Episode 24: Leverage LinkedIn Notifications to Start Conversations

Bill McCormick 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Making Sales Social Live! Where today we’re going to talk all about LinkedIn notifications.

Bob Woods 0:08

Yes. They’re not annoying. Trust us. They’re not annoying at all. Sometimes I hear that from people. “Oh my God, why does this LinkedIn just do this to me all the time?”. It’s like, no, they’re important. They’re really important, especially if you’re in social selling.

Brynne Tillman 0:23

Yeah. Let’s talk about why they’re important. Right? Like, these are opportunities to start conversations.

Bill McCormick 0:31

Yeah, it’s just like, if your doorbell rings, you don’t ignore it, right? You go and you answer the door, your phones, you know, it dings, it dings with a text message, you may ignore the text message, but you don’t ignore the phone, you look and see. And so like Brynne says, these are great opportunities to start conversations. And I don’t think people realize how many different types of notifications there are, right Brynne?

Brynne Tillman 0:55

Let’s talk about some of the ones that I love. I am going to start with my favorite one, and one that everyone knows about, but very few people do anything, except a Congrats, which is a new job, right? So one of the notifications we get in LinkedIn is when someone either gets a promotion or has a new role inside of an existing company, or they took on a new role. It’s a completely new company, and it’s a new position. So here’s what happens a few things right? Like, you see, there’s a new position you click through and you see lots of people that are like, congratulations, good luck, all these things, right? So you can certainly add a Congratulations. Another thing you can do when you get that notification, if you know them well, is give them a kudos, right? Put out a kudos congratulating them on their new job, then you’re really standing out. And the other last thing I’ll say, on getting a new job that you could do is put them on the tickler. So you congratulate them, wait a week or two, once they settle, and all those notifications stop. And then reach out again to start a conversation. And I would typically reach out on mobile, and send a little video congratulating them at that point.

Bill McCormick 

Yes, and I would hesitate to use the templated–whatever LinkedIn suggests you use, because they’re going to get so many of them, and I’ll just go one step further. If they left the job, and they’re your contact, maybe they’re your buyer or your prospect. Maybe do a little research and find out who took their place and congratulate them. And that way, now you’ve created two opportunities out of one.

Brynne Tillman 2:33

That’s brilliant. What’s another notification, Bob, that you like.

Bob Woods 2:37

Profile Views. (Brynne) Hmmm, why do you like that, Bob? (Bob) Because it tells me when someone has, as the kids would say peeped me on my profile. So that represents an opportunity to potentially start a conversation depending on who they are. And if their first or second degree, and things like that, if their first degree, you could just simply type a really quick message and just say, you know; “hey, I noticed you you viewed my profile. Is there anything I can do for you?”. That simple, doesn’t really need to be complex.

Brynne Tillman 3:13

Great question. The one I typically say is: “May I ask what brought you to my profile?”.

Bob Woods 3:18

That’s another great one.

Brynne Tillman 3:19

Yeah. So I love that one. What do you do, if they’re a second-degree connection?

Bob Woods 3:23

If they’re a second-degree connection, you can look at their profile, and see if there’s any reason why you would want to be connected with them. At that point, you would use a typical type of messages that we use, except the difference is because they viewed your profile, you are already in their mind, because for whatever reason, they took time out to view your profile. So you could then send a connection request at that point, with a note saying, you know; “Brynne, thank you for visiting my profile. I looked at yours and discovered bah, bah, bah”, you know, basically something that connects with you, about them, within their profile. And then you could just quickly ask for a connection at that point–

Brynne Tillman 4:10

With a P.S.; “May I ask how you found me?”.

Bob Woods 4:13

Yes, exactly.

Brynne Tillman 4:14

Right, and we know, we’re talking about using notifications to start a conversation, just the connection requests. So that’s great, but without a question, there’s no conversation. There’s no, you know, we’re not having that back and forth or establishing that.

Bob Woods 4:30

Yeah, absolutely. 

Brynne Tillman 4:31

Bill, what’s one of your favorite notifications

Bill McCormick 4:33

Engage on my content. (Brynne) Hmm, that’s a great one. (Bill) That’s all about me. No, not really. We create content because we want engagement. And so often what I see is people posting ghosts, like they post something and when people comment on it, as Phil Collins would say; “No reply at all”. But it’s so imperative that when people are engaging on your content that you reply back, that you comment back, that you thank them for liking the content. Great opportunity to get to send someone a message, if they liked or maybe they celebrated, but they didn’t comment is, send them a message saying; “Hey, Bob, thank you so much for reacting to that piece of content. I didn’t see you comment, but I’m curious, what was it about it that resonated”. You know, we talked about hitting the ball in their court like a tennis match. Now you’ve hit the ball back in their court, now you’re waiting for them to hit back. And also that’s going to help you when you engage quickly on comments, that’s really going to help that content go and reach further. So I love engaged on content. (Bob) That’s great.

Brynne Tillman 5:35

Another one I love is birthdays. Now, I am not consistent enough across the board on this, I used to be a long time ago, where every day, I would wish everyone that had a birthday, happy birthday. But I now have 30,000 connections divided by 365, which is a lot of people every single day. But I do, when I catch a glimpse of someone who has a birthday, I actually have content that I share. That’s totally vendor agnostic, it has nothing to do with selling us. But you know, I wanted to send you a little birthday gift in the form of content, and I share some value. So that’s something I love to start a conversation with as well.

Bob Woods 6:18

I just got a wild idea. Because before this, I actually listed several different types of notifications. So I want to play a little game. (Brynne) Okay. Okay. So, and also knowing that there might be a spot open for a Jeopardy host, I’m kind of doing this as my demo as well, although you don’t have to put your answer in the form of a question. Here are some of the types. I want one of you to buzz in maybe. And, and just give one real quick thing about it. Okay, and I’m probably not gonna get any. Okay. Brynne has her buzzer ready. Let’s go: “Mentions in other people’s content”. Brynne.

Brynne Tillman 7:00

Okay. So mentioned in other people’s content. Now, there are a couple of things. I love when I’m mentioned, when the content is relevant. And it’s by someone that already has established some kind of credibility with me. So I think when you’re mentioned, and you go in there, typically there’s other people mentioned as well, this is an opportunity to engage with them and the other people commenting.

Bob Woods 7:23

Judges say. That’s correct!

Brynne Tillman 7:25

Let me hear Bill’s perspective.

Bill McCormick 7:29

Yeah. So I agree with you. And actually, this just happened to me. Today, I was mentioned by Larry Levine. And it was a great opportunity for me to go in and engage on that content, and even engage, because he mentioned a company page that I helped with. And so I was able to go in and engage, as the company page also. So it’s a great opportunity, again, to have some conversation, and I even messaged Larry, and thanked him privately, again, we’re talking about tactics to start conversations. And I’d say that even if you are tagged and the content wasn’t relevant, it may be an opportunity to reach out to that person and say; “Hey, I was curious, why did you tag me? Why did you mention me, on that?”. You know, and it may be it’s, again, it’s an opportunity to have a conversation.

Brynne Tillman 8:16

I love that. 

Bob Woods 8:17

100 points to Bill as well, I have a feeling this is going to end up in a tie. The next one that we have is: “How alerts for comments in content that you’ve engaged in”.

Bill McCormick 8:29

(Brynne) Okay, go ahead, Bill. (Bill) So this is a little different than content that you created. This is you comment, and then someone else replied to your comment or mentioned you want to comment on that post. Again, great opportunity on a couple of levels. We’re looking to have conversations. But now you’ve commented on someone else’s post and another person is engaged, chances are that person is probably a second or third-degree connection. So it’s an opportunity to look at that person and see is this someone that I want in my network again, this happened just the other day. And it was like three degrees of separation that I commented on something, somebody challenged me and asked me a question on it. And we had a little back and forth. And I immediately messaged him offline: “Hey, thank you so much for saying what you did. It really made me think I love to have people like you in my network. Take a look at my profile. If you think it makes sense. Let’s connect”, we connected and next week we’re having a conversation.

Brynne Tillman 9:23

I love that. Okay, one more.

Bob Woods 9:26

One more. Okay, so those people are reacting to posts.

Brynne Tillman 9:32

Okay, I’m gonna talk through this. (Bob) Brynne. No, people are reacting to it. There’s a hashtag, you’re following–

Bob Woods 9:40

Hashtag you’re following or subject that you’re interested in. And the LinkedIn algorithm brings that into your notifications feed because you wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.

Brynne Tillman 9:49

Okay, and it could also come across as something is trending in a hashtag.

Bob Woods 9:54

Yeah, that type of thing.

Brynne Tillman 9:55

Okay, I love that and you’re right, it doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does, it’s pretty cool, right? And so I think that’s a great opportunity because LinkedIn has identified based on your past activity, which includes potentially engaging on particular content with hashtags or using those. And that activity now is trending or getting lots of activity. They’re saying; “hey, join the conversation”. And so this is amazing because in what Bob said is, you really would never have seen that. And this is a great way to start to kind of bring in a whole new kind of sphere of people because it’s not particularly content that your network shares, but a topic that you typically engage on, how’d I do?

Bob Woods 10:46

Judges say ding, 100 points, and this game is going to end as I predicted, in a tie. Congratulations, everyone.

Bill McCormick 10:54

So I think that, you know, the bottom line is, LinkedIn uses a bell as the icon for this for the notifications, you’ll see a red circle with a number on it as the number you have open. And when you open those up, those will be blue, the ones that you haven’t, you haven’t looked at. And it’s an opportunity, it’s a moment in time for you to stop and look through and say; “Okay, I’m going to take 10 minutes or 15 minutes”, set time on your on your phone, and say; “For the next 10, or 15, or 20 minutes, I’m going to go through, and I’m going to reply and respond to these notifications, and look for opportunities to have conversations”. Because that’s going to, again, build your credibility, build your network so that your network aren’t just names on a piece of paper, or names on a “my network space”. But they’re actually people that you’ve had interaction with. And as your network grows, your influence grows, your credibility grows, your net worth grows, and you have more opportunities for sale. So that’s notifications in a nutshell.

Brynne Tillman 11:59

Thank you guys for a wonderful conversation on notification.

Bill McCormick 12:03

Yeah, we’ll see you next time on Making Sales Social Live.

Bob Woods 12:07

Bye-bye, everyone.