4 LinkedIn Tools that Will Change the Way You Think About LinkedIn

If you are in B2B marketing or otherwise tasked with sourcing leads for your company, LinkedIn is one of the most powerful platforms you can use to grow your business. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that they have a presence on LinkedIn, but they’re not seeing the results they’re after. If you’re one of those people, then you probably don’t have the system and the tools in place to attract new prospects and build quality relationships. I’m going to help you change that!

Let me show you some interesting statistics that will demonstrate how effective LinkedIn can be for lead generation. A recent report from Hubspot found that 43% of marketers have sourced a customer from LinkedIn. The opportunities are there, you just need the right way to find them. 

Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn doesn’t support a lot of third party tools but there are still ways to speed up some of your key activities, such as finding the right leads, gathering customer data, building connections, and kickstarting your sales process.

We reached out to LinkedIn expert Viveka von Rosen, to ask her about the tools she uses daily to maximize the results she gets from LinkedIn.

Let’s explore the four tools Viveka recommends.

1. Add Tags & Notes To LinkedIn Profiles with Dux-Soup

If you’ve used LinkedIn for lead generation, you were probably using Tags and Notes to better manage relationships with your connections. Those were some really useful features that LinkedIn shut down earlier this year when they removed the Relationship Section from user profiles.

Luckily, there’s an alternative called Dux-Soup, a Chrome plug-in that keeps track of the profiles you visit and lets you tag and take notes on any LinkedIn member’s profile. You can download it for free from the Chrome web store, and there’s also a paid upgrade ($15/month).

With the free version, you can automate the process of viewing profiles (100/day), add tags and take notes, while the paid version will allow you to export data (profiles visited, profile notes, and profile lists) and configure the number of profile visits per day.

How Viveka uses Dux-Soup: “Since I actually use LinkedIn when prospecting and engaging with my network, it’s important for me to have a way to keep track of my connections on LinkedIn. Dux-Soup allows me to create tags and take as many notes as I want for free! I can export them and do other things for a small monthly fee. This has been a life saver for both me and my clients.”

2. Keep Track of Your LinkedIn Prospects with Nimble

Nimble is a social CRM tool that packs some really powerful features for only $25/month. It’s by far the most reasonably priced CRM system out there and it can really help organize and manage your LinkedIn lead generation efforts.

There’s also the Nimble Contacts Widget that allows you to save contact details to your Nimble account while on LinkedIn with one click. You can then tag saved profiles, make notes, or reach out to them.

Here’s how Viveka uses Nimble: “While I like to have a way to manage my connections on LinkedIn – I strongly believe in the power of a CRM tool. The one I choose is Nimble. Not just because it is super affordable and has some GREAT features, but also because it’s Chrome extension allows me to easily save my LinkedIn prospects to Nimble. From there I can also tag and take notes on their profile, put them into my deal funnel or schedule a follow up call or email.

3. Find Missing Contact Info with LeadGrabber Pro

LeadGrabber Pro is a great tool to help you get contact details of your LinkedIn contacts. It scrapes the web to obtain email addresses that people have shared publicly and features list-building tools that can save you a lot of time. It’s a bit on the expensive side, but if you use it to support your sales efforts, it may pay for itself many times over.

How Viveka uses LeadGrabber: LeadGrabber is my go to tool for pulling the missing information from my contact’s profiles (like email addresses and phone numbers.) It also allows me to make lists which I can then use to follow up with my key prospects offline. 

Read More, This post originally appeared on razorsocial.