K atie c ouric

Content That Generates Leads
Wilcox has had a lot of luck in generating business for his agency by
sharing content to stay at the forefront of people’s minds. Currently, he has
three thousand connections. That number may not seem high, but it’s three
thousand business connections that all know his value as a LinkedIn
specialist who can help them or people they know. If his audience sees him
once a month in their feed, or if every time they log in they see something
different from him, they’ll be more likely to reach out. This is because
having people think about you through sharing content allows you to be
higher on the call list than other vendors. I can tell you firsthand that this
works as I have personally referred several potential clients to AJ.
Wilcox finds the most value in doing simple updates, such as sharing
content, thoughts, and experiences once a week rather than using the
LinkedIn article feature. This is because no matter what, you’re always
responsible for driving your own traffic to your content; LinkedIn doesn’t
do much to help you in that endeavor. But if you have the time and want to
write an update about something, of course it can still be helpful. The main
point is that leads come from providing free information to people whether
you’ve written the original content or not. As long as the insight is valuable,
you’re reminding people of your expertise and authority.
You can even share things that are not purely professional. It’s totally
valid to mix in the personal. For example, Wilcox has seen an HR recruiter
write an article about a candidate who came to an interview fifteen minutes
late without an apology. The recruiter asked the LinkedIn community if
anyone would recommend hiring someone like that. He saw tons of people
commenting and saying things like, “No, forget about him,” or “Yeah, give
him a chance. Maybe he’s just an engineer with no social skills.” A long
conversation happened because of that post.
And this is really valuable because one of the big differences between
LinkedIn and other social networks is that any social interaction—a like, a
comment, or a share—gets your content seen by a portion of that person’s
network. If you write something that’s compelling enough to get other
people to interact with it, you have the opportunity to go viral easily. Your

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content can reach your network’s network, and then that network’s network,
and so on.