There’s a running joke in our office that we’re trying to turn our CEO, AJ Bruno, into a #LinkedInfluencer. He continues to remain humble, but his successful career in sales and entrepreneurship has given him the experience and voice that many can learn from and connect with. Not to mention, his childhood thespian days have groomed him to be a phenomenal public speaker and a trustworthy leader you can get behind. (Ask him about the time he dressed up in Shakespearian garb running around Penn’s college campus promoting his first entrepreneurial venture Control The Buzz).
So it came as no surprise that he made #37 on the LinkedIn Sales Stars list of top emerging thought leaders. The list was curated by sales leader Scott Ingram. Ingram founded Sales Success Media, where he hosts the podcasts “Sales Success Stories” and “Daily Sales Tips.” He also authored the book “Sales Success Stories: Real Stories from Real Sellers” and puts on the Sales Success Summit.
Ingrim evaluated 185 individuals and pulled a list of the top 100 emerging thought leaders in the sales space. His measurement approach was simple and did not favor the number of followers or connections, rather it focused on engagement (comments, likes, shares). How well is a person connecting with their audience? Is their message resonating with the community?
So how do you measure LinkedIn success? Ingram followed a straightforward model with publicly available data:
- Add up all the likes and comments on a person’s last 10 LinkedIn posts (not including shared content or posts that were published in the last couple of hours)
- Divide by the total number of followers
- Convert that number to a percentage
In AJ’s case, he had 1,040 likes and comments divided by 5,966 followers, giving him a 17.4% engagement rate.
LinkedIn has proven to be a powerful marketing tool and platform for the world’s top leaders and innovators. It has 690 million users across 200 countries and is the top social platform for B2B lead generation. But becoming an influential voice is not as easy as creating a profile and sharing interesting articles. To do so, you have to build trust and credibility, create content that speaks to your audience, and invest time in connecting with your network, all things that AJ does very well. AJ’s authentic voice, engaging storytelling for both personal and professional topics, and relatable experiences are what makes connecting with him so easy.
#linkedinsalesstars #sales #linkedinfluencer
