10 Ways to use AI for LinkedIn

AI can be used to enhance Personal Branding, Content and Sales Prospecting on LinkedIn.

Here are 10 #AI ideas and tips to be more effective and efficient on LinkedIn.

What do you want to be known for?

This is one of the first questions we ask anyone starting a LinkedIn programme. It sounds obvious, but your LinkedIn profile and posts need to reflect this and often, this isn't clear enough.

A great use of AI is to ask IT about YOU. 

AI uses various sources to find information about you. You should have a look to know what comes up when your prospects, partners, new hires, or vendors ask AI about you.

1. Search AI for your name.

Are you happy with the summary it provides? If not, you may need to adjust your profile, content, and other bios around the web to align with how you want to be perceived.

It's worth asking different AIs. I used Perplexity for its transparency in showing the logic behind searches and clear citations with sources.

2. Content Ideation

I usually have my own ideas on what I want to write about, but AI can help broaden and deepen these ideas.

For example, for this newsletter, I knew I wanted to write about tools and tips on using AI as well as freeing up time for more human communication.

I checked what other suggestions AI had for me. It gave me a sense of whether I wanted to add anything else. 

It also provided a nice summary, which we can now serve as an introduction to the ways AI can help.

3. Content Creation

Many think of AI for content creation first. While it's a common use, I'm not keen on relying on AI for this.

If you use it for creation, there are smart prompts to improve the output, but by nature, it can't be original.

I prefer to get my ideas down first and then use AI to make my communications clearer. 

My thoughts can be a bit tangled, so sometimes my messages don't land as I'd like. AI helps me appeal to people who might not easily understand my spaghetti-like thinking. (I'll ask AI when editing this post to keep in the spaghetti bit—it sometimes removes the human touches, so my prompts say, let’s keep them!)

4. Content Repurposing

This is the exciting part.

If you want to be known for something, you need to show up boldly on that topic time and again. Some people love reading text, others prefer images. Some like to listen to a podcast on their walk, others take in information through video.

Transforming your content into different formats is advancing rapidly with AI.

I used AI to help me find images, GIFs, or quotes to break up the text in this newsletter.

Our steps for this newsletter?

Use AI to:

• Adjust it to read more like a website blog than a newsletter.
• Create an infographic.
• Create a two-person conversational podcast.
• Create a series of introductory posts for the three long-form content types from myself, my business partner, or a team member.

5. Prospecting - Contact Finding

Now, let's talk about Sales Navigator. I'm a big fan IF you spend enough time on LinkedIn, as the efficiencies help you navigate with more purpose. 

If you are a Sales Navigator user, then you’re only using it properly if you build and save lists.

List cleaning can be more even more efficient with AI, but let’s talk about the upgrades LinkedIn has put in place this year - Account IQ, available to Sales Nav Advanced user. 

Easy to overlook, Sales Navigator’s Relationship Explorer has improved a lot in the past year.

It finds people you have the most mutual connections with, people who have worked at the same company as you, those in the same groups within the personas you have pre-loaded, or just anywhere in the company.

Our research at Pitch121 shows that second-degree contacts connect around 50% more than third-degree contacts. Using this same principle, finding those with the easiest pathway into your target companies is the most strategic way to grow your network.

6. Prospecting - Contact Communication

The LinkedIn profile is a great source of information. I use an AI tool called Behavely.ai, which helps adjust your communications to appeal to a person based on their profile and posts. 

It also provides links to their other social profiles outside of LinkedIn. I really like the section that tells you who engages most on their posts. Connect with them first! It helps get your posts into their feed.

7. Prospecting - Sales Navigator Account Insights

Researching companies allows you to be more relevant to them when you get in touch. Preparation that used to take a long time can now be done in minutes, and it goes a long way in those first calls.

Sales Navigator Account IQ has business challenges and strategic priorities, which is great but you can find this on other AI tools, joining that information to your value proposition.

What you get from Sales Navigator Account Insights that you might not get elsewhere are the headcount insights.

These insights are much better than you'd expect and are exclusive to LinkedIn.

Account IQ Insights:

8. Check your content will resonate with your audience

I love this one. Describe your audience, or provide insights from Behavely, and explain your value proposition. Then ask AI to critique your content.  Do this with your LinkedIn articles, posts, but also your website, and proposals!

How can it be re-written so they will find it more appealing?

AI can provide great critique when prompted.

I gave ChatGPT this article in rough draft and the information downloaded from Behavely.ai for one of my ideal prospects I'm talking to right now, and it gave me some great pointers.

Here they are:

9. More time for human-to-human interactions

AI should free us up to have more real human interactions.

If you're in sales, the more time you can spend actually selling, networking, and adding value that only you can provide, and less time on admin, the better.

I was delighted to recently read Jeb Blount and Anthony Iannarino 's book ‘AI for Sales’. I have long followed Jeb’s sales philosophy, and I agree. 

Whatever takes salespeople away from the 'golden hours' for prospecting and closing ought to be where AI is used. AI removes time-consuming tasks and makes us more relevant for prospects.

10. Attract attention by experimenting with AI

A year ago, we took a standard product demo video and made it LinkedIn-friendly by adding animation and a new voiceover by an AI avatar. It attracted attention because it was innovative, which in turn drove attention to the product.

Having read about Google's NotebookLM, I had an idea to turn my newsletter into a podcast.  As I don’t have a regular podcast at the moment, I had an idea to test it out on my LinkedIn Live this week.

When doing my LinkedIn Lives, I love to talk to the audience, but when they comment, it takes 30 seconds to a minute to come through to the Streamyard studio. I can't comment back immediately; I need to find time during the live show to bring the comment onto the screen and respond. It's a clunky two-way interaction, and sometimes I feel like I'm talking to an empty room.

I wish I could also be in the comments live on my Live, having quick text two-way chats. 

What if I could start my Live and continue the rest of our content as an AI podcast, to continue in our place - then jump into the comments with the listeners?

They can then listen to the content, and when they comment, my colleague Ursula and I will be with them in the comments having the to-and-fro with the listeners live.

We don't really know how it will go at this point, but if you missed it and want to see how it went, here's the link to the Live on Thursday 24th October, 4pm BST / 5pm CET:

LinkedIn Live Event

What’s next?

AI offers incredible opportunities to enhance your LinkedIn strategy, from personal branding to content creation and prospecting. By leveraging AI tools thoughtfully, you can free up more time for genuine human interactions—building lasting relationships with customers and partners.