TL;DR
LinkedIn is a powerful platform for sales and marketing. This post lists 13 tools to help you prospect, network, and market effectively. Key tools include LaGrowthMachine for multichannel outreach, Sales Navigator for targeted prospecting, Surfe for CRM integration, and Canva for content creation. Use these tools to save time, increase visibility, and generate more leads.
If you are not yet using LinkedIn as your primary relationship-building platform, what are you waiting for?! While it is a professional network, LinkedIn can provide you with the largest database of people to network online with. There are many LinkedIn tools that you can even use to help automate (i.e., save a lot of time), organize, and plan.
If you are not used to using social media, it can seem intimidating, but there are great reasons to use LinkedIn for your business. As a salesperson or manager, you will want to ensure you are using every option available (to your team) to be successful.
Depending on what you want to achieve with your networking, you will need to determine which tools will work best for you. We have compiled a list of tools for you to consider based on each type of use case.
Whether you are looking to find leads and prospects, scale your usage, or simply be social on social media, we have the best tools here!
A curated list of LinkedIn tools, categorized by use
We have gathered the LinkedIn tools and technologies you will need as a sales team to find and contact the right people for your business. There are several ways to utilize a tremendous resource like LinkedIn, but we have narrowed it down to its top 2 use cases: Prospecting and Networking.
When it comes to a social media platform, the idea is to be, well, social. Interactions on LinkedIn can also vary, but the main ones include liking or commenting on posts, sharing content (whether someone else’s or your own), participating in relevant groups, and direct messaging.
We have tested everything and understand what it takes to gain more visibility on LinkedIn! Gaining people’s ‘screen time’ requires a lot of your own time and planning – including using appropriate images, text, and videos. Automating these activities will help you answer this question: How can I scale to get more business in less time?
There are a number of tools available for you to start (or improve) using LinkedIn to work smarter, not harder.
You will need to evaluate exactly what you expect to get out of a tool, or what you need it for, before trying anything out.
The time you will spend learning may not be worth it if you find out it is not useful, after all.
It goes without saying that if you are not using LinkedIn for lead generation, you are avoiding the eyes of some of your most likely customers.
In fact, it is one of our most privileged prospecting channels at LaGrowthMachine.
And for good reason! We have a 1 in 3 response rate for cold prospecting on some of our campaigns, from the LinkedIn channel alone!
While you may want to improve your LinkedIn lead generation, at LaGrowthMachine, we have found that multichannel prospecting works best. So try to see LinkedIn as an integral, but still complementary channel to email, for example.
Generate 3.5x more leads!
Are you looking to improve the efficiency of your sales department? LaGrowthMachine allows you to generate an average of 3.5x more leads, saving an incredible amount of time on all your processes. By signing up today, you get a 14-day free trial period to test our tool!
LinkedIn Tools for Prospecting
Simply searching for the people you want to reach out to is a task in itself. It takes a lot of time to sort through titles, locations, etc., that matter to you. Use these tools to get started and make your prospecting process faster and easier.
Prospecting is already hard enough, so we hope these tools are useful to you!
LaGrowthMachine
If you are looking to organize everyone you want to contact, LaGrowthMachine will provide you with the base setup. There are workflows, contact management, templates, and more that can give you an edge. As it is cloud-based, the platform will allow you to view real-time engagement across different channels.
Utilize the power of automation with LaGrowthMachine. Connect your LinkedIn account to the platform and create a series of optimized touchpoints for your business.
For prospecting, you can use this tool to simply ‘view’ the profiles of people you would like to connect with. They can see who viewed their profiles and check yours out too – so make sure yours is complete and details what you do.
Regardless of your sales process, LaGrowthMachine can replicate it so it is perfect for both you and your prospects. Integrate it with your favorite CRM or other tools you use regularly for simple workflow creation. Contacting them where they are most responsive and prefer will give you the personal touch they love.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn’s native tool on the platform is Sales Navigator. With it, you can search and organize all the people, job titles, companies, etc., that you wish. Sort them by specific lists you want to contact, such as ‘follow-up’ or ‘contact ASAP,’ perhaps.
To prospect on it, you can manually view each person’s profile, contact them, and see additional information about them. This is a great tool if you want to contact directly via LinkedIn as many people as you wish, rather than the 1000 profile views that LinkedIn limits a free account to.
Surfe
Tired of updating your CRM? Say goodbye to manual data entry and hello to Surfe.
Surfe is a Chrome extension that connects your CRM to LinkedIn, allowing you to create and enrich contacts, find qualified emails, sync LinkedIn conversations, and update deals directly from your prospect’s LinkedIn profile.
Surfe maintains data hygiene so you can reallocate time spent on mundane tasks to the things that actually matter.
Find prospects, nurture your leads, and optimize your workflow with the confidence that your CRM data is 100% accurate with Surfe, a GDPR-compliant tool.
Phantombuster
With a tool like Phantombuster, you will likely need a skilled data engineer to extract and organize the emails you find, as it is a complex system. It is developer-friendly, so you can customize it as well.
Phantombuster uses “phantoms” to isolate the tasks you want to accomplish. They help automate things like liking and commenting on posts or extracting contact information from social media. Each phantom is a simple task, however, so if you have many automations you want to perform, you will need to keep updating for each task.
CaptainData
Using tools like Captain Data, you can pull information from your leads’ profiles and input it into your automation platform. This tool will also require a skilled data engineer to extract, import, and organize the data.
However, they have many connectors for your favorite tools like LinkedIn and its SalesNavigator, Slack, Medium, Google, and many others. While it is very useful, it is strictly an information grabber/data processor, rather than an automation tool for interacting with your findings.
Zopto
This tool is good if you are looking for a cloud-based service that sends simple messages to your LinkedIn contacts via Sales Navigator. You will be able to import your leads directly from LinkedIn with Zopto and send them simple sequential messages.
It will also keep all of your sequences in your dashboard for a one-stop shop for your messaging. This may not be for you, however, if you are looking for a more in-depth sequence that involves multiple channels like email and Twitter, in addition to LinkedIn.
OctopusCRM
If you are looking for a tool that is a simple Chrome extension, Octopus may be a good option for you to try. It works similarly to Zopto, where you can pull information from your LinkedIn contacts and send them messages.
You will need to be careful, however, with how often you use it, as it can be detected that you are using it. If LinkedIn finds out, you risk being banned entirely from the platform.
LinkedIn Tools for Growing Your Network
If you are looking to meet more people for various reasons and across various industries, you have a few options that will help you interact with contacts. Remember that networking does not just mean you need others to do something for you. You want to learn about them and how you can help each other.
With that in mind, you will be able to expand your network genuinely. Not just faster than you would otherwise, but also more memorable for those you connect with.
LaGrowthMachine
If you are looking for an easy, multichannel way to keep in touch with your prospects and network, check out LaGrowthMachine. You can design your own workflow to contact them with a smooth process, your own words, and custom timing.
Or, you can use the templates that are ready-made workflows for you to easily activate for your audience on LinkedIn, email, and Twitter. People communicate in different ways on different channels. Customize your path to a flourishing network with ease at LaGrowthMachine.
You can use our tool to improve your LinkedIn lead generation. By setting up automated sequences, you are freed from all your manual sales prospecting actions on the platform.
In this sequence, for example, you can pre-program connection requests, send messages (text AND voice!), and plan all scenarios in advance!
In essence, you generate cold leads without even realizing it.
Lempod
If you are looking for a Chrome extension, Lempod and Podawaa are two you can consider. Lempod’s claim of “10x LinkedIn Post Views with Likes from Other LinkedIn Content Creators” depicts a more active network on your posts. You can choose, create, or join different ‘engagement pods’ where everyone can post simple comments or likes.
Some find that this still works, as it produces buzz for your posts. Be aware, however, that recently LinkedIn introduced dwell time to combat fake activity. If there are too many comments like “great post” or “love your content,” they are easy to detect. You will want to be careful when using this tool, as it may not help your content and could potentially hurt your reach over time.
Podawaa
Very similar to Lempod, this Chrome extension will allow you to join engagement pods. Podawaa claims it will get you thousands of comments and/or likes! While Lempod has you search for pods by keywords, Podawaa allows you to focus on target audiences. You can focus your comments and searches on those you actually want to interact with.
The same warning applies here, however. Know that you run the risk of your posts showing up less often rather than more with these applications. Especially as algorithms get smarter.
Linda
This tool is a great option if you have LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Linda connects to your LinkedIn to produce easy messaging automation. Through Sales Navigator, it sets up a campaign for your identified prospects and contacts to build relationships through your inbox.
Linda is capable of sending up to 2,000 messages per day and up to 3 campaigns at the same time. She also has double verification for security purposes, so no one can access your messages.
LinkedIn Tools for Social Media
Social Media Marketing is a world apart, but you can use some of the best tools in the industry to help your sales too. You will find that the more professional posts you create with these LinkedIn marketing tools, the more interactions and leads you will get.
When you share impressive and relevant images, posts, and videos, you engage your desired community. Create content relevant to your audience, and you will improve your reach (how many people see it). LinkedIn’s focus is to help you network, so they will also show your posts along with your contacts’ reactions to people in your 2nd or 3rd-degree connections.
To be more professional and efficient on LinkedIn, try these great tools:
Canva
This tool is widely touted as essentially the ‘new graphic designer’ for your business. Its easy drag-and-drop style makes it simple for anyone to design social media posts. Canva even provides templates for the exact post sizes of each social media, as well as designs you can modify.
This tool is remarkably useful for those who are not design-proficient (which, honestly, is most of us!). They have created a way for you to insert any photos you want, create an animated gif, or put a video inside an image all within a few clicks. Check it out if you have not already.
Feedly
Have you ever wanted to go to one single place to find everything curated for you about a certain topic? Well, if you have not yet discovered the RSS feed of Feedly, you are in for a treat!
You can follow and organize all the topics you would like to read or post about, or reach out to people and start a conversation. For example, you sell IT software and want to grab the attention of IT managers, so you set up a feed about new tech gadgets so you can post about them.
Grab the right attention for yourself and your knowledge on your topic by commenting on someone else’s post too. As we said, it is a social network, so use it accordingly.
Google Keyword Planner
If you need to find out what exactly to post about, keyword research is a widely used tool in the sales and marketing world. There are many great tools you can use, but Google Keyword Planner is free and easy to use.
You can search a topic, and it will give you all the keywords and phrases searched on Google related to it and how many times they have been searched in a given period. This is great for planning what you may want to talk about with your prospects or post on social media.
Buffer
When it comes to planning your posts, schedulers are a huge time-saver. Buffer is one of the top contenders for your planning, as it allows up to 3 accounts for free and is a trusted software.
You can set the times you want them to post and on which days for each social media channel you like. Then, click and add your post so that it automatically posts for you at the desired time (ideally when most of your prospects are on that channel).
Feel free to give us your best tools in the comments below!