There’s gold to strike if you used LinkedIn the right way for B2B sales.
There’s also risks if you do it wrong.
Let’s talk about them on this episode of Closing Time.
Thanks for tuning in to Closing Time, the show for go to Market Leaders.
I’m Val Riley, head of marketing for Insightly and Unbounce.
Today I am joined by Tim Davidson.
He is founder of B2B Rizz, and Tim, that’s
got to be the best business name we’ve ever had on the show.
Oh, wow, I am.
That’s. That’s amazing.
That’s the best intro I’ve ever had. So thank you.
Awesome. Well, thanks for being here.
I’d like to use our time together today for you to coach people on the risks
that they can take on LinkedIn
and maybe sometimes if they take too many risks, how that could backfire.
Before we do that, though,
I figured we could set the stage with why LinkedIn is so important.
I pulled some stats this morning and it really is quite impressive.
LinkedIn boasts over 1 billion users.
That’s billion with a B.
Nearly 135 million people
are active on the platform every day.
I mean it has become the major networking hub
for professionals and job seekers alike.
You know, really hard to argue with those numbers.
True.
There’s no other place, no social platform you can build a bit,
B2B business, So fast.
It’s very, very interesting.
So at this point, really, it’s not “if”
to have a presence or not, but what type of presence you have on LinkedIn.
It’s almost like you know, the proverbial conference room table was in the past
like it’s just a necessity if you’re doing business.
It’s it’s net – It’s networking at scale, and there’s no other.
You know, you could be on TikTok.
You could be on YouTube and all those places and B2B
folks are going to be there.
But LinkedIn’s primarily. B2B big business folks, so there’s
just another place where you can, like, really hone in on who your audience is.
It’s just it’s amazing, in my opinion.
Right.
So as marketers, we know now like why
we should be on LinkedIn as marketers and sellers.
There was a recent kind of online scuffle in regards to two data companies.
Really caught a lot of attention.
It was, seamless and Apollo.
It resulted in both of those companies getting the boot off of LinkedIn.
Can you talk us through what happened and and why?
Yeah.
So it is the company pages that got,. And they’re still shut down last
I checked this morning, actually,
and there’s a few others that got, shut down as well.
But these are the two names that people would recognize the most.
But essentially they were, scraping LinkedIn, Personal profile data,
they have some rules and they’ve knocked people off,
like, from using automation tools and things like that in the past.
I think
it was just
LinkedIn started to really crack down, it sounds like, and,
these are two of the, the first ones and the most well-known ones,
to get shut down.
And it’s been it’s been about a month, and they’re still shut down.
Not much word on it.
So it’s a very it’s very interesting.
Yeah.
I was I was going to say, as a marketer selling to salespeople,
I can’t imagine not having a LinkedIn presence for my business.
Do you have any inclination or thoughts as to when they’ll be let back on, or has.
Is that just still nebulous right now?
Oh, I mean, I have no idea.
And I’m coming this at someone that’s been accidentally flagged before.
I got my profile back after two days, so that was nice.
But, I mean, those two days were were gut wrenching.
My whole businesses is based off. LinkedIn.
But, yeah, after a month, it’s very interesting to see how far they,
it’s been and it’s my opinion, you know, it’s
got to be hurting them more than just, you know, not having a company page
someone, it’s someone searching for you and you don’t see a LinkedIn company page.
Yeah, you exist, but it’s gotta hurt.
And then on the other side of it, you can’t run ads.
LinkedIn ads at least.
And I know both of them were running ads.
I don’t know how much they were spending or anything like that,
but it definitely, means that they can’t spend any money on ads.
If that was working for them.
Yeah.
I guess their Google budget just doubled.
So taking this down to the individual level,
as you shared, you’ve been you’ve been kicked off before.
You know, there are some more nefarious
tools out there that can drive artificial engagement on LinkedIn.
It’s tempting if you want to really grow your follower account.
But, but, you know, is it worth it Is the question.
How do you see those risks versus reward?
I don’t mess with them.
Because I think it’s very risky.
I I’m also a believer.
I don’t I don’t think there’s a lot of, you know, people say, hey, you know, leave
50 comments a day, connect with 50 people a day or whatever that number is.
I don’t
I’m sure that works to an extent.
I don’t I don’t like that.
I don’t think it should be looked at as like a number you need to hit per day.
I think it should be more of, again, like networking at scale, but
like actually networking, just leaving comments
when when you need to connect with the right people.
Especially if using automation tools to and all these AI comments.
It’s just
it’s not a good look in my opinion.
And people can smell it.
They can see it. It’s very obvious.
And you know, and like, like we’re mentioning LinkedIn
starting to crack down.
I’ve known I,. I know of people that have had their,
profiles, flagged because of automation or not
even using automation, but it looks like automation
because they’re just doing so many connections at one time.
And that that’s not a risk.
I don’t want to make.
Let’s talk about some of those tactics that maybe dance on the line of integrity.
For example, I’ve seen this one a lot.
You know, someone I’ll talk about?
Maybe a piece of content or a tactic or a guide, and they’ll say,
comment like x, y, z word, and I’ll send you this guide.
So technically that there’s nothing, wrong about that.
But how do you see tactics like that?
Are they effective?. Do you recommend them?
So that one specifically,. I understand the lure.
Like, I get it.
I’ve talked to people that have used it.
And I want to use it sometimes,
because it does get you more reach that those comments play into the algorithm.
Those, those,
people liking it and all that people connecting with you that stuff matters.
And you’ll if you post the same content one with the comment
for the asset, one with not one will go farther, it just will.
And like everything, we like to ruin it.
It was great at first, right?. People did it.
It was great.
And then I a lot of it and the asset was good and people actually got the asset.
What I’ve noticed is this happens to everything.
So it’s not even just this, people start to overuse it.
And then now there’s some bad actors and there’s bad people using it that,
that use the same asset every single time.
Or it’s just I seen this.
They’ll go to ChatGPT, say, make me this guide,
and they’ll just use that as the asset.
And that’s all they do now.
Or, and I’ve tested this where. I’ll just start commenting and all of them
and like the last one at last, numbers. I looked at, I got like three out of 26
people actually sent them to me.
And look, I mean, if they qualify me, I’m a one person business, okay.
Fair.
But again, there’s just
now it’s just becoming overplayed.
And I think it could still work if the asset’s good,
if you actually deliver on the promise, if you actually give it to the people.
I like that.
But there are some people just making it bad.
And it’s going to that makes when you do that, it just gives
people a bad taste of who you are.
Who your brand is, one recently,. I call it the double dip.
They did it. The gated asset.
They send it to me.
Now I go to a website where I have to fill out a form to get the asset.
The double dip.
That was a bad taste in my mouth.
So I think there’s just some
bad actors out there right now.
Unfortunately.
Gosh, the marketer in me sees the allure, though, right?
You get the engagement on the on the LinkedIn post, you get the comment,
then you get the web traffic and the form fill, like that’s a goal to.
But it’s terrible user experience.
Yeah.
And don’t get me wrong,
you see those posts and they have like 900 a thousand comments.
It’s it’s amazing. Right?
It’s just.
You gotta do it right.
You had to deliver on the promise.
Well, I think that’s a great segue.
Let’s talk about doing things the right way.
Right.
You know, those automation tools are tempting, but
like, the opposite of that is being personal.
Being authentic, doing it on your own.
Feels like that’s the way you’re leaning Tim.
That’s I mean, that’s that’s all I know, right?
Like I’m a I don’t have a newsletter because I don’t read newsletters.
I don’t do things because I don’t like them.
And so, like, I get, you know,. I get all the connection requests
and automation stuff.
I get the AI comments,. I get all that stuff.
I don’t like them.
I’m never going to do those because I’m, I personally don’t like them.
And to me it’s like it just doesn’t seem right to do that, I think.
Yeah you don’t.
Again, we mentioned like it’s LinkedIn.
It’s a B2B kind of network.
You don’t need like a lot of connections and followers to grow a big brand
or a, affordable or a profitable company.
You just need the right connections, the right people.
And if you do that, authentically, you’ll build
those connections, you’ll build those friendships and business.
Anything you want.
If you just do it, and, to be honest, it might take longer,
but I think it’s worth it.
So do you have some examples of, of ways that you just try to be super authentic,
in LinkedIn on a daily basis, and, follow up question.
Do you schedule time every day to be on. LinkedIn or is it more organic than that?
Yeah. It’s.
So, to answer the last question first, I’m not the best person to answer for this.
Because I, I don’t use any scheduler.
I don’t like block off a time in my calendar
to go on LinkedIn and comment or go on LinkedIn and post.
I try to post every day.
I try to comment every day and be on there every day,
you know, just before this,
this episode, like five minutes on my phone on LinkedIn,
you know, so I do that after, you know, just waiting around
it just it just depends on when I can get to it, essentially.
You know, sometimes I,
I won’t I’m not gonna lie,. I do spend a lot of time on there.
But that’s the whole businesses from LinkedIn.
So it’s, it’s a valuable thing for me.
To see your first question.
It’s all the basics, right?
I, I go in there and then I scroll through.
If I see a post that would make sense
for me to comment, I’ll comment and but I’ll comment, thoughtfully.
Sometimes if it’s someone’s just getting, you know,
got a promotion,. I’ll say congrats to that person.
Like, that’s just classic stuff.
But if it’s a thoughtful kind of post,. I see, I have maybe,
a different point of view or have questions.
I’ll just comment authentically.
I’ll comment like I’m
a real person, just asking questions or give me a different point of view.
If someone I’m not the best at my messages, but someone messaged me,
I’ll try to respond in, the right way, or try to help them in some way.
Or, you know, I don’t go out and message a lot of people.
It’s not my thing.
But I do try to respond to as many as possible.
I try to, like I mentioned, try to create content every day.
Some of them are jokes, some of them are very thoughtful kind of posts and videos.
I don’t use AI to create all my content.
I might use it as a sounding board, but I don’t just post AI jargon every day.
I try to be authentic and try to create
content that people would, resonate with. Not
not really.
Get the, the, you know, a thousand likes.
I don’t really care for that.
It’s just more of networking at scale.
Like I mentioned earlier,
scale-ish, not really scale. I guess.
I think that’s a great takeaway for our audience.
Is you can use AI, but using it in a thoughtful way.
For example, you know, draft a post and then run it
through AI and see, you know, hey, maybe how can I make this better?
Or how can I get my point across better?
You know, people are reading.
They’re digesting so much when they’re on the platform.
So you really want to make sure that you’re choosing your words carefully.
So maybe that’s the cheat code for AI on. LinkedIn is is that first draft review?
Yeah.
I mean, you could you could put it in there,
ask hey, do you have, like, a better idea for a headline or not?
The first sentence I, I personally use it, so I’m not the best speller.
I’ll use it for spelling.
Sometimes I can,
and because people call you on that, so I, I try to use it for spelling.
I’ll get rid of the em dashes because I know people hate that.
Now, too.
But, yeah, it’s a it’s a great sounding board.
I love it for a ton more or even just good ideas.
Awesome.
So I guess my last question for you
is, Tim, like, feels like LinkedIn has a lot of power.
The the power to, like we said earlier, take businesses off the platform
that are violating its terms of service and really making those businesses,
you know, somewhat non-existent in the landscape.
There really isn’t an alternative for really professional social media out there.
Are there any emerging platforms
or any other ways around LinkedIn, or do we just need to,
realize that LinkedIn has the power and we got to play by the rules.
Yeah.
This is probably.
My downfall.
Is if Lincoln shut down today, I’d be.
I have nothing.
I mean, I’ve posted on Instagram,. I posted on TikTok, I posted on YouTube.
It’s just different in my opinion.
Right now we have to play by the rules.
Everyone should, you know, and I don’t do this, so,
I need to talk to myself about this, but everyone should, you know,
create those email lists and build stuff outside of, the platform you don’t own.
Because they can shut you down.
They can shut down if they want. They, you know,
it’s not up to us.
But, yeah, there’s no other platform that I know of.
I know there’s a lot of business people on X and
a lot of business people and other platforms, too, but,
it’s just a different game.
Yeah, I agree, as a marketing leader, you know, we have our owned audiences
and our rented audiences, and we just have to walk that line really carefully
to make sure that we’re not leaning too much into those rented audiences.
Because you’re right.
At the end of the day, somebody else owns that and
can take it away from us very easily.
Yeah.
And it’s, to be honest, it’s scary.
It is scary.
But, if LinkedIn did shutdown, people go somewhere.
I’m sure something else would be created.
And then you’d kind of have to just rebuild from there.
Tim, thanks for all of your information.
On today’s episode, if our listeners want to follow you or B2B
Rizz, where should they go?
Yeah. And thank you for having me.
LinkedIn’s the last place.
Type in Tim Davidson, I have glasses on, blue background, profile picture.
I should come up. Awesome.
Thanks so much for joining us on Closing Time today.
Awesome. Thank you.
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thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next week.
