Why LinkedIn is a Pillar for B2B Relationship Building

Braley explains why LinkedIn is Important

Written by Robyn T. Braley

LinkedIn has become one of the most powerful social media tools for business to business (B2B) selling. It is ideal for professionals wanting to grow their personal brand and to build meaningful relationships.

 

A recent conversation with a client pretty much summed up why LinkedIn has soared to the top of marketing must-haves. He observed, “When one of our sales people cold-calls a prospective client or replies to an email inquiry, before the process goes to the next step, the first place both parties go to gather background information is LinkedIn.”

“Relationship-driven marketing is what makes the B2B world go round,” he noted. “Potential customers often check out the LinkedIn profiles of our team before they go to our company website!”

He concluded, “By the time they meet face-to-face, both have learned a lot about each other.” The conversation was in the context of our meeting to start developing consistent and branded LinkedIn profiles for each of his sales and executive teams.

It's All About The Story; How Media Convergence Can Do Good Works

Traditional and New Media Convergence
Graph created by Unimark Creative  

Written by Robyn T. Braley

Clients periodically ask how new media and traditional media can work together. I wrote this article about two successful Rotary media events that I managed which demonstrate the principle. It was published in the February edition of the Rotary District 5360 newsletter.

A few days before the Super Bowl some of the scheduled TV commercials showed up on YouTube. During the television broadcast, advertisers paid $3.5 million to access the record setting audience of more than 111 million viewers. Two hours after the game I received a link through LinkedIn taking me to the entire collection. 

We are officially into the age of media convergence. Actually, we've been there for a number of years. Traditional media, online media and social media have intersected in ways we couldn't have imagined even five years ago.