Linkedin - The Essentials

Most LinkedIn advice is overcomplicated. It's either guru nonsense copied from Instagram playbooks or tactical tips that miss the fundamentals.

I run Teamfluence, which means I sit on LinkedIn usage data from hundreds of B2B sales teams. I see what actually works, what doesn't, and what's just noise.

There are four LinkedIn essentials for B2B sales. They're obvious. They're simple. And if you're not doing them, you need to ask yourself why you're even on LinkedIn.

Engagement Essentials: Go make some noise!

If you don't do anything, people have nothing to react to. No engagement means no signals. Pretty simple.

But most advice goes wrong right here. It's all about posting. "Post 5x per week!" "Optimize your content!" "Go viral!"

That's B2C thinking. Most LinkedIn advice is rooted in B2C because it's copied from other social media playbooks. In B2C, your organic network isn't a problem. Everyone needs shoes and skincare. But in B2B, your organic network (high school friends, family, former coworkers) is completely irrelevant. They don't know what your “CRM add-on for referral management" (or whatever it is that you sell) even is.

The network quality problem:

If you have fewer than 3,000-5,000 targeted connections (your perfect persona working at your perfect ICP), posting can actually hurt you.

Your high school friend likes your B2B SaaS post. LinkedIn shows it to their network. Their brother-in-law, their college roommate, more people who aren't your ICP. If it's good clickbait, you'll grow your audience even more organically. More vanity metrics, zero qualified signals.

So before you obsess over posting frequency, think about who's actually going to see your content.

How to generate engagement with the right people:

LinkedIn offers multiple ways to create visibility. Posting is just one of them:

• Comment on content from people in your industry who already have a large, targeted following (borrow their audience)

• Send connection invites daily to the right people (no pitching, just connecting) - you can send 25 invites a day. If you do this every day it’ll add up to 9,125 invites over a year. Not everyone will accept - but if half of them do, you are adding 4-5k new and targeted contacts in your industry. It’s like going to tradeshows and events. It pays over time.

• Coordinate with your team. LinkedIn is a team sport. Comment together, send connection invites together, engage as a unit. The 9,125 invites a year from above? with a dozen people that’s 100k invites - or 50k targeted contacts. If you sell software for real estate agencies and you and your team are connected to 50,000 real estate agency owners - you own that market.

• Post content (if you have a targeted network of 3k+) - I intentionally put this as the last thing on that list. If you have an organic network of friends and family, then sweating over your content strategy is a waste of time. But, if you and your team have connected with 50,000 targeted contacts and then you share a good post and your team reshares it - boom! Now it gets in front of the right people and opportunities start flowing your way.

The point isn't to go viral. The point is to be visible to people who might actually buy from you.

(Shameless plug: Teamfluence has networking campaigns that coordinate team engagement, automate connection requests, and prompt strategic commenting. But you can do this manually if you're disciplined. Just make sure you're doing it.)

Essential Signals - Or: Noise vs Signal

Once you're generating engagement, you need to pay attention to who's responding. And what they do. These are the signals that matter:

• Profile visits (someone is checking you out ;)

• Company page visits and follows (they want to know more about what you do)

• Post engagement (likes, comments, shares)

• Connection accepts

Most marketers look for vanity metrics like impressions and reach. What actually counts is interest. When someone clicks through to check out your profile, that's intentional. That's intent.

The irony:

Companies spend tens of thousands of dollars on tools like 6sense, Demandbase, RB2B, and Leadfeeder to identify website visitors. These tools come from a time when people accessed the internet from corporate offices. Today, they can surface maybe 30% of your traffic. And most of it is probably wrong or just a good guess.

Meanwhile, companies completely ignore the people checking them out on LinkedIn.

Most B2B buyers say they discover solutions on social media firstieangst

. For B2B, that's LinkedIn. And unlike anonymous website visitors, LinkedIn gives you everything. Name, role, company, often verified with government ID.

There's no guessing. There's no 30% coverage. You get 100% of the people who check out your LinkedIn profile or company page.

Real example:

I spoke to a sales manager at a 600-person software company in the US. Their company LinkedIn page has 14,900 followers. Probably a multiple of that in profile visitors over the years.

I asked: "Who are these people? Do you know them? Are they working for any of the 250 healthcare providers on your ABM list?"

He didn't know. No one had ever looked.

Marketing reports impressions and follower growth. But no one bothers to check if there's a perfect opportunity already circling them.

Don't let this be you. The signals are there. You just have to look.

Teamfluence captures every signal across your entire team (not just one person's notifications) and puts them in a shared feed so nothing falls through the cracks. But you can absolutely do this manually. Just check your LinkedIn notifications daily and keep a spreadsheet.

The Essential Checks

Not all signals are created equal. You need a filter.

Run every signal through these four checks:

1. DNC Check (Do Not Contact)

Is this person already a customer? Are they in an active deal with your sales team? If yes, don't reach out again. You don't want to create confusion or duplicate outreach.

2. ABM Check (Account-Based Marketing)

Do they work at one of your target accounts? If you're running an account-based strategy (and you should be), this matters. A signal from a strategic account is worth more than a signal from a random company.

3. ICP Check (Ideal Customer Profile)

Does their company match your ideal customer profile? Company size, industry, geography, tech stack. Do they fit the pattern of companies you typically sell to?

4. Persona Check

Are they in a role that matters? A VP of Sales engaging with your content is worth more attention than an intern (unless interns are your buyer persona).

There's no hierarchy. These are four filters, all equally important. Most people naturally think about ICP and Persona checks but forget DNC and ABM checks. The result? Sales reaches out to existing customers or wastes time on companies that aren't strategic targets.

If a signal passes all four checks, act on it. If it doesn't, it's lower priority or not worth your time.

(another shameless plug: Teamfluence has an AI agent that automatically scores signals against your ICP and persona criteria, checks them against your CRM (DNC), and flags target accounts (ABM). But you can do this manually with a spreadsheet, your CRM, and your target account list.)

The Essential Actions

You've generated engagement. You've captured signals. You've qualified them. Now do something.

These are the no-brainer actions. Pick one or more:

• Send them a connection request

• Say hi

• Say thanks for engaging

• Ask a question

• Reference their engagement in a personalized email

Don't ignore them.

It's like booking an expensive booth at a trade show, and then when someone stops to read your materials and take a flyer, you all hide behind the pull-up banner. That's what you're doing when you ignore qualified LinkedIn signals.

The key:

These people already know your company. They might not know you personally, but they remember you. They visited your profile. They followed your company page. They engaged with your content.

When you reach out (whether via connection request or email), they will recognize your name.

And recognition is the number one reason people respond to outreach. Recognized sender name beats perfect cold email copy every time.

You don't need a clever subject line. You don't need to workshop the perfect pitch. You just need to reach out while you're still top of mind. Ideally within 24-48 hours.

Teamfluence automates outreach workflows, routes signals to Slack or your CRM, and triggers follow-up tasks so nothing goes cold. But you can do this manually. Just set aside 15-20 minutes every morning to review signals and take action.

Putting it all together

LinkedIn for B2B sales comes down to four essentials:

1. Generate engagement (be visible to the right people)

2. Listen for signals (capture intent, not vanity metrics)

3. Qualify signals (use all four checks)

4. Take action (don't hide behind the banner)

These aren't growth hacks. They're not secrets. They're basics.

If you're not doing these four things, don't blame LinkedIn. Don't blame the algorithm. Don't say "LinkedIn doesn't work for B2B."

You're not doing the work.

Can you do all of this manually? Yes. Should you? Depends on your volume and discipline. If you're seeing 10-20 qualified signals per week, manual works fine. If you're seeing 50+ signals per day across a team, you'll need systems. Spreadsheets, processes, or tools like Teamfluence that automate the tedious parts.

But the essentials don't change. The strategy is the same whether you're doing it manually or with automation.

Show up. Listen. Qualify. Act.

That's how you turn LinkedIn into pipeline.

Questions? Reach out at steven@teamfluence.com. Or don't. But if you're on LinkedIn for B2B sales and you're not doing these basics, at least be honest about why.