Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing: An Unofficial, Practical Guide to Selling & Developing B2B Business on LinkedIn [Paperback]

Neal Schaffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2011

Neal Schaffer helped revolutionize the way professionals utilize LinkedIn with his award-winning book Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing LinkedIn. He now does the same to enlighten companies how to develop business on LinkedIn with Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing. 

Thought Linkedin was just for job seekers? Think again. Linkedin is the most important destination for your sales and social media marketing efforts if your company is selling products and services to other businesses. When looking at Linkedin's extensive functionality from a sales and marketing perspective as presented in this book, you'll soon understand how you can create new business from your Linkedin activities.

After reading this book you'll learn how to master the Linkedin platform to develop business, including how to:

• Create a sales-oriented profile and connections policy to attract more leads
• Become an industry thought leader by establishing your own community within the lucrative Linkedin demographic
• Set up your Linkedin Companies Page to improve your reputation--and drive more traffic to your website
• Optimize your Linkedin presence as part of your social media optimization efforts. 
• and much more.

This practical guide, supplemented by more than 15 case studies, will teach you and your employees everything you need to know on how to successfully develop leads and business on LinkedIn.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The definitive guide for B2B sales & marketing professionals to generate real business on LinkedIn." - Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of the social CRM platform Nimble

"Neal Schaffer is an important voice in the social business movement today. His deep understanding of how LinkedIn operates as a business tool is invaluable." - Beverly Macy, CEO, Gravity Summit and coauthor of The Power of Realtime Social Media Marketing

"For the vast majority of sales & business development professionals out there, LinkedIn is a largely untapped resource... Neal Schaffer props up the ladder and hands you the bucket.... Read it, learn it, and start driving business through LinkedIn!" - Jason Falls, SocialMediaExplorer.com, coauthor of No Bullshit Social Media

"Neal Schaffer puts together a step-by-step way for any business of any size to attract and retain customers by leveraging LinkedIn. Leave out the guess work and grab this gem!" - Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute and coauthor of Get Content Get Customers

"Schaffer's second book is a friendly, yet detailed, tutorial peppered with gems of insight into LinkedIn functionality and etiquette....everything managers and staffers need to start, plan and execute a sales and marketing strategy using LinkedIn." - Kirkus Discoveries

About the Author

Neal Schaffer is recognized as a leader in helping businesses and professionals embrace and strategically leverage the potential of social media. An author, speaker, and social media strategy consultant, Neal has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, Yahoo!, and the American Express Open Forum. A graduate of Amherst College, he is also fluent in Chinese and Japanese and currently resides in Irvine, California, where he proudly serves on the marketing committee for the United Way of Orange County. Neal’s first book, “Windmill Networking: Maximizing LinkedIn,” was a recipient of multiple industry awards and continues to be one of the best-selling books in its genre. In 2011, Neal will publish his second book, “Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing,” and is currently working on his third book, tentatively titled “Windmill Networking: Maximizing Twitter.” As President of Windmills Marketing, a social media strategy consulting practice, Neal has led social media strategy creation, educational workshops, and implementation coaching for a range of B2B and B2C companies including a Fortune 50 software company, a multi-billion dollar nutritional supplements enterprise, and a popular Mexican-American musician. Neal is also a frequent social media conference speaker and is passionate about educating his audience with concrete takeaways and compelling, customized content to help them truly maximize social media. Neal has spoken at nearly 100 events worldwide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (July 18, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1463685807
• ISBN-13: 978-1463685805
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ABOUT NEAL

Neal Schaffer is recognized as a leader in helping businesses and professionals embrace and strategically leverage the potential of social media. An author, speaker, and social media strategy consultant, Neal has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, Yahoo!, and the American Express Open Forum. A graduate of Amherst College, he is also fluent in Chinese and Japanese and currently resides in Irvine, California, where he proudly serves on the marketing committee for the United Way of Orange County.

Neal's first book, "Windmill Networking: Maximizing LinkedIn," was a recipient of multiple industry awards and continues to be one of the best-selling books in its genre. In 2011, Neal will publish his second book, "Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing," and is currently working on his third book, tentatively titled "Windmill Networking: Maximizing Twitter."

As President of Windmills Marketing, a social media strategy consulting practice, Neal has led social media strategy creation, educational workshops, and implementation coaching for a range of B2B and B2C companies including a Fortune 50 software company, a multi-billion dollar nutritional supplements enterprise, and a popular Mexican-American musician.

Services provided by Windmills Marketing include:

* Social media strategy consulting
* Social media implementation & strategy
* Custom social media workshops

Neal is also a frequent social media conference speaker and is passionate about educating his audience with concrete takeaways and compelling, customized content to help them truly maximize social media. Neal has spoken at nearly 100 events including:

* National social media marketing events: Online Marketing Summit, Gravity Summit, LavaCon 2.0, Gov2.5
* Business events: CBS Radio, Hartford & Rochester Business Journal
* Corporate webinars: Vocus, Nimble
* Professional associations: HBA, PRSA, IABC, YPO, CEO Trust, Social Media Club, & NAHREP

CONTACT NEAL

Email: [e-mail]
Phone: [phone]

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Practical straight-forward advice with benefits October 4, 2011

By Walter J. Adamson

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Overall I rate the book very highly. There is a mountain of practical advice, and work if you follow-up on all that advice. I'm in the process of touching up my Linkedin profile and making more time for Linkedin again as a result of reading it. But I've deducted one star because of the Negatives. Those Negatives could have been easily avoided, so I assume that they are a conscious choice, and so I'm expressing a difference in opinion rather than fact.

Positive

The book reflects the author's deep knowledge of Linkedin and his own business results from using it in the way he describes. So this is a very practical guide for B2B.

It's segmented and easy to read - I read it in 2 hours - and includes specific Case Studies to illustrate the advice. It clearly explains how to get over the typical stumbling blocks, such as how people and their companies should be represented and interact, and reminds us about the value of the functions of Linkedin that we may have neglected, such as Questions and Answers, and Polls, for example.

Furthemore, by its practical nature it generates a big workload of audits and review and rethinking content and priorities and activies on Linkedin. That meaning that this book can deliver a big outcome if you take up its challenges.

I have developed myself a workload as a result of reading this book. That's a great outcome. If you want to brush up or learn about how to maximise your Linkedin presence value then I recommend this book.

Negative

There were a couple of aspects of the book which disappointed me. The least disappointing was the clear message by the author in the opening remarks, and then from time to time later, that this book is clearly intended to be a companion to his first book. I've never read the first book, and I assumed that given his experience since then that the new one would be a superset. Actually it doesn't even matter what I think, but what I think does matter is that this point is not made clear in any of the product description on Amazon for example. I would not have been disappointed if this had been transparent when I bought the book.

The bigger disappointment was the constant repetition of basic points. The chapters all seem to have published as stand-alone pieces at some point in their life-cycle. They repeat the same things many times, up to 4 or 5, I lost count. They don't repeat them in a pedagogical way, rather, each seems completely blind to the existence of the previous occurrences. This was obviously a chosen format, but I found it distracting and disappointing, almost like things were begin padded out.

Interesting

The author has strong views about managing your online personas, along the lines of "Linkedin for business, Facebook for personal". He explains this thoughtfully - at least it made me contemplate my point of view. And he provides a set of filters to run your posts through to ensure that you maintain your professional persona on Linkedin.

It's interesting because personally I don't really subscribe to this theory. What I do agree with is that linking your Twitter to your Linkedin is not a good idea, and that there are things which you need to think twice about before posting on Linkedin. But ultimately everything will be exposed, so I'd rather put effort into working Linkedin to the max rather than worrying whether I should be saying something in Linkedin or my blog or Facebook or Twitter or Posterous etc etc. I think that you just be yourself but don't dance naked on the dinner table at a business meeting, or with friends that you've just met.

On the author's side he has some compelling evidence to support what he says - and that is the business which he has built from following his own guidelines on Linkedin. That's irrefutable. You might be best to take his advice!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book On LinkedIn That Actually Focuses On Sales August 14, 2011

By F. D. Soto

Format:Paperback

One of the hardest things to find when it comes to LinkedIn and other social media topics are books that aren't just fluff but teach actual sales and marketing strategies - this book does just that. Rather than giving the typical overview of why you need to be on this B2B social network, Neal gives step-by-step instructions on how to set up your profile to effectively communicate what you have to offer, how to leverage LinkedIn Groups to find leads and build credibility, and even how to use PPC advertising.

Every sales team needs to have this book - and should take one day out of the week to implement one chapter. Although cold-calling will never go away, the tips in this book help to augment your sale's strategy to develop warm leads in a powerful way.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn to use LinkedIn the right way August 14, 2011

By A. Kuenn

Format:Paperback

I just received my copy of Maximizing LinkedIn from Neal himself at a local event here in Phoenix (AZIMA). I use LinkedIn as often as possible, but knew there was so much more I (and our company) could be doing to leverage this awesome business tool. As a result, I read Neal's book as quickly as possible. As you might expect the book is focused on ways that users can leverage the power of LinkedIn.

This book includes more than 15 short case studies to help tie all the concepts together. Neal start with the fundamentals of effective networking or connecting, emphasizing giving before receiving, a concept that I have long believed critical to effective networking.

You will also learn to create magnetic profiles to attract more leads, establish your self as an industry thought leader, optimize your Linkedin marketing efforts, and even set-up your company page to drive more traffic to your website.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to grow their B2B business.