Are you a member of a LinkedIn Group?
Do you spend time networking in LinkedIn Groups?
LinkedIn Groups are great way to build credibility and make new connections that can ultimately help grow your business.
With over 1.5 million LinkedIn Groups,
it can be difficult to find relevant Groups and determine which ones
might be the best for you to join. It’s also important to find Groups
that are well-managed.
Unfortunately there are many LinkedIn
Groups that are not well-managed, which makes the experience within
these Groups less than optimal.
How many groups should you join?
You can join up to 50 LinkedIn Groups.
However, it’s difficult to gain traction in 50 Groups as well as find
the time to participate in that many.
Below are tips for maximizing your LinkedIn Groups experience.
Use LinkedIn Search to find relevant groups to Join
In case you haven’t noticed, LinkedIn
search has been significantly enhanced. This includes the ability to
search for relevant Groups (based on your network) and search for
discussion topics within open Groups!
To start, search for Groups using
keywords that would be a natural fit for you, based on your geographic
location, industry, prospects, education history, community/charity
organizations, hobbies and interests.
Try searching LinkedIn Groups with the
keywords that actually describe your natural affinities. For example,
type in the name of the college you attended to find potential alumni
groups that exist on LinkedIn.
Review the “Groups You May Like” suggestions from LinkedIn
The easiest way to navigate to the
Groups You May Like feature is through your navigation menu bar under
Groups. There you will see these options. (The Groups Directory option
is the primary search area for LinkedIn Groups.)
When you click on the Groups You May
Like feature, LinkedIn will list suggested Groups for you to check out,
based on your network connections, profile information, skills and
expertise and existing Group memberships. You may also notice some
Groups (or subgroups) on this list that you already belong to.
Evaluate the quality of a LinkedIn group
How do you know if the LinkedIn Groups you are interested in joining are going to be well-run and high-quality?
In some cases, you may just have to join the Group and spend some time there to make that determination.
In a well-managed Group, you are going
to most likely see a manager who is visible throughout the discussions,
and a strong set of rules.
The quantity of membership and the
activity level of a Group aren’t always correlated to whether the group
is high-quality. I’ve seen some very large Groups that are very
well-managed and some very small Groups that aren’t managed at all!
Be sure to evaluate the stats of the
LinkedIn Group you are interested in as well. There you can learn more
about member demographics, activity, how long the Group has been around
and more.
Consider joining corporate-sponsored groups
There are a number of
corporate-sponsored Groups popping up on LinkedIn. This is where
LinkedIn has officially partnered with brands or corporations to help
them build robust Groups. Within each of these Groups, the organization
can drive member visits and discussion participation while also
controlling the ad display space within the Group site.
If you run your own LinkedIn Group or
you’re thinking about starting one, you could learn some terrific
strategies as a member of these corporate-sponsored Groups.
Adhere to LinkedIn Group participation best practices
In order to make LinkedIn Groups serve
as authentic forums for discussions and dialogue, we can all do our part
to maintain the integrity of the Groups we belong to. This will make
the LinkedIn Group experience better for everyone.
Additionally, LinkedIn is doing its part
by helping Group managers fight promotional posts. If you are thinking
about posting a discussion that contains the words me, my or I, don’t
count on it showing up. Most likely it will end up under the Promotions
tab, where it’s highly unlikely that anyone will see it.
-socialmediaexaminer.com
No comments:
Post a Comment