Last update:
Let's leave Social Selling for a moment and put ourselves in a recruiting context. Your target is Bernard D.; Bernard is a Java developer. A rare pearl that we would really like to recruit; we lack so many Java developers in the box....
Of course, Bernard D. is on duty. And seems happy to be where he is. He is therefore in no way an active candidate (someone looking for a new position); he is therefore a passive candidate. And your goal is to find a way to influence it on LinkedIn for - in the long run - to attract it to your business. And to realize this influence, we must first find a way to "sell" him some ideas that will make him more sensitive to your "cause", to the career prospects or projects that you could bring to him. Ideas like:
- Other career opportunities exist, it's broader and more open than he thinks.
- In firms that are even more dynamic than the one in which it currently operates
- Where skills like his can flourish in even more interesting projects, with even more advanced technologies or approaches
- These projects are numerous, numerous, are possible in several countries or in any case at several sites in France.
- Elsewhere - at home in this case - the company life is more pleasant, we make the real "people care" with for example a more humane, warmer management.
So, to influence Bernard D., what are your options?
- Connect directly to Bernard. Not sure that he accepts, he is so solicited, invitations like yours he receives dozens of invitations every week... But we are never immune to one blow of a bowl, as the other said, so we try ;) If he accepts, good of course: all the LinkedIn interaction options will then be available, first of all private messages (MP). This does not mean that we will have to throw ourselves on him as "the misery on the poor world" with an immediate message of solicitation. No, let's take it easy, it'd be a mess, huh?
- It is also possible, in parallel, to connect with professionals already in direct connection with him (which are for him "relations"). To increase the channels of influence Vs our friend Bernard D... And since it's a human being - who first connects with those he really knows + are part of the same professional universe as him - we're going to target IT, we're going to target other developers. Several techniques within the Linkedin search engine allow you to identify these contacts in a very fine way!
And hop, this way, little by little, we "tweak" our canvas around Bernard D.. With expected results: Regular publication, calibrated posts to challenge and react to these ITs, these developers who have thus become 1st level relationships.
If one of these relationships "likes" a post (or comments, or shares; in short, engages), BINGO, our final target, Bernard D.. will be exposed to our message. Not only once; ideally several times (by the way, the LinkedIn algorithm strongly filters your feed, your news feed; only a fraction of your posts appear on the wall of your relationships, it is a vast topic and other articles within this blog deal with it)
In the long run, unconsciously, he will have identified us, labelled us, we will be one of the "possibles" for him when it comes to changing the horizon.
And thanks to the quality of our posts, our proven ability to engage colleagues and peers, we will also be part of the "credibles" since we speak the same language as him...
But there is a "hic": Our influence will only come from its IT / techno / developer sphere. So maybe she'll only be very relative. How can we go even further? Well by connecting with Bernard D..'s weak ties, contacts that are not part of his immediate sphere (his strong ties) but whose posts occupy a good part of his LinkedIn thread. And so we will put in place a "360 degree influence", an influence that will come from multiple horizons:
- If Bernard D. is connected directly with us: Influence in "direct take"
- Through his strong links: Influence in "his world", via developers, ITs, who react to our posts and thus make them visible to him
- Through its weak ties (or rather "medium" links, located in its company: Human Resources, Accounting, Marketing, business decision makers, buyers, etc.): An influence from outside, outside its world but nevertheless through coherent contacts for Bernard D.
This will allow for a more diffuse, global influence that will probably be more effective in influencing Bernard D. This will not be "magic", it will take time; you will have to monitor his behavior on the platform (is he coming to see your profile, is he starting to "like" or comment on your posts?...) to engage him more directly and in the best possible way.