Best of LinkedIn: Social Selling CW 45/ 46

00:00:00: Brought to you by Thomas Allgeier and Frenis, this edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on social selling in weeks forty-five and forty-six.

00:00:07: Frenis supports enterprises with enablement and insights, providing data-driven sales intelligence, flexible support, team augmentation, and data quality improvements.

00:00:16: so social engagement turns into measurable pipeline.

00:00:21: Welcome to the Deep Dive.

00:00:22: Our mission today is to really cut through the noise and synthesize the most impactful B to B social selling trends that we saw dominating LinkedIn over the last couple of weeks.

00:00:33: We've noticed a definite and I'd say rapid shift away from that old school aggressive cold outreach.

00:00:39: It's all moving toward trust, strategic relationships, and well, employee empowerment.

00:00:44: Exactly.

00:00:44: I'd say it's more than a shift.

00:00:46: It's a maturity curve.

00:00:47: The sources we've gathered are from leading practitioners, from sales enablement experts, and they're basically providing the blueprints.

00:00:53: So we're going to still have things like employee advocacy, content quality, and even just platform know-how are now deciding who gets seen, and more importantly, who's actually building pipeline.

00:01:03: It's a shortcut to the modern sales floor,

00:01:05: really.

00:01:05: That's it.

00:01:06: Okay, let's start with a foundational element, one that's moved from, let's say, a marketing tactic to a full-on organizational imperative.

00:01:14: That's our first theme.

00:01:16: Employee advocacy and corporate influencers.

00:01:19: It's clear this isn't just a nice to have anymore.

00:01:22: It's being framed as a critical HR and brand strategy.

00:01:27: And that framing is so important because it forces us to confront why these programs, well, why they so often fail.

00:01:34: Right.

00:01:34: Elena Ivanova put this brilliantly.

00:01:36: She said, if your employee advocacy program isn't working, it's rarely a social media problem.

00:01:40: So it's not the tool.

00:01:41: It's almost never the tool.

00:01:43: It's a company cultural problem.

00:01:44: Yeah.

00:01:45: Advocacy has to be earned.

00:01:46: you know, through trust empowerment.

00:01:48: You can't just mandate it or bribe people with prizes.

00:01:51: You

00:01:51: can't force authenticity.

00:01:52: That makes perfect sense.

00:01:54: And that's the engine driving the rise of the corporate influencers, isn't it?

00:01:57: It is.

00:01:57: We saw Dominique Givenchuda and Jasmine Charlotte V both highlighting this pivot away from that single monolithic corporate voice.

00:02:05: Toward empowering individual employees to be authentic storytellers.

00:02:09: Brand ambassadors, basically.

00:02:11: And when you humanize the brand with all those voices, the trust dividend is just...

00:02:16: Phew.

00:02:17: Oh, it's massive.

00:02:18: And the metrics prove it out.

00:02:20: Maria DiMario noted the internal benefit.

00:02:23: It strengthens team pride, confidence.

00:02:26: Which

00:02:26: is great.

00:02:26: But it's the external commercial impact that really gets the C-suite's attention.

00:02:31: Okay,

00:02:31: so give us an example of that.

00:02:33: I think some of the stats we found linking advocacy to HR metrics were frankly shocking.

00:02:38: They absolutely connect.

00:02:40: Vicki Ulenechi shared a case study where a focused employer branding strategy, which, you know, leans heavily on employee advocacy, managed to cut their costs per hire by a staggering sixty seven percent.

00:02:52: Sixty

00:02:53: seven percent.

00:02:54: Wow.

00:02:54: And on top of that, employee referral shot up to forty seven percent.

00:02:57: So think about that.

00:02:58: Your social activity is directly optimizing your talent acquisition funnel.

00:03:01: If

00:03:02: I'm leading a sales team, that's sixty-seven percent reduction means my budget is freed up for something else.

00:03:06: And Sarah Cheeseman, she kind of confirmed the why behind

00:03:09: this, right?

00:03:09: She did.

00:03:10: People just trust staff members more than they trust an official company logo.

00:03:15: cuts through all that corporate skepticism.

00:03:17: But getting those kinds of metrics takes real commitment, not just, you know, signing up for some vendor.

00:03:22: Sure.

00:03:22: Dan Phillips detailed the transformation at PMO.

00:03:25: They realized the biggest friction point was the process itself.

00:03:28: The

00:03:28: process was too clunky.

00:03:30: Exactly.

00:03:30: So they co-developed an integration with Sprinkler to cut the employee sharing journey from, I think it was, eleven complex steps.

00:03:38: Down to just two clicks.

00:03:39: Two clicks.

00:03:40: And that simplicity resulted in an eight hundred and seventy-five percent boost in earned media value.

00:03:45: An incredible

00:03:46: number.

00:03:46: It's a fundamental transformation, not just adoption.

00:03:49: It required investment, but the return was massive.

00:03:52: And to wrap up that theme, Fox Tucker brought in the leadership angle, when leaders visibly engage with and amplify their team's posts.

00:04:01: Not just their own posts.

00:04:02: Right, their team's posts.

00:04:03: It boosts confidence, validates the effort, and just makes employees feel valued.

00:04:08: So the big takeaway here is... Trust generates visibility, but that trust has to start internally.

00:04:14: Spot on, which is a perfect lead into our second theme.

00:04:18: Relationship first, social selling and outreach hygiene.

00:04:21: Okay.

00:04:22: This is the definitive rejection of that spam culture that's plagued LinkedIn for years.

00:04:28: Chuck Shaver and Justina Cicierska both insisted social selling has to be about genuine relationship building.

00:04:34: rejecting the unsolicited cold

00:04:36: pitch.

00:04:36: Completely.

00:04:37: The core is warm contextual outreach.

00:04:40: But what does warm even mean in a world where everyone is trying to automate connection?

00:04:44: That's

00:04:44: the key question.

00:04:45: Tony J Hughes had a powerful warning about that, didn't he?

00:04:48: He did.

00:04:49: He gets bombarded with over a hundred automated happy job anniversary messages.

00:04:54: It just clogs his inbox and immediately flags the sender as

00:04:58: It's generic is garbage.

00:04:59: It has to have relevant context and genuine value, not just some weak trigger.

00:05:03: Okay, so let's get tactical.

00:05:04: James Huntsman also gave some great tips for DMs.

00:05:06: Yeah, his advice was to be ruthless.

00:05:09: Keep DMs concise.

00:05:10: He says anything near four hundred words is guaranteed not to be read.

00:05:13: No

00:05:13: one has time for that.

00:05:14: And critically, use casual human language.

00:05:18: Like a quick text message from O-Nine.

00:05:21: Ditch the formal signature.

00:05:23: That small shift to being less professional actually signals more authenticity.

00:05:29: It makes you sound like a human being, not a marketing bot.

00:05:32: And Leotisha Halu had a fascinating data point on follow-ups.

00:05:36: Right, from analyzing thousands of messages, she found that the follow-up, the reminder, often has more impact than the first message.

00:05:44: Really?

00:05:45: Why is that?

00:05:45: It's not that the second message is better written.

00:05:48: It's that perseverance shows you're serious.

00:05:50: It builds trust and signals you're committed to a relationship, not just a quick sale.

00:05:54: And that commitment needs structure.

00:05:56: Carolina Posma outlined a vital four layer approach.

00:05:59: Awareness, priority filtering, strategic outreach and conversion.

00:06:03: But she said the vast majority of sellers skip layer two.

00:06:05: They skip the

00:06:06: filtering, they're just broadcasting.

00:06:08: Precisely.

00:06:09: And Posma found that sellers who focus their outreach only on profile viewers, people have already checked them out, get a twelve X higher response rate.

00:06:16: Twelve times.

00:06:17: That's the difference between guessing and acting on actual intent.

00:06:20: And that idea of intent, it gets taken to a whole new level with Richard Vanderblum's signal stack method.

00:06:27: This

00:06:27: is the really next level stuff.

00:06:29: It is.

00:06:29: Top sellers aren't relying on one magic email.

00:06:32: They're stacking signals, tracking engagement, intent data, prospect activity.

00:06:37: They engage before they reach out.

00:06:39: So they're orchestrating the whole thing.

00:06:41: And timing their messages for when the prospect is active.

00:06:44: He measured this and it resulted in four point two times more responses than isolated tactics.

00:06:50: which brings us back to the core philosophy that Ema Hasevik summarized so well.

00:06:55: Sellers have to build visibility first, engage where buyers are, and let the buyer decide their relevance before the outreach.

00:07:01: It's a truly warm funnel.

00:07:02: You earn it.

00:07:03: And this even applies to the connection request.

00:07:06: Morgan J. Ingram actually suggested using blank connection requests.

00:07:09: That flies in the face of all the old advice.

00:07:11: It

00:07:11: does, but it reinforces the relationship.

00:07:14: first idea.

00:07:15: Let them accept you based on your credible profile.

00:07:17: not on a pitch.

00:07:18: you crammed into the request.

00:07:20: Okay, so that's trust and hygiene.

00:07:22: Let's move to theme three, content, personal brand and commercial alignment.

00:07:27: This feels like the delivery mechanism for everything we've just discussed.

00:07:31: Absolutely.

00:07:31: Personal branding is now a core marketing discipline, but it has to be, and this is the key phrase, commercially relevant.

00:07:38: And that's the reality check against vanity metrics.

00:07:41: Kimberly Meyer showed this perfectly.

00:07:43: She had a post get huge reach.

00:07:45: twelve thousand impressions over a hundred engagements.

00:07:50: You know much pipeline it generated.

00:07:51: Let

00:07:51: me guess zero

00:07:52: zero, but then she followed it up with a hyper targeted carousel post Content designed to be actionable downloadable.

00:07:59: that one led to a hundred forty nine saves and one inbound sequel worth sixty thousand dollars in ARR.

00:08:05: That's the difference between being interesting and being valuable.

00:08:07: It's massive.

00:08:08: Quality and targeted alignment matter infinitely more than broad, untargeted reach.

00:08:12: And Kristen Gallucci stressed that you can't just post once a month and expect a sixty thousand dollar lead.

00:08:17: Consistency is what builds that authority.

00:08:20: Right.

00:08:20: You build that muscle memory for your audience.

00:08:23: And Simon Schmitz advised picking a topic you can genuinely stick with.

00:08:28: More importantly, he said to share your actual

00:08:31: process.

00:08:31: The how, not just the what.

00:08:33: the messy parts, not just the winds.

00:08:36: That vulnerability builds real trust.

00:08:39: And speaking of clarity, Dean said and had that great tip about the outsider's check on your profile.

00:08:45: Yeah,

00:08:45: can a prospect land on your profile and instantly see what problem you solve, your approach, your successes.

00:08:51: If they have to click around and read a dense bio to figure it out.

00:08:54: They're gone.

00:08:55: They're gone.

00:08:56: Use the featured section.

00:08:57: Use the services page.

00:08:58: Make it friction free.

00:09:00: Your profile is your landing page.

00:09:01: It has to convert.

00:09:02: We should also touch on the authenticity debate.

00:09:05: What does be authentic actually mean?

00:09:07: Alina Gladcova had some great evidence on this.

00:09:09: She

00:09:09: did.

00:09:10: She showed that content mixing professional insight with personal meaning performs best.

00:09:14: Her top post was about finding love on LinkedIn alongside her professional wins.

00:09:18: Because

00:09:18: people want to see the person behind the expertise.

00:09:21: They want human connection, not just a sanitized corporate expert.

00:09:24: And Alan Illich gave us that great framework for balancing all this.

00:09:29: The gardening analogy.

00:09:30: Yes,

00:09:30: you need reach planting new seeds, and you need trust watering the existing plants.

00:09:36: If you only focus on reach and never build trust, the garden just withers.

00:09:40: It's the perfect way to think about it.

00:09:43: OK, that brings us to our final theme, the technical layer.

00:09:46: Platform, product, and algorithm signals.

00:09:49: This is where AI is changing the rules of the game.

00:09:52: And it's raising the bar for everyone.

00:09:54: Terry Heath highlighted the massive shift with LinkedIn's new AI search.

00:09:58: This is already rolling out for premium users, right?

00:10:00: In the US, yes.

00:10:01: And the implication is that the AI is rewarding profiles that clearly express value, problem solving, and outcomes.

00:10:08: It's not about job titles anymore.

00:10:10: The old SEO tricks are dying.

00:10:12: They are.

00:10:12: You have to rewrite your headline and about section to match how a buyer searches in plain English.

00:10:18: So instead of seeing your sales consultant, you need to reflect a query like, Someone to train my sales team on LinkedIn.

00:10:23: So you're

00:10:24: literally teaching the AI what problems you solve for whom

00:10:27: exactly and Chad Johnson's insights on the new three sixty brew algorithm Reinforce this.

00:10:33: he says.

00:10:33: the system now runs on language and reasoning.

00:10:36: The old engagement hacks are becoming useless.

00:10:38: What does language and reasoning mean in practice?

00:10:41: It means the AI is reading your content like a peer review.

00:10:45: It's judging clarity storytelling depth.

00:10:48: It's smart enough to evaluate the substance now.

00:10:50: So you have to front load the value.

00:10:52: Your headline, your first sentence, they're critical.

00:10:56: And you have to stay consistent.

00:10:57: Posting random stuff confuses the AI and fragments your professional identity.

00:11:01: It hurts your visibility.

00:11:02: And he added that gem about commenting,

00:11:04: right?

00:11:05: Yes.

00:11:05: Thoughtful, high quality comments on niche posts actually teach the AI about your expertise level.

00:11:11: It's a quiet way to build authority.

00:11:13: But generic low effort replies weaken your profile.

00:11:17: So we have to talk about the social selling index.

00:11:19: The SSI, Matt Jackson called it the LinkedIn equivalent of a credit score.

00:11:22: It's a great analogy.

00:11:24: And Finn Wicherly noted that an SSI over sixty often separates the true practitioners from people who are just teaching outdated methods.

00:11:30: It shows you've mastered the foundational behaviors.

00:11:33: And for those trying to boost that score, Mike Adam confirmed the long form content advantage.

00:11:38: Yeah.

00:11:39: articles or newsletters.

00:11:40: He found publishing four articles in a month can boost your SSI by up to two points.

00:11:45: Because depth drives authority.

00:11:47: And those assets have a longer lifespan.

00:11:49: They feed into Google.

00:11:51: They establish enduring expertise.

00:11:53: Okay, so we've covered culture, outreach, hygiene, content strategy, and now the AI itself.

00:11:59: It feels like the message is clear.

00:12:02: Cold pitching is out.

00:12:04: Deep contextual relationships are in.

00:12:06: And for a final provocative thought, let's tie it back to what Jeff Mulander called high status selling.

00:12:11: It's all about tactical restraint.

00:12:13: Tactical restraint.

00:12:14: That sounds counterintuitive in a world obsessed with engagement.

00:12:18: It means you avoid the urge to persuade.

00:12:20: You let silence work.

00:12:22: Molander suggests using diagnostic questions like, what happens if nothing changes?

00:12:26: That's not a closing line.

00:12:27: No, it's not designed for compliance.

00:12:29: It invites the prospect to think critically about their own situation.

00:12:33: You earn respect in conversations through confidence and absence, not by constantly chasing and convincing.

00:12:39: The seller who's least attached to convincing the buyer often wins the conversation.

00:12:43: That's a powerful idea to end on.

00:12:46: Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into social selling.

00:12:50: It

00:12:50: was a pleasure to synthesize these critical insights for you.

00:12:53: If you enjoyed this edition, new deep dives drop every two weeks.

00:12:56: We cover the entire B to B spectrum, so be sure to check out our other editions on account-based marketing, field marketing, channel marketing, MarTech, GoToMarket, and AI in B to B marketing.

00:13:07: Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next one.

00:13:09: We'll catch you soon.