LinkedIn features thousands of groups across a multitude of topics covering different industries, geographies, career stages, and conventional networking.
These groups are an excellent approach to enriching your network. They offer a low-threshold way to connect with liked-minded people, or to find people in need of your expertise.
Whatever your reason for joining a group, let’s explore how you can search for groups, join them, and begin to participate.
Finding Groups Relevant to You
Start by logging in to your LinkedIn profile. Click the Groups button in the toolbar along the top.
The default tab is “My Groups.” Here you will see the Groups you belong to. You can rearrange their order by clicking on “Edit the order of your groups” at the top right of your list.
Since you are probably starting your list now, you won’t have any groups listed.
Let’s Join a Group
Click on the “Groups Directory” tab and let’s explore the types of groups you can join.
LinkedIn hosts some groups that attract tens of thousands of members. These are are shown along the right in their Featured Groups category.
Read through this list to see if anything catches you eye.
You will see groups with political affiliations, university alumni, and professional or trade industry.
Selecting groups relevant to your career is a smart first stop.
Another way to find relevant groups is to use the Search Groups function on the left hand side.
You can choose Categories and Language in your search filter. I recommend choosing a category that’s relevant to you and your preferred language, but leave the search field blank. This returns the broadest array of results for your review.
Let’s say you want to attend conferences as a way to build your network. Select the “Conference Groups” option in English. As of March, 2010, that returns 7,880 groups!
Run your search again using one keyword to narrow this down. In this example, I’m using “marketing” as my keyword.
That reduced the list to 301 – much more manageable!
Now I want to restrict the results to my locale since I am not able to travel around the world to conferences.
Click in the Search Groups field again. “Marketing” is still there but add a city to it. I’m using Chicago.
This delivered two results: Marketing To Women, and Marketing to Men.
Now I have targeted two events that may interest me. I would not have known about these otherwise most likely.
The Marketing to Men event strikes me as the more interesting of the two.
Click on the link to learn more about the group and find links to the event’s site. Even though this group only shows 17 members, the conference itself has likely attracted 100+ attendees.
If you are really aggressive, you will research who is a marketing professional in Chicago for companies for whom this type of marketing is important, and reach out to those individuals for input on whether they are attending the event. If they are, you have set up a new networking contact in another city that can help you meet others along the way.
How to Joining a Group
When you find a group that piques your interest, click the yellow “Join Group” button. Most groups provide instant membership but some group moderators prefer to review applicants before granting membership.
This is commonly found among Groups who focus on alumni of universities or companies. Trying to join groups when you don’t have a legitimate affiliation mark you with questionable intentions. You can contact the group moderator directly if you need to appeal to their reasoning and you have other circumstances.
That is, you may have worked at the company for a brief period and do not want it known publicly on your profile but still want to connect with people in that industry or field.
Once you join a group, it’s time to share your input.
In the Overview tab, you have options to “Start a Discussion,” “Submit News,” or “Share group.” To share a group means inviting people in your network to join the group, too. This viral effect is a great way to reinforce your network.
If you want to discuss a given topic, use the “Start a Discussion” link. In the example above where you wanted Chicago hotel recommendations, this is the right place to post that question. When you read the article about Starbucks’ new store concept, you would use the “Submit News” link instead.
Explore the other tabs of the group to see what content has been posted.
Some groups share job leads by posting them in the Jobs tab. Others are such large groups that they have divided themselves into subgroups to provide a tighter focus on specific topics relevant to the group at large.
If the group’s manager has empowered you to have administrator’s rights, you have the ability to contact members through individual or group emails, and edit other people’s membership in the group.
If the time has come for you to leave the group or adjust your privacy settings, click the “More…” tab to adjust your settings.
Connect With Others
Monitor the group’s activity to see who regular contributes and who doesn’t.
If you are looking to grow your network base, you can reach out to other group members whose profile and interests match your own.
Send a message to that person with a short introduction of yourself, and why you would like to connect. Don’t use LinkedIn’s default sentence – it’s not personalized and people recognize it. If you don’t take the time to write a sincere introduction versus using a canned sentence, others are less likely to care about connecting with you.
Two to three sentences is plenty but make sure they are your sentences, not a pre-written one.
That does not mean you have to write a fresh message every single time. Instead, craft a basic message you can repeat with others. The point is to be authentic and human. I use this technique by keeping my standard notes saved in a Word document for my networking activities. This saves me from having to dig up old emails each time to remember what I wrote before.
Finding More Groups
Continue to explore the Groups section of LinkedIn to find at least 10 groups that have subject matter or activities relevant to your needs.
Managing Membership
While you can join as many groups as you like, remember that you will want to monitor their activity levels through the periodic updates that LinkedIn sends out.
Many groups are formed with the best of intentions but quickly wither and dissolve due to a lack of nurture by the group’s owner, or the group was only meant to serve a temporary purpose whose time has past (and the group owner didn’t delete it yet).
I recommend reviewing your groups at least once every three to four months. Look at the ones with regular updates, ideally at least once a week. Those who haven’t updated in several weeks or more are candidates for removal.
Remember that a key part of using social media effectively is not spreading yourself too thin. Focus your energies and resources on where you will get the most return because belonging to a group also requires contributing in some way.
Contributing to Groups
A nice advantage of belonging to a group is that there are always people in it who stand out and help others.
If you need a recommendation on a good but affordable hotel near a conference in Chicago, this is one good way to utilize your networking instead of scouring hotel review sites. Recommendations from others like yourself tend to be more reliable than trusting even the best written – but essentially anonymous – postings in travel review sites.
Social media is an excellent resource for surfacing the best recommendations because you get an honest answer from the people answering your questions.
Another way to participate is to post links to articles in the media relevant to your audience. Don’t just post a link though – you need to add value to your posting.
Keep the posting on topic for the group (i.e., don’t post sports stories in a financial advisors group on the assumption that someone in the group likes the same team – that’s not why people are in this particular group).
When you post the link, add some analysis or opinion to the story.
For example, Starbucks has begun opening a new style of cafes that mimic local, independent coffee shops. Their intent is to blend in to the neighborhood better by being a part of the neighborhood versus installing their standard blueprint store with its consistent branding, push-button coffee dispensers and merchandise for sale.
If you are a Starbucks regular who has experienced one of these new concept stores, what did you think about the experience? How would you have executed the idea differently?
By demonstrating your thought processes and ideas, you strike up conversations. Others will respond, with their own pros and cons.
The point isn’t that you have to defend your ideas. The point is to start conversations, and nurture them until they naturally dissolve. That is, don’t start a conversation and abandon it once people begin posting their comments. Respond to each and every poster – this is how you engage and participate.
Creating a Group
I encourage you to explore extensively the groups that match your interests before creating a new group.
However, if you cannot find a group that matches your needs exactly (for example, there is not a version of the group you need in your city), then create a group.
Before you create it, though, take time to prepare for how you will manage and nurture the group’s growth and sustenance. The motto of “Build it and they will come” has deluded many an internet enterprise into believing a massive audience was waiting at their doorstep when really only a few were interested. Don’t fall into this same trap.
Considerations for Creating a Group
Be sure your group has a broad enough base of interest to attract a viable membership base.
What are your group’s goals? Is it to foster networking among a particular group? Is it to coordinate actions to achieve a common goal or objective?
Perhaps you are self-employed and you want to establish your presence as the go-to professional in your field. Having a LinkedIn profile is not enough. Add a group that focuses on your business, too, as a way to corral customers and recommendations around what you do and the value you provide.
This is free advertising, and provides a forum where you can speak to people who are opting in to hear your messages.
Make Your Group Thrive
But what do you do with them once they show up?
Brainstorm with a pad of post-it notes by writing down one idea on each sticky. Each idea can be a topic you can write about, advice you can provide, stories you can tell about success you’ve had with your clients, or news about upcoming events.
Now place these in a sequence that makes sense. It may be by event date or a multi-part series with each component building on its predecessor.
Congratulations, you’ve just created an editorial calendar.
Update whatever calendaring system you prefer, whether it’s a printed day planner, Outlook, Google Calendar or other tool. This becomes your to-do list so you can focus on the content and not stress over what to contribute.
Wrap Up
LinkedIn Groups offer the quickest access to expertise across the expanse of disciplines considered professions. You can easily connect with others near and far away. Start a Group if you cannot find one that meets your exact needs but be prepared to nurture it, keep it vital and of value to others so it will grow.
Let’s Have Coffee
Which Groups have you found to have the most value for you? Have you created a LinkedIn Group? Pull up a chair and share in the Comments section for a response.