If you are in B2B marketing or otherwise tasked with sourcing leads for your company, LinkedIn is one of the most powerful platforms you can use to grow your business.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that they have a presence on LinkedIn, but they’re not seeing the results they’re after. If you’re one of those people, then you probably don’t have the system and the right LinkedIn tools for business in place to attract new prospects and build quality relationships. I’m going to help you change that!

Let me show you some interesting statistics that will demonstrate how effective LinkedIn can be for lead generation. A recent report from HubSpot found that 43% of marketers have sourced a customer from LinkedIn. The opportunities are there, you just need the right way to find them.

Hub Spot found that 43% of marketers have sourced a customer from LinkedIn Click To Tweet

Unlike for other social networks, there aren’t really any third party LinkedIn automation tools available. However, there are still ways to speed up some of your key activities, such as finding the right leads, gathering customer data, building connections, and kick-starting your sales process.

We reached out to LinkedIn expert Viveka von Rosen, to ask her about the LinkedIn tools she uses daily to maximize the results she gets from this social network.

Let’s explore the four LinkedIn tools for business Viveka recommends.

Add Tags & Notes To LinkedIn Profiles with Dux-Soup

If you’ve used LinkedIn for lead generation, you were probably using Tags and Notes to better manage relationships with your connections. Those were some really useful features that LinkedIn shut down earlier this year when they removed the Relationship Section from user profiles.

Luckily, there’s an alternative called Dux-Soup, a Chrome plug-in that keeps track of the profiles you visit and lets you tag and take notes on any LinkedIn member’s profile. You can download it for free from the Chrome web store, and there’s also a paid upgrade ($15/month).

With the free version, you can automate the process of viewing profiles (100/day), add tags and take notes, while the paid version will allow you to export data (profiles visited, profile notes, and profile lists) and configure the number of profile visits per day.

How Viveka uses Dux-Soup: “Since I actually use LinkedIn when prospecting and engaging with my network, it’s important for me to have a way to keep track of my connections on LinkedIn. Dux-Soup allows me to create tags and take as many notes as I want for free! I can export them and do other things for a small monthly fee. This has been a life saver for both me and my clients.”

Keep Track of Your LinkedIn Prospects with Nimble

Nimble is a social CRM tool that packs some really powerful features for only $25/month. It’s by far the most reasonably priced CRM system out there and it can really help organize and manage your LinkedIn lead generation efforts.

There’s also the Nimble Contacts Widget that allows you to save contact details to your Nimble account while on LinkedIn with one click. You can then tag saved profiles, make notes, or reach out to them.

Here’s how Viveka uses Nimble: “While I like to have a way to manage my connections on LinkedIn – I strongly believe in the power of a CRM tool. The one I choose is Nimble. Not just because it is super affordable and has some GREAT features, but also because it’s Chrome extension allows me to easily save my LinkedIn prospects to Nimble. From there I can also tag and take notes on their profile, put them into my deal funnel or schedule a follow up call or email.

Find Missing Contact Info with LeadGrabber Pro

LeadGrabber Pro is a great tool to help you get contact details of your LinkedIn contacts. It scrapes the web to obtain email addresses that people have shared publicly and features list-building tools that can save you a lot of time. It’s a bit on the expensive side, but if you use it to support your sales efforts, it may pay for itself many times over.

How Viveka uses LeadGrabber: LeadGrabber is my go to tool for pulling the missing information from my contact’s profiles (like email addresses and phone numbers.) It also allows me to make lists which I can then use to follow up with my key prospects off line.

Improve LinkedIn Social Selling with Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s premium sales account and it is a great tool for prospecting. Here’s what it can do for you:

Uses a proprietary algorithm to create a list of leads tailored to your business and your product or service

Filters searches to a specific industry, location, company or title

Helps you find and save your contacts in business accounts (ABM)

Let’s you track and engage with your saved leads through updates, messages, and in mails.

This is a pricey LinkedIn tool, but here’s what Viveka has to say about it: “I absolutely believe it is worth the $79/month price tag. But you have to try it to believe it. Fortunately, they have a 30-day free trial.”

Those were the 4 LinkedIn tools for business that a renowned LinkedIn expert uses every day, and I’m sure that they’ll work for you and help you get the most out of LinkedIn!

If you’d like to learn more about LinkedIn marketing from Viveka, check out her website Linked into Business.

What other LinkedIn automation tools would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments!