How to Use LinkedIn Recent Activity for Social Selling [Quick Tip]

Social networks are full of opportunities for sales professionals. LinkedIn and Twitter enable you to build trust and rapport with prospects. They enable you to engage current customers. They enable you to find buyers and be found by them. And they enable you to research buyers.

In this post, we’ll look at how you can use LinkedIn to research your buyers. Specifically, we’ll discuss how to mine someone’s “recent activity” for information and for opportunities to spark engagement.

Introducing LinkedIn’s Recent Activity

Before interacting with someone on social media, you should observe the person’s digital body language. On LinkedIn, there are various ways to glean information. You can look at people’s LinkedIn summaries to see how they describe themselves. You can look at people’s skills and endorsements to see how other people perceive them.

Additionally, you can look at someone’s “Recent Activity.” Haven’t heard of it? Don’t worry. It’s one of LinkedIn’s best kept secrets.

To see someone’s recent activity while using a desktop computer, navigate to the person’s profile. Then, move your cursor to the down arrow in the top part of their profile. Finally, click on “View recent activity.”

Note: If you cannot see someone’s recent activity, that person may have hidden his or her recent activity. Alternatively, the person may not have posted anything recently.

Observe Buyers in Their Social Habitat

You might be asking, “Why should I care about someone’s recent activity?” Well, there are two reasons. First, the recent activity section allows you to become acquainted with your buyer even more. Second, it presents an opportunity for you to engage with your buyer. First up: Getting to know your buyer.

Before you interact with a customer on LinkedIn, it’s important to observe the customer’s digital body language. When you’re looking at someone’s recent activity on LinkedIn (or recent tweets on Twitter, for that matter), you can ask the following questions:

• Is this person active on LinkedIn?
• How often does this person use LinkedIn?
• What tone does the person use when posting to LinkedIn?
• Which topics interest this person?
• Which types of content (e.g. images, industry news, how-to articles) interest this person?
• How does this person interact with other people – comments, likes, tagging people in posts?

By asking these questions, you can anticipate how your interactions will unfold. For example, let’s say that your prospect doesn’t have much recent activity. This indicates that your buyer may not be overly active on LinkedIn, and you shouldn’t grow frustrated if your buyer takes time to respond to you.

Let’s think of another example. Imagine a customer whose activity consists of giving “thumbs up” to long-form articles about marketing profession. If you want to attract this person’s attention, perhaps you should share more long-form articles instead of internet memes.

Choose How to Engage

As you peruse someone’s recent activity on LinkedIn, not only do you form a more complete image of your buyer; you have the opportunity to interact with your buyer and the content that your buyer has shared. Here are the three ways that you can engage:

Read content and save for later

This option works well if you’re about to jump on a sales call with someone.

Let’s say that your prospect shared an article about artificial intelligence in sales software. After you read the article, you can mention it during your sales call.

Warning: Don’t force connections. If your product or solution has nothing to do with artificial intelligence or sales software, don’t feel as if you need to reference that article on your sales call.

Like it

This option is good for lighter touches. Users of social networks enjoy when you like or favorite things on social media. By giving a “thumbs up” to the post, you signal to the prospect that you’re paying attention.

But be careful: If the person has several connections on LinkedIn, your “like” could get lost in a sea of “likes.” As a result, your prospect or customer may miss your interaction.

Beyond that, “likes” don’t require much thought on your part. Anyone can like something. To build rapport and establish yourself as a credible source of information, you’ll need to do more than just like a piece of content.

Comment

When you want to stand out, a comment is your best option. People tend to receive fewer comments than they do “likes.” As a result, people are more likely to notice a comment as opposed to a like.

More importantly, commenting allows you to enter into a conversation and add value. If you’re going to shape someone’s journey on social media, you need to provide helpful insights.

Give It a Try!

It’s your turn. Go to LinkedIn. Locate 5 prospects. Look at their “recent activity,” and analyze.

What patterns do you notice? And how can you engage with what the person has already shared?

Good luck!

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