Linkedin Marketing Strategy - The Reciprocal Visit - Who’s Viewed Your Profile

One LinkedIn marketing strategy that I’ve seen mentioned on a variety of blogs is “The Reciprocal Visit” (or at least that is what I call it). How do we use that for marketing?

What is the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature?

LinkedIn has the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile" feature. You can see it on the ‘Profile’ drop down. And it shows you who has recently viewed your profile.

• if you have a free plan you will see the last few people who have visited
• if you have a paid plan you will see the last few weeks (or months)

If the person has made their profile public, or not viewed in private mode then you’ll be able to see information about them.

Why?

• you could send them a connection request, after all they visited your profile, they might be interested in what you sell
• they might be a potential client waiting to happen, you could research them and build a tailored ‘hi there’ approach
• it might give you an idea of the current target market your profile is written towards
• it might help you build a set of ‘personnas’ that your profile is drawn to, to create custom marketing approaches for each profile
• you might want to join some of the groups for that person, posting there might get you in front of that person organically without a connect
• there might be a shared connection who can introduce you

What is the “Reciprocal Visit” strategy?

If you visit someone’s profile then YOU will appear in their list of “Who’s viewed your profile”.
They might visit you back.
That might mean they are interested in what you have to sell if:

• your ‘professional headline’ description accurately reflects what you want to sell

Now your ‘Professional Headline’ is actually acting as a headline. And you want to use it as a ‘click through’ and read the article.
And the article now, is your “Summary”, and your “Summary” now becomes a sales page.
If you include your connection details on your sales page (sorry, “Summary”) , then they might actually find it easier to connect with you, and initiate a sales conversation.

Automating This

There are tools to help with the “Reciprocal Visit” strategy.
But be careful.
You can have your account locked for this.

• if you are on a free plan then this will be viewed as commercial use, and you’ll have to very quickly upgrade your plan (after about 50 or so views)
• if you misuse this, then your account might be locked (if you’re lucky then it will reset the next day)
• if you are on a paid linkedin plan then it advertises itself as “Unlimited Profile Views”, but it doesn’t mean that. I think you get about 800 or so before you see the “Linked in is momentarily unavailable” message

I’m still experimenting with this strategy. And to be honest, I’m technical enough that I can automate it myself, so I’ll never know what the tools are like.
I can’t say for sure that the strategy does work yet, as I’ve only just started using it.

Initial results:

I’ve only been using this strategy for 2 days, so it is really too early to say. But…
Started experimenting with it on 27th - 28th August, which was a Weekend, then 29th August (which was a bank holiday) - so not the best of days to try it. But in 2 days I have 18 profile views and my Wednesday email was busier with connection requests and emails from recruiters.
I managed to lock my account on Tuesday by clicking on too many profiles!
But my access came back on Wednesday. Phew.
I take this to mean that it is:

• worth experimenting with.
• And I need to amend my profile to reduce the number of recruiters that contact me.

Note:

• Update: And for the 2nd time. I've had my linkedin search functionality downgraded on linkedin. This time. After performing one search, and clicking 'next page' about 30 - 40 times.
• I'm not sure this is a viable strategy in any automated way.
• I'm not quite sure how recruiters are able to rely on LinkedIn because if I was a recruiter I'd be doing a lot of searching and paging, and my account would get locked.
• Currently I'm on an evaluation of the Business Plus plan which would set me back £29.99 a month. IT seems to have the same limits on searches (i.e. none - unlimited) as the executive plan at £49.99 a month. 
• And given that it is possible to avoid some linkedin search limits by using tools such as http://recruitmentgeek.com/tools/linkedin/ 
• I need to find a compelling reason to pay the cash in the next 3 weeks.
• I'll see if the 'post cool stuff to groups your prospects' are on strategy works out next

Related Links:

• Who’s Viewed Your Profile FAQ
• Difference Between Basic and Premium
• How to use the WVMP Feature
• Utilizing WVMP Feature

Marketing in Moderation for Maximum Impact

You'll want to compete. You'll want to improve.

But as with everything, you have to work in moderation:

• You have a finite amount of time
• You have a finite monetary budget for advertising

The parteo principle is a useful thing to keep in mind, they 80/20 rule:

80% of the success comes from 20% of the effort

i.e.

• get biggest bang for the buck
• repurpose your content
• get your content in front of more people

Some of this comes from skill:

• learn to write fast
• learn to plan fast
• learn to automate some processes

Some of this comes from courage:

• your first draft is good enough, don't edit, hit publish
• if you learned something its good enough, it will help someone else, hit publish
• if it reminded you of something important, even if it was obvious, its important enough, hit publish

You'll only see benefits when you go live, and you implement.

Danger zone of competitor analysis

The danger of doing competitor analysis is that you could become complacent.

If your website ever becomes 'good' and 'better than' your competitors, you might stop improving.

If your social media strategy ever becomes 'better than' your competitors, then you might stop improving.

To avoid this, also add into your 'competitor' list some big hitters. Identify and add individuals who are so high profile you could never hope to compete. Add companies with an advertising budget that you could never hope to match.

Keep improving, so that you edge towards competing with them.

If you'll never reach their level that is fine, you'll keep improving.

Use Ongoing Competitor Analysis to improve your marketing

One way I improve my marketing and web sites is by analyzing what my competitors do.

And by competitor I mean:

• direct competitors who do exactly the same
• direct competitors who sell similar products as I do
• small consultancy companies who do a similar thing to me
• consultants, who look successful, even if they do different things to me
• small consultancies and agencies who look successful

I prioritize direct competitors and consultancies, but I will analyse the work that anyone does and see what strategies and approaches I see that I'm not using.

After all, we want to be seen as 'bigger than we are' and the easiest way of doing that is by looking to see what people 'bigger than you' actually do.