Ep. 175: How to Strategically Leverage LinkedIn to Grow Your Audience

Sivan Ohavim (CEO, Elevate Media), who shared insights on how B2B companies can strategically leverage LinkedIn to grow their audience and generate qualified leads. Sivan discussed why personalized outreach outperforms generic campaigns and talked about how to build targeted, high-quality lead lists that focus on specific buyer pain points.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to this episode of theB2B marketers on a mission
podcast, and I'm your host.Christian Klepp. Today I'll be
talking to Sivan Ohavim. She isthe CEO and co-founder of
Elevate media, with more than 15years of experience in New York
City's corporate scene, whereshe worked with Fortune 500
companies like Merrill Lynch,Mark Jacobs, MEC Global and
LVMH, she's also an expert inconnecting people, fostering

(00:24):
collaborations and creating realbusiness opportunities. Tune in
to find out more about what thisB2B marketers mission is.
Okay. Sivan, Ohavim, welcome tothe show.
Thank you. Christian, Hi. Goodto be here.
Good to have you on the show. Ireally enjoyed our pre interview

(00:46):
conversation. I think we had alot of common topics, and I'm
really looking forward todigging deep on the topic of
LinkedIn. So if you don't mind,we'll just dive right in. That's
good, fantastic. Okay, so Sivan,you're on a mission to help B2B
marketers and their companiesleverage LinkedIn to build trust
and credibility and drivebusiness growth. So for this

(01:09):
conversation, let's focus on thefollowing topic, how to use
LinkedIn strategically to growyour audience, and
strategically, I think, is thekey word there, because we had a
conversation just before I hitrecord about how people are not
being strategic. So let's kickoff the conversation with two
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them, right? So first

(01:29):
question is, how will growingyour audience lead to more
business in the long run onLinkedIn? And the second one,
where do you see many B2Bcompanies falling flat in their
LinkedIn efforts?
Okay, well, that's a reallygreat questions. And yeah, we
really touched upon those topicsright before we started
recording. And I think a lot ofB2B consultants and business

(01:54):
owners have a bigmisunderstanding about LinkedIn
and social setting and branding.And they're stuck on traditional
ways of generating leads whichare not so much relevant these

(02:15):
days, and where they fall shortis when they do create a
LinkedIn campaign or an outreachcampaign, they go so broad and
they're not strategic andspecific, and they do not
address the pain points, orperhaps you might say, even the
reality of their prospects. Youknow, they're not doing their

(02:39):
due diligence in order to createa high quality list, right? That
it's within their target market.And then when they do create
some sort of an outreachcampaign, they're not hitting
the pain points or the realitypoints on the other side, right?

(03:00):
Per se, you know, you will reachout to someone who doesn't have
a podcast, and you will offerhim a podcast editing service,
and the guy doesn't even have apodcast, right? So you're
missing the mark there. Sosocial selling and growing your
audience works. You can see itwith social media influencers.
You can see it with GrantCardone and many other huge

(03:24):
influencers in the B2B market.Obviously, when your audience,
you have a large audience, youhave more eyeballs on your
content. So then it's anotheropportunity, or a channel of
generating organic leads fromyour audience. It's never just

(03:44):
one post. It's establishing along term relationship with your
audience, establishingcredibility throughout time
through posting genuine and highquality with very good content,
post to get to the point whereyou're generating organic leads

(04:04):
from your just from socialmedia. Then there is another
aspect that a lot of companiesare missing, which is a direct
outreach. They don't know whoyou are. They've never heard of
you. You have about 400 peoplewho are following you on
LinkedIn. You are nobody.Another effective way, as long

(04:25):
as it's a very high quality listand a very targeted list, is to
create an outreach that worksvery well with a strong social
media presence and obviouslyincreasing your followers. So a
lot of companies missed a boaton that they don't understand
it, and especially in B2B, notso much in B2C, and they're just

(04:49):
missing a lot of opportunities.
Yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. I wanted to go back
to a few things that you saidearlier, Sivan, maybe we can
unpack that a little bit. I. AsI was saying earlier, there's a
lot of this, like spray andpray, and a lot of that is
linked back to you can say apart of it is the lack of
understanding of who it is thatyou're supposed to reach out to

(05:12):
and how they benefit from yourproducts or solutions. But do
you feel that a lot of companiesare also like, just not being
strategic about it, like theydon't actually have a plan,
right? There needs to be somekind of plan for the outreach,
some kind of sequence, some kindof system. What are your
thoughts on that?

(05:32):
Absolutely, it has to be a plan,and it has to be strategic. I
noticed that going for the saleor the pitch right off the bat,
you can meet a lot of resistancethere. However, if you come from
a point of I would like to help,and I have some recommendations,

(05:53):
I have some tips, I have somesort of an analysis that can
benefit you, for no charge,right? You have a better chance
of starting a genuineconversation when you used your
help flow of, how can I helpyou, not how can I sell you? How

(06:15):
can I help you and establishrelationship with you and get to
know your company better, andcompanies that use that strategy
usually have much better replyrate and a success rate in
generating leads in general.Keeping in mind that you know,

(06:35):
obviously there are companiesthat are so established in the
market and have such a largeportfolio and they can just do
name dropping, that they havesuch a strong hold in the market
that they can go for the killright off the bat, right? But
for companies that are built...that are in a startup phase and

(06:56):
are scaling right, the best wayto go about it is to offer some
sort of help or solution and bevery personal about the way they
approached our client, meaning,like I've noticed that you are
missing blah, and we do blah,meaning I noticed that you're

(07:17):
doing using Google ads andspending whatever $10,000 a
month in group of ads. Well, weuse that blah, blah strategy
that can help you. So it'spersonal. You did your due
diligence. Now with AIautomation, it doesn't really
have to be so time consuming.
Absolutely, absolutely. Somoving on to the next question,

(07:40):
and you touched on it now alittle bit. But what do you
believe are the untappedopportunities on LinkedIn for
B2B companies?
Okay, so to do is podcasting, alot of B to B companies. You
know, podcasting is great. Imean, we're having it right now.
It's having a personalconversation, very casual and
authentic conversation. I thinkthat in the B2B market, you see

(08:03):
more and more podcasters, butyou see a lot of podcasting more
on personal hobbies andlifestyle and relationships. But
funny enough, you know, CEOs andfounders of big tech companies
or real estate companies thatare doing podcast and utilizing

(08:23):
podcast as a way of promotingtheir brand. Because here's the
thing, it's very funny thesedays, it's not just about the
brand, it's about the CEO, theco-founder behind the brand.
People are looking to connectwith real people. So if you have
a founder that that really wantsto share his vision and help

(08:44):
others, podcasting andpublishing that podcast on
LinkedIn, YouTube and otherchannels is a very smart and
strategic way of generatingorganic traffic in growing your
brand. And I think that a lot ofB2B companies they're missing
the boat on that again, thereare really fixated on
traditional methods of likenetworking events or which are

(09:07):
great, but there's so many otherchannels you can use at the same
time.
But is it something that youwould advise, like, for example,
your current clients, would youadvise them to jump into
podcasting right away? Because,let's be honest, it's not for
everybody, right? Like to tolaunch your own podcast.
No, not, not for... I wouldassess if it's something that

(09:28):
they would be able to feelcomfortable doing, and they
would be able to do it well, andif not, we will use a different
strategy. But notice that theones that you know your CEOs
that feel comfortable in frontof the camera, there are good
listeners, and then they do verywell with podcasting or being
guests on other people'spodcast. You don't even have to

(09:50):
have your own podcast, but youcan utilize the channel.
So on the topic of growing youraudience on LinkedIn, what are
some of the key pifalls youwould advise B2B marketers to
avoid, and what should they bedoing instead?
Well, the pitfalls is to one nothave a generic connection

(10:10):
request, because it's boring andyour reply rate probably a
connection request rate will bevery low. Try to make it more
personal. Also you're looking toexpand your network of
connections with your one idealclients, two people that you can

(10:32):
collaborate with, three peoplethat can you can create cross
referral relationship with. Soyou have to be very strategic
about it. Of course, it's greatto connect with your, you know,
previous co workers or collegebuddies, but you have to be very
smart about where you'reconnecting with because again,
that links back into socialmedia, selling posting on

(10:57):
LinkedIn and getting traction onLinkedIn. You want to make sure
that those that the audience,their followers, are within your
target market. So this is mytake on that.
Yeah, no, that personalizedpiece is definitely important
because, as I was sayingearlier, it's very obvious when
somebody clearly hasn't donetheir homework on you, right?

(11:18):
And it's a very like templatedmessage, spray and pray. I got
one. I got one message the otherday, which said, Oh, by the way,
I realized that you also went toblank University, and the person
actually forgot to fill in thename of the university.
Yes, oops. Yeah, yeah, that is,yeah. You have to make sure that

(11:43):
it's not spray and pray andyou're doing your homework using
a university connections. Youknow, I had one client. He went
to Stanford, so we did a wholecampaign for Stanford graduates,
and it was great. He got 40% or50, sorry, 60% acceptance rate,
with founders of startups thatare stand for graduates. So

(12:04):
finding that link of realitywith your prospect is always
very successful, but of course,you have to make sure that it's
done in a professional way. Youcan automate it, but make sure
that you're not making any funnymistakes.
Yeah, like sending a blankUniversity outreach.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(12:26):
You mentioned something earlier,and I think that's a that's
worth repeating, that you don'tpush the prospect immediately
to, oh, let's book a call, let'shave a demo. Can I send you my
portfolio? Right? That you don'tstart out that way, right? That.
Why do you feel that a lot of alot of companies out there
default to that approach, nomatter like how many times

(12:50):
people say, please don't dothat.
Because it's the easiest way togo and, because people are, you
know, in general, I think insociety, people are having a
hard time of havingconversations and asking
questions, right? They jump intoconclusions. In social selling

(13:10):
it's a bit different. You haveto kind of like ask questions,
right? You need to get to knowyour prospect better, have your
recommendations right off thebat, and then suggest, let's get
on a call. One, you want to prequalify them. Two, you really
want to know them and theircompany, their vision and the

(13:32):
problem. And you want to leadthem to the conclusion that they
want to get on a call with you.So it's a bit of a longer
runway, and I think that's wherepeople get unmotivated because
they're getting the lead, andthey do not know how to develop
their relationship, because it'sart to some degree. And if it's

(13:55):
not an immediate gratificationof like, let's hop on a call,
they drop the... Yeah, they justdon't do it a proper follow up.
But it's really a matter ofasking questions, the right
questions, and leading theprospect into the cognition that

(14:15):
you can bring some solutions tohis problems,
Absolutely, absolutely and byproper follow up, we don't mean
like, okay, bumping this to thetop of your inbox, right?
Because that gets annoying.
It is annoying. It has to be ina way that doesn't annoy or
betrays as but it could be like,once a week, you know? It could

(14:38):
be, you can add a prospect toyour mailing list again, mailing
list you have, you know,valuable tips and success
stories and good content.
Absolutely, absolutely, you justmade me think of a follow up
question, Sivan, and it'ssomething that I'm sure you deal
with a lot. But how do you howdo you deal with pushback from

(15:01):
probably, like, seniormanagement of a company or
founders that say, like this,this whole approach of growing
audience on LinkedIn is just ittakes too much time. There's too
much investment required. Like,where's the ROI? We don't see
the value in it. Like, how doyou deal with that kind of
pushback?
It's a very good question,Christian, I go back into the

(15:28):
vision, what is the vision thatthe CEO has for the company, and
what is the potential? And Ireally go and pinpoint on what
has been generated. So let'ssay, for example, one of my
clients, we grew his audience by200% in five months on LinkedIn.
He started with, think he had1500 now is close to 5000. Out

(15:53):
of the 1500 only maybe 30% werewithin his target market. So
one, What are you trying toachieve with your brand? And it
really requires a CEO that has avision and long term goals and
understand that social sellingright is not a suggestion. It is

(16:18):
one of the most cost effectivemethods out there to generate
organic leads and authenticleads, right? And also it's
about brand awareness and brandrecognition, but it has to link
to the CEO's vision and growth,meaning, where does he see his

(16:41):
company in the next 10 years?Right? If he has long term goals
for his company, he wants to bethe biggest company out there in
IT, or the biggest company outthere in whatever, as a
consultant. And if he wants togrow and he sees where he can
take him, you know, likewhatever, in two years, you will

(17:04):
have 20,000 and then 30,000 sohe will understand the value.
But if it's a very short termvision of instant gratification,
I want instantly. I want aninstant ROI, he will have a
really hard time. So I think theway to do it is like, take them
into the future, and thepossibility is that, like, you

(17:25):
know, one year down the line,when you have 20,000 people
followers, or you have whatever,50,000 followers on YouTube, or
60,000 followers on YouTube,what it's going to do for your
brand? I guess it links intoasking the right questions also.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely,absolutely. On that note, about,

(17:46):
like, growing your audience onLinkedIn, like, you know, just
from your experience, like,because there's different forms
of content that you can put outthere, right? There's the long
tail posts, there's the shortposts, there's infographics,
there's videos, there'scarousels, etc, etc. Just from
your experience, which of thesecontent formats would you

(18:08):
recommend, or would yourecommend all of them? Or what
do you tell your clients?
I feel that you have to bestrategic about it. You have to
it has to be videos, right?Could be reels, could be shorts.
Could be with some tips, withsome information, it should be

(18:30):
some success stories, authenticones you know. It could be
clients, a video of a client,recording like you know, his
satisfaction, how he's satisfiedwith the service or product. And
it has to be also some personalstories of the CEO himself, his

(18:50):
journey growing the company, hisyou might even say, struggles,
right, personally. And it has tobe his own personal story, or
the own personal story of thebrand. You see it more and more
in many companies, B to B and Bto C, when the founders are
basically, in a way, exposingthemselves and their personal

(19:13):
life and pouring their personallife into content to create more
of intimate relationship withyour audience. And I noticed
again and again and again thatit works 10 times better when
it's personal, when it's notanother can of a template.

(19:37):
Right, right, right. Exactly,exactly something that's
relatable.,
Exactly something that'srelatable.
Relatable and relevant towhoever it is that they're
targeting. Okay.
And some people feel veryuncomfortable with it, because,
yeah, but it works,
All right. For our nextquestion. In our previous

(20:01):
conversation, you mentioned thatB2B companies should have a
smart strategy regarding theirLinkedIn approach, and you
talked about it a little bitearlier. But can you elaborate
on that further what you mean bythat?
About smart strategy? Yeah,sure. Well, it boils down to
really understanding and knowingyour audience, who's your

(20:23):
audience, and within thataudience, who's the decision
maker. If you're dealing withcompanies with that are, you
know, SBM, small into mediumsized companies, you probably
would like to reach out to theoperational VP or the
co-founder, right? You're notgoing to reach out to the
marketing manager, so you haveto be very specific. You also

(20:46):
need to know your audience. Andper se, maybe you have a lot of
clients in Texas, and you arereally familiar with clients
from Texas, so it will be abetter idea to start with a list
of companies in that area. Soyou need to understand their
demographics, location, size ofthe company, the decision maker,

(21:11):
if it's a C level exec or not.And then you have to understand
the pain points, and that goesinto also making sure that you
have the right filters on yourlist. Like, what are the pain
points? Are you a B2B advisor?Are you in SaaS? And you're
looking for companies that are alow growth, right? They haven't

(21:37):
hired... maybe their growth was,like less than 10% in the last
12 years. So now they need aconsultant, right? Or perhaps
you are in AI and Googleautomation, and you're looking
for a company that is using theydon't use Gemini, and they're

(21:59):
using ChatGPT, knowing thatspecific factor right, can
create an instant reality withthat prospect. So you really
have to pinpoint and again, itgoes back to high quality list
of like, what is the problem?Who's your audience, who you
want to talk to, and portrayingsome sort of a reality. I know

(22:22):
your company. I understand yourpain. I understand what are the
tools you're using right now.Let me share that there is a
better way that can save youeither money, time, resources,
etc.
Yeah, absolutely answering thewhat's in it for me question.
What's in it for me?
And it better be a good answer,because otherwise,

(22:45):
Yeah, this, yeah, of course.
Okay, so just in the interest oftime, if you could provide one
example for each in terms of howB2B companies can do the
following on LinkedIn. So thefirst one is build their brand
authority, and the second one isgenerate qualified leads.
Okay. So how they can build anauthority on LinkedIn? Okay. I

(23:08):
would say post every day, aminimum of two, three times a
day. Make sure it's authentic.Make sure that it communicates
to your audience. It can besuccess stories. It could be
personal stories about your howyour company grew, and I was
impinging on the market. Itcould be a hard CTA, which is

(23:30):
call to action, or soft CTA, butyou have to post at least three
times a week, a minimum of threetimes a week. That's one way of
growing your audience. Secondway of growing your audience is
to increase your connectionsright within your target market.
I think LinkedIn allows you upto 100 connection requests per

(23:52):
week. You have to do it. Youhave to make sure that you're
growing your audience by atleast 30% a month. Now. The
third strategy is doing directoutreach to your audience,
because they don't know who youare and who's so doing a direct
outreach to your audience withthe strategic steps, you know, I

(24:17):
would say no more than three orfour messages, introducing
yourself, your value making surethat it has some sort of a
personalization into it so itcommunicates and resonates with
the recipient, and offering somesort of help that can save them
either money, time or resources.Once you get a positive reply,

(24:39):
you will need to basicallynurture that lead into a meeting
where you can do a discoverycall and find out more about the
company and what they need andwant.
Okay, okay, well, those are somepretty good tips. So posting,
posting two to three times aday, I think was your first one?
A week,
A week.
If you can do it 2-3 time, Imean, the day, great, but people

(25:02):
don't done so at least threetimes away,
Two to three times a week, okay,increasing your connections.
What's the second one?
Strategic outreach that is notspammy, that is personal, that
is based on some sort of yourown familiarity, being familiar
with the company and theirmission, their vision, the tools

(25:23):
they're using, pain points andso on and so forth.
Absolutely, absolutely. Andthat, that last one, I think, is
also very important, isnurturing that lead into a
meeting. And I think nurture isthe key word there. It's not
push them into a meeting. It'snurture them, right?
Yeah, it's nurturing them, andit's offering some sort of

(25:43):
recommendation or help, right?Because people think that
they're wasting their time, butagain, if you're reaching out to
your target market, right? Soyou're not wasting your time
here, you're building arelationship and with B2B, it's
obviously not instant, so youhave to create a relationship,

(26:08):
and that takes a little bit oftime.
Absolutely, absolutely okay. Weget to the point in the
conversation where we're talkingabout actionable tips, and
you've given us so much already,all right? But I think if we
were gonna compress that allinto three to five things,

(26:30):
right, let's say, for example,there's somebody out there
that's listening to thisinterview, and you want them to
go and take action on whatyou've just talked about right
away, not in 6 months, not in 12months. Like right after they
listen to this, what are threeto five things you would tell
them to do?
I will tell them to go overtheir client base and make a

(26:50):
list of the size of thecompanies they like to work
with. And it's been successfulfor them in the past. Their
location. How much money they'regenerating? Right? If it's a
small company, are you lookingfor companies that are making a
million dollars a year orcompanies that are generating a
$14 million a year? What is thesweet spot for your company,

(27:11):
right? And really write it down.It's kind of like creating a
customer persona. Where they'relocated. What are the
technologies that are using?What are their hobbies? What do
they like to do? Really create awhole customer's persona for
yourself based on previousstatistics, meaning, like, where

(27:34):
did you had the most success?Once you have that nailed down,
you know, log into yourLinkedIn, look at your
connection request, or yourfirst degree network of
connections, right? And checkfor yourself of out of the 1000
connections that you currentlyhave, or 1500 or whatever, how

(27:56):
many of them really answer thatcriteria of being the perfect
client, usually you will noticethat maybe less than 20% so now
you have a customer personabased on previous deals that
were successful or previousrelationships that were
successful. You can use SalesNavigator and compile a list of

(28:21):
similar personas, and you canstart reaching out to them with
a connection request and growingyour audience, which is the
first step. Why are you doingthat? Start creating social
media posting. You know, you canautomate it, or you can use
someone else's help. You know ofsuccess stories and testimonials

(28:45):
and special promotions and somepersonal stories of you know of
yourself as a CEO, co-founder ofthe company, and start posting
it like at least three times aweek. Any video recordings, any
videos, or perhaps you wereguesting podcast. So post it on

(29:05):
LinkedIn, and you will see thatgradually, you're going to grow
your audience and create somestrategic partnerships and
collaborations and generatingorganic leads just from doing
that basic steps. You know,posting, being strategic about
your outreach, your connectionrequest, and starting authentic
conversations.

(29:28):
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean,I for myself, can say that
everything that you have justsaid is something that I have
done myself. So it's totallytrue. And it takes time. It does
take time.
It takes time.
It didn't happen in one week.
No, it takes time also to figureout who is your ideal client,
for companies who just started,you know, think we were having

(29:50):
this conversation right beforewe started recording, and that
could be a pitfall for manycompanies. Yeah, if you're
working for a company that istoo small or perhaps doesn't
have the vision, right, themindset, the right mindset, that
won't last as a client. So youreally need to think also about

(30:10):
who do you like to work with?
That's right.
Who really fits your brand andyour vision as a company, and be
selective about it.
Absolutely, absolutely okay. Soon this topic of growing your
audience on LinkedIn, what isthe status quo that you

(30:31):
passionately disagree with, andwhy.
I disagree with being verysporadic about growing your
audience, and it's a volume andnot... and really dismissing the
fact that it has to be quality,right? I think that is where a
lot of B2B companies arefailing. You know, it used to be

(30:55):
like that on Instagram. We usedto buy followers that are
completely irrelevant to thebrand, yeah. So being authentic
is very important. I disagreewith posting content that is too
generic and doesn't communicate.I think personalization is a key
right now. So, yeah, you have toput your face out there, and you

(31:18):
have to make sure that yourcontent is authentic and
resonates. Three people who saidthat LinkedIn and social selling
doesn't work. That is, again, aone big misconception about
social media marketing, socialselling, growing in your
audience and online community,which is obviously very

(31:43):
successful for so manyentrepreneurs and companies. So
people who just say it doesn'twork, branding and marketing and
podcasting and many differentstrategies, they just have a
one, either they failed becausethey didn't know what they're
doing. Two, they think toosmall. They don't have the
vision necessary to grow uptheir brand. So this is my take

(32:09):
on it. Yeah, harsh as it sounds,but...
It's not harsh at all. It's thetruth. It's the reality of it.
Yeah, it's the truth. You can'tsay that like, Oh no, it doesn't
matter if I have followers. No,it does matter. Even if you're a
B2B, it does matter.
That's right, that's right.Okay, so here comes the bonus
question, sure, if you had theopportunity to go and learn a

(32:32):
new skill, what would it be, andwhy?
I would learn architecture.Yeah. Yes, I'm a designer. I'm
an interior designer, but, youknow, I mean, I also B2B
marketer, but I love art, and ifI had way of, like, wanting back

(32:54):
in time, I would studyarchitecture in Italy, probably.
Probably, probably, and you'dend up doing an internship with
Daniel Libeskind or somethinglike that,
And because art is just one ofmy passions,
Yeah, yeah. Well, that'samazing. That's amazing. Sivan,
thank you so much for your time.This has been such a great

(33:16):
conversation. And please quickintroduction to yourself and how
people out there can get intouch with you.
Sure. So I'm Sivan. I'm thefounder of Elevate media. We
specialize in helping B2Bcompanies grow their LinkedIn
audience with smart andstrategic outreach. We look at
content distributions andstrategies that can grow your

(33:38):
brand and get you highauthority, high quality leads so
you can grow your business. Soyou can contact me on LinkedIn
again, Sivan Ohavim, or you canbook a time with me right here
for one on one consultation.Here is that calendar link.
Fantastic, fantastic. Alright,and we will be sure to put that

(33:59):
in the show notes. So onceagain, Sivan, thank you so much
for your time. Take care, staysafe and talk to you soon.
Oh, yes, absolutely. We'll talksoon.
Thank you. Bye, for now.
Bye.