LinkedIn Sales Mastery: How B2B Teams Close More Deals with Social Selling

If you’re not leveraging LinkedIn, you’re already behind. It’s that simple. LinkedIn is no longer a nice to have in 2025, whether you’re a CEO shaping your company’s vision, a COO optimizing processes, or an SDR hustling to hit quota. It’s an absolute must.

Forget about viewing it as a job-hunting platform. LinkedIn is where deals are made, brands are built, and partnerships are formed. It’s where thought leadership happens.

If you’re not active on LinkedIn, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful tools for driving brand awareness, building credibility, and expanding your network.

“75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level or VP-level executives use social media, including LinkedIn, to make purchasing decisions.”
Source: Gartner​.

How to Use LinkedIn to Find and Engage B2B Sales Prospects

While the cold call has hardly disappeared from inside sales, social media tools such as LinkedIn give you the ability to warm up cold calls with research. While the uninitiated might view LinkedIn as a networking site for those seeking jobs, seasoned sales pros are already finding that LinkedIn can drive revenue when used as a sales prospecting tool. Here are some ways that top salespeople can use LinkedIn to add to their pipeline.

Start with Your Profile

When someone looks at your LinkedIn profile, this is often their first impression of you. This means that you should take care to present yourself as professionally as possible. Would you show up to an important meeting wearing shorts and a Panama hat? Make sure that you are using a high resolution photo that looks appealing, friendly and—most importantly—professional. You want people to see your picture and think, “That’s the sort of person I want to do business with.”

Next, make sure that your bio doesn’t just focus on what you do, but also gives good information about your company. If you live for weekend trout fishing trips you might slip it in there, but not at the expense of describing the products or services you are selling. Reach out to your first-degree network and make sure that they know what you do. A connection can only help you if they know how. For example, say you sell commercial property insurance. One of your connections might have a brother who just bought a building and is looking for an insurance plan.

Expand Your Network

When using LinkedIn, the more connections you have, the easier it is to make new ones. Start by making sure that you add every career-minded person you know to your network. Even if they aren’t in your industry, they might know someone very important who is. By adding them, you can view their connections and find out.

Once you’ve expanded your first-degree network to capacity, you can begin gaining access to your connections’ connections. We strongly recommend that if you’re seriously interested in using LinkedIn as a sales tool, that you invest in one of the premium packages. A premium account can give you access to features like:

• Contacting anyone directly through InMail
• Premium Search filters to find the right leads
• Allowing anyone to message you through OpenLink
• Viewing more profiles when searching
• Getting introductions to companies you are targeting

Investing in the ability to send InMail to contacts outside your network is especially important. I’ve found that prospects seem quite receptive to InMail.

Build a List of Leads

Another LinkedIn premium feature that is extremely valuable to sales professionals is the ability to build a lead list. Building a lead list helps you hyper-target leads. LindedIn makes it easy to search your list by prospects’ geolocation, industry, company size, title and more. LinkedIn also adds value to your lead list because it enables you to see if you have any connections to each lead. This makes it easier to connect through introductions.

Use LinkedIn to Have Smarter Conversations

Let’s face it – if you use LinkedIn to send out spammy emails to prospects, it’s not likely that you’ll get the traction you desire. The whole point of social sales is to get more data about potential customers so that you can spend more time talking to the right prospects and, more importantly, ensure that those conversations are successful. LinkedIn can deliver a wealth of insight about your prospects, but that insight is useless unless it’s readily available in the right context. That’s what makes InMail such a powerful tool.

But what about calls? Phone calls often deliver much higher ROI than other sales channels, and many reps spend the brunt of their day on the phone. Especially while on the go, it can be difficult to access LinkedIn data on your mobile device while on a call. When we were originally designing the RignDNA mobile app, we wanted to make sure that reps could quickly access prospect feeds from LinkedIn in the context of a sales call.

LinkedIn from CEOs to SDRs

1. Establish LinkedIn Brand Authority: Build Your Personal Brand

Let’s start with the obvious: LinkedIn is the platform to build brand authority and boost your personal brand. People don’t just trust brands; they trust the people behind the brand. This is where you, your team, and your company can shine.

• CEOs & Executives: Thought leadership is everything. You’re steering the ship, and LinkedIn is the stage where you get to show the world why you’re worth following. Sharing insights, commenting on industry trends, and engaging with peers makes you more than a name behind the logo. You’re a thought leader, and your company’s credibility increases as your personal brand grows.
• SDRs & Sales Teams: You may not have “CEO” in your title (yet), but you’ve got a unique opportunity to build credibility within your space. Sharing personal wins, sales tips, and customer success stories shows that you’re in the trenches, driving real results. That type of authenticity builds trust with leads before you even start the conversation.

The Key Takeaway: People buy from people, not companies. Every post, comment, and interaction on LinkedIn is a chance to amplify your authority, both for your personal brand and the company. This creates a ripple effect that positions your brand as credible and trusted.

2. Engage Leads Where They’re Already Active

Here’s the truth: Your leads are on LinkedIn. Period. If you’re in sales or marketing, engaging with prospects on LinkedIn should be one of your top strategies. It’s the only professional platform where you can interact with decision-makers on a daily basis, while they’re already thinking about business solutions.

• SDRs & Sales Reps: LinkedIn is the perfect playground for social selling. Forget cold calling as your only tool. On LinkedIn, you can engage in thoughtful ways—commenting on their posts, liking their articles, and offering value before the pitch. When it comes time to make contact, they already know who you are. You’re not a stranger; you’re a trusted voice in their space.
• COOs & Operations Leaders: LinkedIn isn’t just for sales and marketing. For operational leaders, it’s a goldmine for finding potential partners, vendors, or consultants. You can see who’s doing innovative work in your space, identify processes worth borrowing, and connect with the people who will help you run a smoother operation.

The Key Takeaway: The leads you want are scrolling their LinkedIn feed daily. If you’re not engaging with them, your competitors are. Be visible, relevant, and build relationships before they ever land in your pipeline. Note that 78% of social sellers are outselling their peers who don’t use social media .

3. Expand Your Network with Game-Changing Connections

We’ve all heard it: Your network is your net worth. LinkedIn is the largest business networking platform in the world, and if you’re not using it to build meaningful connections, you’re leaving opportunity on the table.

• CEOs & COOs: Need to build strategic partnerships? Looking to co-sponsor events or connect with innovators in your industry? LinkedIn gives you a direct line to executives and decision-makers at companies you admire (or want to compete against). This is where you expand your influence. It’s no longer just who you know—LinkedIn lets you easily meet who you need to know.
• SDRs & Account Executives: Growing your network isn’t just about finding leads. It’s about building a community. Even if someone isn’t a prospect today, they could be a connection that leads you to your next deal or opportunity in the future. And the bigger your network, the more visible your content becomes—so you’re amplifying your reach every time you make a new connection.

The Key Takeaway: LinkedIn connections aren’t just digital Rolodex cards. They’re potential partners, collaborators, and clients. Strategically grow your network, and you’ll be amazed at how opportunities begin to unfold.

4. Tap into Top Talent & Future Collaborators

Hiring great people or collaborating with top professionals? That happens on LinkedIn too. Whether you’re growing your company or expanding your team, LinkedIn connects you with the top talent in your industry, the moment you need it.

• COOs & HR Leaders: LinkedIn is your ultimate recruiting tool. You can identify key players, view their work in real time, and get a sense of what they can bring to your team—beyond a resume. This gives you the chance to find top-tier talent that’s active, engaged, and in tune with the latest industry trends.
• Sales & Marketing Teams: Looking for freelancers, consultants, or collaborators to help drive campaigns or develop a project? LinkedIn is a treasure trove of specialists who are actively showcasing their work. It’s a space to identify not just talent, but people who could become game-changing partners in your business strategy, and a space to align their teams better.

The Key Takeaway: Whether you’re scouting for your next hire or finding a collaborator for a specific project, LinkedIn opens doors to people who are ready to take on big challenges. It’s not just a place for job-seekers—it’s a recruitment and collaboration powerhouse.

5. Be a Thought Leader—And Create Industry Authority

Being a leader in your industry isn’t just about what you sell—it’s about the knowledge, insight, and value you offer your community. LinkedIn is the perfect stage to build that thought leadership.

• CEOs & Leadership Teams: Your insights are valuable. By posting regularly about industry trends, business challenges, and visionary leadership, you’re positioning your company as a thought leader in your space. You’re no longer just the face of a company—you’re a trusted voice in the industry, and that visibility builds credibility and trust.
• Team Members Across Departments: Thought leadership isn’t reserved for the C-suite. Your team members each bring unique perspectives, and LinkedIn is a platform where their voice can magnify your brand’s impact. Whether it’s engineers sharing new product features or customer success reps highlighting client wins, your entire team can contribute to the company’s growing authority.

LinkedIn Content Strategies That Drive Engagement

Tips to help your reps use LinkedIn to book more appointments

Connect to Prospects on LinkedIn

This might seem like common sense, but it’s amazing how many sales reps don’t do this habitually. But by adding a prospect on LinkedIn, it not only increases your reps’ network of connections, it also offers a chance to reach out to prospects with a friendly follow-up message. In B2B sales, it often takes north of six contacts to close deals. But talking to prospects on LinkedIn can accelerate the sales cycle.

Follow Prospects’ and Customers’ Companies

As mentioned, it’s important to follow prospects on LinkedIn, but it’s equally important to follow their companies. This can give you insight into important details like when they get funding, how many people they are hiring (which gives insight into their resources) and can also help identify other key players within an organization.

It helps to follow your customers’ companies on LinkedIn as well. There are too many reps who seem happy to end a relationship with a customer the moment the ink on a contract goes dry. But the best B2B sales reps understand the power of continuing relationships with clients even after a deal closes. It can help gauge what is important to that company. Monitoring a company’s social feeds can help reps identify up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.

Search for Common Ground

I remember a time that I was interested in renting a particular house. When I met the landlord, I happened to be wearing my UCLA sweatshirt. I had no idea that the landlord was going to be a fellow UCLA alumni, but the fact that he was made him take an instant liking to me. We briefly talked about Bruins football and it wasn’t long before he offered me the lease to sign.

If you can find common ground with someone, they will virtually always be more likely to do business with you. LinkedIn is a great tool for quickly searching for common ground with a lead before calling. You can see where they went to college, where they worked in the past, what content they’ve shared and browse their summary for other valuable nuggets of information. Of course Facebook and Twitter are also great places to search for common ground with leads. In truth, any common ground you find can be usable.

Ask For Referrals

Managers should also encourage reps to ask for referrals from customers. A Bain and Company Study showed that 87% of customers are happy to give a referral, but only 7% of reps ask for referrals. According to sales expert Colleen Francis, a referred lead has a close rate of 50%! In my own sales experience, this figure seems about right. A cold call and a referral are basically night and day. During a cold call, it feels like you have to scale the side of a cliff just to get on sturdy footing with a lead. But with a referral, you can hit the ground running.

LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for getting referrals. You can quickly identify whether someone you have done business with in the past has a connections to a company you are interested in selling in to. And needless to say, the more happy customers you have added on LinkedIn, the greater the chance that one of your LinkedIn connections will know a key decision maker at a target company.

Pool Contacts with Co-Workers

LinkedIn offers several premium tools that are tailor made to help B2B reps sell more. One of my absolute favorite tools they offer is called TeamLink. At every company I’ve worked for, sales have been highly collaborative. Reps pool knowledge and work together in order to close deals. TeamLink is a great way for your  sales team (and entire organization) to pool connections together so that each user can access a much larger network of contacts. Every rep can benefit from enhanced prospecting power. With TeamLink, reps can gain introductions through:

• Common connections
• First-degree connections of team members
• Colleagues and ex-colleagues of team members

This feature can be especially valuable if you have a member of your team, CEO or other executive who has a significantly larger network of LinkedIn followers.

Promote Events, Conferences and Webinars in Groups

I attend in-person events and conferences as an inside sales rep. Events can move B2B leads through the revenue funnel at light speed when executed correctly.  LinkedIn can be a great way to promote real and virtual events such as webinars. While LinkedIn pulled the plug on their Events feature a couple years back, LinkedIn can still be a fantastic way to promote events. By participating in relevant groups you can prospect for leads and drum up interest in webinars and conventions. We recommend that all of your reps join at least 5 LinkedIn groups.

Integrate LinkedIn Data with Salesforce

As a Salesforce user, the more data I have in my CRM, the happier I tend to be. LinkedIn offers a premium integration with Salesforce that enables you to see LinkedIn information right inside of Salesforce.While it’s helpful to be able to see a lead’s LinkedIn data appended to their lead record, what is far more valuable is the ability to view company data right below the lead’s individual LinkedIn data. This can help reps identify key decision-makers in an organization. This enables reps to prioritize who to contact within a company quickly. According to a CSO Insights study,  81% of reps believe this functionality improves their ability to identify key decision makers.

To learn more about Revenue.io’s Intelligent Dialer for Salesforce or to see a demo, contact Revenue.io Sales.

Key LinkedIn Statistics for Sales

• “78% of sales reps engaged in social selling outsell their peers who aren’t.”
• “Using social selling tools can increase the average deal size by 35%.”
• “54% of salespeople can track closed deals back to social media engagement.”

LinkedIn Is The Best Social Sales Channel

Are you still just using LinkedIn to plan happy hour excursions with your former co-workers? New evidence from HBR shows that LinkedIn is much more than just a social network for the career-minded. It’s a powerful tool that top sales reps are already using to generate revenue.

The HBR study interviewed both inside sales and field reps about how they used LinkedIn to research prospects and generate leads. All of the sales reps interviewed were in the B2B sphere, selling tech products to mid-to-enterprise-level businesses. The study found four types of LinkedIn users:

Enthusiasts: LinkedIn enthusiasts (25% of those surveyed) use the network continuously throughout the day. They tend to be outside sales reps prospecting for new accounts. Enthusiasts average around 700 contacts on LinkedIn and half have even paid for a premium subscription at their own expense.

Casual: Casual users (40%) tend to have an average of 250 connections. They see LinkedIn as a powerful way to learn more about customers.

Personal: 15% of those surveyed only had personal accounts with ample job history information. They only use LinkedIn for job-related networking rather than sales.

Nonusers: 20% of those surveyed do not use LinkedIn at all.

The study showed that 40% of enthusiasts have used LinkedIn to drive revenue while only 20% of casual users have been able to close sales via LinkedIn. This indicates that getting serious about LinkedIn as a sales channel pays off. So how are top sales reps using LinkedIn to close deals?

Join Groups

One of the best ways to build connections via LinkedIn is by joining groups. The average LinkedIn Enthusiast belongs to 12 groups, while a casual user only belongs to 4. When signing up for groups it’s important to think like your customers. Imagine which groups your prospects would belong to and then join those groups.

Research Customers

More than 90% of enthusiasts use LinkedIn to research customers prior to meetings or calls. Compare that to the fact that only 65% of casual users use LinkedIn to find out more about their customers before meetings. Monitoring prospects’ LinkedIn activity can pay off. They might communicate a need for a new solution in one of their groups. You can also use LinkedIn to decipher key decision makers within an organization.

Maintain Relationships with Existing Clients

B2B sales is relationship-centric. LinkedIn can be a valuable channel for sharing marketing materials with customers and prospects. 70% of LinkedIn enthusiasts have used the network to send press releases, whitepapers, analyst reports or product videos to their clients. Only 18% of casual users have used LinkedIn to keep clients informed on new product offerings. LinkedIn can therefore be used to up-sell customers as well as to nurture hot leads.

The Bottom Line

The HBR study proves that LinkedIn Enthusiasts are twice as likely to drive revenue through the network than casual users are. Here at Revenue.io, we firmly believe that LinkedIn can be a powerful social sales prospecting tool.

Watch our podcast with Tim Hughes who is the author of Social Selling: Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers.

LinkedIn Automation: Tools and Personal Boundaries

Automation Tools That Enhance (Not Replace) Personal Touch
LinkedIn automation can be a powerful ally when used correctly. Tools like PhantomBuster, Expandi, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator integrations can streamline outreach, schedule follow-ups, and surface relevant contacts. But automation should never replace the human element. The goal is to augment efficiency while preserving authenticity.

Avoiding LinkedIn Penalties and Restrictions
LinkedIn has strict rules around automation, and violating them can result in temporary bans or permanent account restrictions. To stay compliant:

• Limit daily connection requests to under 100.
• Personalize each message with contextual relevance.
• Avoid spammy behavior like mass messaging or irrelevant pitches.

Creating Sequences That Feel Personal and Relevant
The best automation sequences mimic human interaction. Include the prospect’s name, reference mutual connections or shared interests, and align messaging with their industry pain points. Tools with AI personalization can help—but always review before sending.

When to Automate vs. When to Personalize
Automation is great for initiating contact, nurturing leads at scale, and following up on non-responders. Personalization is critical for:

• C-suite decision-makers
• Strategic accounts
• Inbound leads showing high intent

Strike the balance: automate the repeatable, personalize the pivotal.

Measuring LinkedIn Sales Success

Key Performance Indicators for LinkedIn Sales Activities
To measure impact, go beyond vanity metrics. Focus on:

• Connection Acceptance Rate
• Message Response Rate
• Qualified Conversations Started
• Meetings Booked via LinkedIn
• Opportunities Influenced or Sourced

Attribution Models for LinkedIn-Generated Opportunities
Use a multi-touch attribution model to credit LinkedIn at the appropriate stage of the funnel. Revenue.io and CRM integrations help track LinkedIn touches and correlate them with pipeline progression.

Reporting Templates for Sales Leaders
Standardized reporting helps leaders benchmark and optimize outreach. Include:

• Weekly connection growth
• Messaging KPIs by rep
• Pipeline sourced by channel
• Lead-to-opportunity conversion from LinkedIn

Continuous Improvement Framework
Use A/B testing on messaging, monitor changes in buyer behavior, and refine targeting criteria. Schedule regular audits of your automation sequences and adjust based on what’s driving results.

Maximizing LinkedIn Marketing ROI

Build the Best Company LinkedIn Page on Earth

You should have the best LinkedIn Page on the planet (or at least within your budget). Whether or not you put effort into your LinkedIn page, your prospects are going to be judging your brand based on its LinkedIn presence. A great LinkedIn page can generate leads as well as build credibility for your business, while an incomplete page can make your business seem small or irrelevant. Even if your business isn’t a large enterprise, there’s no excuse for not presenting your company as an industry leader on LinkedIn.

One of the best ways to do this is with engaging original content. The media you publish speaks volumes about what you value, the problems you solve, and even how smart your company appears to be.

While LinkedIn limits custom design elements, it does give you the chance to spice up your brand page with content. Consider investing in some premium features to help separate your brand’s page from your competitors. For example, LinkedIn enables you to add videos to your page or post job openings for an extra fee. If you’ve already invested in a slick product trailer or even if you’ve made a cool desktop video, consider adding it to LinkedIn to maximize your content marketing investment.

Use LinkedIn to Engage Potential Leads

One of the best ways to engage with prospects on LinkedIn is by encouraging employees to participate in groups. Remember, above all, that LinkedIn is a social network. Evidence indicates that it is the most valuable network for social sales. According to a LinkedIn study, 50% of network members are more likely to purchase products and services from companies they engage with there. Sharing information in groups can help establish your employees as thought leaders, while potentially starting sales conversations with interested prospects. We recommend that representatives from your company actively participate in at least 5 relevant LinkedIn Groups (8-15 is optimal).

Another great way to use LinkedIn to engage with leads is by leveraging the power of InMail. According to LinkedIn, sending InMail is 30 times more likely to get a response than a regular email. This is an enormous incentive for your sales team to build their LinkedIn networks or even invest in premium accounts in order to send InMail to prospects that are out of network.

Reach New Audiences with LinkedIn Ads

Self-serve LinkedIn ads can be an excellent way to deliver messages to a qualified set of LinkedIn users. According to KissMetrics, LinkedIn ads offer an average click-through rate (CTR) of 0.025%, which is respectable. However, you can significantly increase your CTR with highly targeted ads. LinkedIn ads gives you the flexibility to target ads based on job title, LinkedIn group membership, industry, company size and more.

Much like other paid ads, you can purchase ads via auction or on a per-bid basis. You can choose to pay for cost-per-click (CPC) or cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM). Ads appear on the top, right-hand side or bottom of a LinkedIn users profile and can link to any URL that you like including your website or another social media profile.

LinkedIn CPC

While the price of LinkedIn ads might average slightly higher than a platform like Google AdWords, you might find that using LinkedIn to target leads delivers a better overall ROI. By changing up your ad copy often and using LinkedIn’s targeting tools effectively, you can increase your CTR to figures like 0.10%.

Depending on your budget, you might choose to increase the scope of your LinkedIn advertising efforts. The LinkedIn field sales team can sell you display ads that come in standard IAB unit sizes. Display ads give you the opportunity to tell your brand’s story in creative ways since they support videos, polls and more. Some strategic ideas for display ads include showcasing a product trailer, advertising for an upcoming event or linking to a download page for your mobile app.

Use LinkedIn to Share Content

As a content strategist, I almost never use the term “social content.” The reason is that almost all marketing content should be socialized. LinkedIn is a fantastic way to share your business’ content. In fact, we’ve noticed that some of our content has had significantly more traction in LinkedIn than other social channels. For example, our CMO’s recent post on the Salesforce.com blog received hundreds of more shares on LinkedIn than on all other social networks combined. If you have employees who are comfortable using social media, it can help to encourage them to share marketing content on their LinkedIn networks as well.

Measure LinkedIn ROI in CRM

If you’re going to put effort into any channel, you need to be able to measure whether that effort is effecting pipeline. To those of us who have been existing in an ROI culture, this seems obvious. Yet many brands spend time and resources on various social channels like LinkedIn without discovering whether or not those efforts yielded results.

While there are a variety of third-party LinkedIn analytics solutions, the platform itself enables businesses to invest in an analytics tab that sits on your company page and collects data about visitors—including their industry, company and position. This can help marketers put together a list of leads that are pre-qualified based on their job title and interest that they’ve shown in your company.

CRM Solution for Social Metrics

We also can’t overstate just how important a CRM solution is to measuring the impact of your marketing efforts. CRMs like Salesforce.com can enable you to go beyond using soft social metrics such as clicks, likes and follows and help you be see how social campaigns impact leads, opportunities and revenue.

While most marketers have the ability to track online leads that originate from LinkedIn, without a social media call tracking solution it’s impossible to know which phone-based leads resulted from your LinkedIn efforts. If your business takes phone calls from customers, then a call tracking solution is the best way to ensure that your marketing team gets credit for every LinkedIn lead. Simply use a call tracking solution like Revenue.io to provision a unique phone number that will automatically display when a customer clicks through to your site after visiting LinkedIn.

When that customer calls, your sales and marketing teams will therefore know instantly know which visitors came from LinkedIn. This can help marketing teams truly know the impact of their LinkedIn marketing efforts. Since Revenue.io fully integrates with Salesforce.com, you can also see in real time how calls from LinkedIn impact ROI.