from the previous newsletter? Well, if you’re on LinkedIn for business, this is an excellent filter to determine who gets access to your inbox:

• Are they a peer (creator in the same industry)?

• Are they your ideal audience?

• Is there a personalized message giving a good enough reason to add them?

• Is it someone you know?

• Does the profile look interesting?

If the answer to all questions is “no”- you have a free pass to not accept this connection request.

Another perk of defining your ideal audience is how much it helps you with your content strategy. Which will be next week’s topic 🙂 

I hope this was a helpful read! See you all next week!

Dana

P.S. If I wasted your time with this newsletter, please unsubscribe. And then tell me on LinkedIn why you did. I want to improve.

P.P.S. I wrote a guide on LinkedIn Content Strategy for Job Seekers. It’s free on Gumroad (just type 0 in the price field). You can access it here. Even if you don’t need it, maybe someone in your community does! Spread the love and let’s help more people escape the rat race 🦚