Now, now... get your minds out of the gutter. I'm not talking about your next sexual conquest. I'm talking about how to generate sales leads on LinkedIn. One of the most complicated things in the dating game is knowing whether or not a woman is "interested", especially since it's easy to misinterpret a mere act of kindness as sexual interest. The same is true for how you leverage the power of LinkedIn. There's no doubt that LinkedIn is a top networking site for business professionals with more than 80 million members. But how do you use LinkedIn to generate sales leads?

Deciphering whether or not she is interested in getting to know you or if you're close to "getting lucky" that evening can be very confusing. The same is true trying to figure out who would be interested in connecting with you on LinkedIn. The following are effective and time efficient action steps to help you "get lucky" on LinkedIn.

Making an Impression

• Time to Pimp Your Ride
  Just like in the nightclub scene, appearances can go a long way in your chances of getting lucky. And just like for the nightclub scene, you need to do more than just shower and put on a clean shirt to present yourself. You need to go beyond merely completing the "when" and "where". You need to pay particular attention to your ACCOMPLISHMENTS and spend less time talking about your duties. How have you or your company helped other people or companies? What results did you achieve? Have you received testimonials? Ask for recommendations from trusted colleagues or customers.
• Get your Digits Ready
  Women hate it when you give them your number and they call, leave a message, and get no response back. Same is true for your LinkedIn connections; so make sure you have included multiple email addresses. Why? Should you switch companies, you want to be able to maintain control over your LinkedIn profile. So have at least your business email and at least one personal email address. Also, modify your Email Notification settings as you see fit. Depending on how much of a "player" you become, you may not want to get constant messages throughout the day.
• Time to Accessorize
  Just like at the club, accessories - cologne, watch, rings etc. - can tell a potential connection a lot about you. Applications are your LinkedIn accessories. Applications - added to your homepage and profile - are a great way for you to distinguish your brand/profile and share additional content with people viewing your profile. Consider applications like BlogLink which allows your blog posts to be automatically posted to your LinkedIn profile and SlideShare Presentations app which allows you to share pdf's or power point presentations that can be created for individuals as a teaser of your thought leadership as well as what you and your company have to offer. Another great application to add is the Twitter LinkedIn application. Leverage the power of both platforms to share your message. In the LinkedIn application area (bottom right of the home page or in the nav bar), you can add the Twitter application which at first glance doesn't look much different from the twitter feed in other Twitter tools like Tweetdeck, but there are some additional benefits like:
  • You can easily follow your LinkedIn connections in Twitter (if they've provided their twitter address). You may find that there are bunches of your LinkedIn connections that you're you are not following. Click on "Connections" and then on "Not following" and start selecting the people in Twitter you want to follow.
  • You can create a Twitter List from your LinkedIn contacts. This allows you to easily interact with your LinkedIn contacts on Twitter. In addition, the list is dynamic, as LinkedIn will keep updating it as your LinkedIn network grows.
• Play The Field.
  It's one thing to get all dressed-up, but you need to get out there and play the field. Joining groups allows you to communicate with people in the group that may not be part of your LinkedIn network. This can be prospects or people you're trying to recruit. Identify who your target audience is and then, based on personas, identify which groups they are most likely to be members of. You can join up to 50 groups, ranging from Professional Groups to Alumni's. Check out the Groups Directory and use the Search Groups feature on the upper left-hand side.

Wooing Them In

• Get Them Talking
  At the club, no one likes a guy who spends the whole night talking about himself. The same is true on LinkedIn. So get out there and start asking relevant questions. This allows you to have a much bigger footprint within your network and communicate in different ways with your 1st degree network. For example, at least once a month ask a question about a problem you faced recently or if anybody else has heard of a particular vendor who called you the other day. If you have a big network, you can ask questions more frequently.
• Be a Good Conversationalist
  Women love stimulating conversation. They also love a man who listens to them and answers their questions. LinkedIn is no different from real life. So provide valuable answers to people's questions. This is a great way to profile you or your brand and to generate leads and real business. Remember, to be considered an "expert" in any particular area, you only need to know more than the person reading the answer! Get in there, search for questions that you think you can answer and answer them. To make it really easy to follow Answers of interestto you, you can create RSS feeds for specific sections of LinkedIn Answers and track new questions through your favourite RSS feeder tool.
• Don't Be a Wall Flower
  Nobody gets any action by hiding in the corner. So get other there and start talking. Once you've joined some groups, get in there and participate in discussions that are happening or, even better, stimulate group discussions. Remember that these are targeted audiences and people have joined these groups for a specific reason. Don't just join the discussion and start talking about your company. Rather, listen to what they are talking about and think about any input or insight that you can contribute to enhance the discussion. You can also set up notifications within the group so you get a digest of discussions that are happening within the groups you've joined.
• Scan the Room
  Talking to the first girl you see in the bar is never a good strategy - unless she's really hot and checking you out -and the same is true on LinkedIn. In the upper right hand corner click on Advanced. Search for titles of people or people at companies with whom you may want to connect. For example, your sales team could use this feature daily by searching for "marketing" titles at companies they're trying to penetrate.
• It's a Pack Mentality
  Woman often travel in packs. Similarly, Companies are packs on LinkedIn. In essence, this is (a source of) competitive intelligence. It's like asking one of the women background info on her attractive friend. On LinkedIn, find out: What are your competitors doing? Who should you be connecting with? What content are they publishing? There's a great new feature that was launched this year called Follow Company. This feature allows you to keep up on occurrences within those companies by sending you updates through your LinkedIn account and gives you something to talk about with the contacts you find. This is also great if they have had turnover at their company, allowing you to know who or what accounts could be prime pickings for you.
• Let Them Get to Know You
  Women love to eavesdrop and listen in on your conversations. This gives them a good impression of what's important to you...and maybe hoping that it's about them. Your profile status is LinkedIn's equivalent. So make sure it's interesting and up to date. Do this once per week. Remember, this is not Facebook but status updates serve a similar purpose in a business context. Status updates are essentially mini performances. When you post a status update, you're giving your network information about yourself or your brand. Remember that you are trying to position you and your company as a valuable resource for your prospects company so try to add content that is relevant content that prospects would find interesting. What this does is tell your prospects that you are in the know and that you have access to information that might help them. Your status update has elevated your profile in the mind of your prospects as a possible expert in area.
• Buy Them a Drink
  Woman love it when you buy them a drink. On LinkedIn, you can do this by sharing great content. This is an easy tactic that anyone on LinkedIn can do. If you have an upcoming webinar, event, or new white paper, encourage people within your company to post a profile update on LinkedIn. Typically, marketing drives this effort. While you can recommend text that should be included in these updates, encourage your company to use slightly different messaging so your organization doesn't appear like a bunch of robots all saying the exact same thing. Social media is all about showing your human side, so don't forget that - allow for creativity.

Just like at the bar, it's very easy to become a wallflower and not achieve your desired goals on LinkedIn. So you need to remember to stay focused on what your goals are. Try not to waste time on other extraneous things within LinkedIn. It's easy to start browsing and get lost. Stay focused. Your competitors will be taking these actions soon (if they're not already), so if you take these actions now, it will help you share your brand and generate business in a different way. By following these steps, you too can get lucky.....at least on LinkedIn.