When Samuli Salonen joined LinkedIn in 2014 his goal was to promote his own employment. Later LinkedIn has grown into a significant sales and marketing channel for him.

– I got truly excited about LinkedIn in 2017 when I moved to Helsinki. I did not know that many people in the city beforehand and I wanted to grow my network. LinkedIn proved to be a great channel for that, Salonen says.

Today Salonen's writings reach an average of 15 000 people while the most popular ones reach up to 100 000 views. According to Salonen, LinkedIn allows one to garner visibility in an inexpensive way.

– However, you should remember that growing your visibility requires active work. I personally spend an average of 1-2 hours a day on LinkedIn. The years of effort will eventually pay off and now I can reach more people with a single update than most reach with a marketing push worth several thousand euros.

Build trust

But how does increased visibility on LinkedIn help generate more sales?

– Trust is the most important factor in sales. The more visible you are as a person, the more familiar people are with you.  Doing business is always significantly easier with someone you know than with a total stranger, says Salonen.

As a unique strength of LinkedIn Salonen highlights the fact that unlike other social media channels, LinkedIn offers a comprehensive picture of the person's background, work history and expertise.

– I don’t personally buy anything from a person who is not on LinkedIn, for example. The application also works in the other direction as LinkedIn’s search functions allow you to chart suitable customers and get to know them beforehand.  This is important because sales work is always about human interaction.  

According to Salonen LinkedIn is also a good channel for reaching potential customers in the early stage of the path to purchase.

– Studies have shown that buyers travel up to 50 % of the path to purchase before they even contact the company. By being active on LinkedIn, disseminating information to followers and producing added value you are able to serve buyers even before they contact you.

Put stock in authenticity

When discussing trust and serving the customer Salonen also wishes to emphasise the meaning of authenticity.

– According to my experience the best way to succeed on LinkedIn is to be relaxed and honest. People do not want to read mere specialist jargon but human thoughts about working life. So, you should begin boldly and look for a style that suits you, Salonen says in encouragement.

Salonen believes that in the future companies will also want to make more of their purchases online. This is why the right time to become active on LinkedIn is now, if ever.   

– Especially the younger consumers make almost all of their purchases on various online stores and apps. In the coming years this trend will also spread more forcefully to companies.

According to Salonen, companies that are visible online and in search engines will be the most successful.

– Google famously keeps its algorithms a secret, but it seems to favour companies and people that are active on social media. However, you should not put all your eggs in one app, but grow your visibility on several channels, Salonen says. 

Samuli Salonen is the Head of Sales of marketing agency Advance B2B and a LinkedIn influencer with over 14 000 followers. Samuli uses LinkedIn for sales in his work at Advance B2B and coaches people in sales work and the use of LinkedIn. Salonen is also a housing investor.