Lead Generation with LinkedIn 277% More Effective than Facebook or Twitter

In a new study of over 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).

LinkedIn’s conversion rate also outranked social media as a channel overall. In other words, of all the traffic that came to these business’ websites via social media, 0.98% of that traffic converted into leads, compared to LinkedIn’s 2.74%.

Those who get leads from LinkedIn work at this channel as relentlessly as those who get leads by giving speeches, working a professional association, making cold calls or any other method. If you are looking for an easy lead source, you won’t find it here. But the evidence is in: LinkedIn can be a good place to get leads.

5-step plan to start generating leads on LinkedIn

So how do you get leads on LinkedIn? Assuming you have updated your profile, started discussions and answered questions, here is a 5-step plan to start and keep generating leads on LinkedIn.

1. Commit that every Wednesday you’ll connect with 5 current or former business associates. Put this time in your calendar, and set it to recur weekly forever. When you connect with people, you and your business jump to the top of their mind. When that happens, they remember you when someone needs your product or service.
   Connecting = Top of Mind = Leads.
2. Over the course of 30 days, join 17 groups. Or 13; but not 2 or 3. Your goal is to spread your visibility online and the best way to do that is to join a bunch of groups where your targeted prospects are.
3. Start a discussion in each group every day for 5 days after you join them. After doing it for 5 days, you’ll have made a few friends in the group. If possible and appropriate, your discussion should include a link back to a specific on-topic page of your website where people can download an ebook or signup for your newsletter. Once they have done that, you’ve captured their email address and can enter them into your lead nurturing campaign.
4. Go to the Answers section and answer 2 questions a week, consistently. Not a lot of questions all at once; 2 per week — consistently. The key is to stay at this over the long haul.
5. Rinse and repeat! The key to making Linkedin word for lead generation is consistency. This is how you build up a following and an audience. Once that happens, you’ll have a steady stream of inbound leads.

These fundamental steps are designed have you interact consistently with LinkedIn. There are new tools being added to LinkedIn all the time. I recommend two of them in particular: LinkedIn Today, which provides news and information about your interests and industry on a daily basis, and learn.LinkedIn.com, which is packed with in-depth tutorials you can use to continue to make LinkedIn even more effective for lead generation.