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Want to get the most out of LinkedIn groups?
You are in the right place.
In this article, we covered all the LinkedIn groups best practices you need to know to get as much value as possible from them.
Let’s make you a LinkedIn marketing expert.
What are LinkedIn Groups?
LinkedIn Groups are spaces when you can share expertise, seek advice, and build relationships with other LinkedIn members. There are thousands of LinkedIn groups, gathering people around different topics and it’s a really convenient way to find link-minded people.
How to Find Groups on LinkedIn?
Find LinkedIn groups in 3 steps:
- Write keywords in the search bar
- Click on “Groups” tab
- Scroll the list of groups LinkedIn is showing you
Once you click on the “Group” tab, LinkedIn will show you groups whose title contains your keywords.
How to Join Groups on LinkedIn?
Join LinkedIn in 3 steps groups:
- Open the group page
- Click on “Join”
- Wait for the group admin to accept your request
If your request don’t get accepted after a while, you can send a message to the admin to follow-up on your request and get it accepted.
LinkedIn Group Best Practices
5 LinkedIn group best practices:
- Bring value before asking anything
- Engage in ongoing conversations
- Ask questions
- Keep it professional
- Don’t be spammy
1. Bring value before asking anything
Before asking anything from the community, you need to prove your worth. Don’t ask anything from the community during the first month.
If members of the communities see you are only here to get value without giving anything back, that won’t work. Efficient communities work on reciprocity. People give to each other because they know everyone would do the same for us.
2. Engage in ongoing conversations
You are probably joining a group that exist for a while. There are for sure plenty of conversation you jump in and bring value. When you join LinkedIn group, scroll down previous posts and see if you can place some relevant comments there.
3. Ask questions
People love sharing their expertise. Each time you ask a question, two things are happening: you get free advice and you build relationships with people. So if your business is currently facing some problems you think the community can solve, do not hesitate to share them in the LinkedIn group.
4. Keep a professional tone
You are exchanging with people you don’t know and you don’t have a second chance to make a good first impression. Always make sure to keep a professional and friendly tone when you are posting or commenting on a LinkedIn group.
5. Don’t be spammy
People hate spammers. Don’t flood the LinkedIn group with links to your product or service. If you act like that, your messages will quickly be reported as spam by the group members and you will end up being banned from the group.
How to Start a LinkedIn Group?
Start a LinkedIn group in 4 steps:
- Click on “Groups” in the left sidebar
- Click on “create group”
- Define group setting
- Invite your connections
Once you click on Groups, you will be redirected to this page. The list will be empty if this is the first group you are creating.
Next step to set up your group. You need to define:
- Logo
- Banner
- Name
- Description
- Industry
- Location
- Rules
- Discoverability
- Permissions
If you want your group to grow faster, it’s better to allow members to invite their connections.
If you want to avoid spam and have 100% control and what is posted on your group, you can require new post to be reviewed by admin. However, this will add friction and impact user experience. Your choice to make.
Once the setup is done, you can click on “create group” and you will be able to invite your connections to your brand new LinkedIn group.
How To Use LinkedIn Groups?
5 ways to use LinkedIn groups:
- Lead Generation
- Community Building
- Recruiting
- Networking
- Finding a Job
1. Lead Generation
LinkedIn group can be a good prospecting tool if used correctly. Whether you are a group member or admin, there are several things that you can do to leverage LinkedIn groups to general leads.
The most obvious one is by starting conversations and engaging with people posting messages. Especially if they ask questions and you have the answer it. That is a great way to start a Sales conversation.
The second one is by extracting LinkedIn group members into an Excel file.
Belonging to a group can be a buying intent.
Let’s say someone is part of a LinkedIn group named “Sales Best Practices”
If you sell Sales trainings or Sales tools, that is the perfect place to engage with people who could be potential customers of your Solution.
If you are using Evaboot, you can easily extract them and find their emails to start prospecting them.
Plus the fact that your prospects are part of a group gives you nice icebreaker for your prospecting messages. You can totally send messages like this:
Message Template
Hello <first name>,
I just joined the <group_name> LinkedIn group and I’m reaching out to members to exchange about <topic>
Are you still interested in this topic?
Best, JB
It’s important to ask if they are still interested in the topic because people often forgot the LinkedIn groups they are part of.
2. Community Building
If you have a product or a service and you want to build a community around, LinkedIn groups can be a perfect way to gather all your users or clients.
There are really few examples of successful LinkedIn groups though. People tend to prefer Facebook groups to create business communities.
It’s usually better to post directly from your profile to try becoming an influencer on LinkedIn.
But who knows?
Maybe it will work for your niche.
3. Networking
If your goal is simply to network, you can use LinkedIn groups as well. The best way to start networking on LinkedIn is to join alumni LinkedIn groups.
Alumni networks are often underestimated and you can find plenty of people on LinkedIn trying to leverage that. Launching a LinkedIn prospecting campaign on alumni is always a good idea.
4. Recruiting
LinkedIn Groups can be a perfect place to find talents. There a plenty of LinkedIn groups gathering experts around specific topics.
You can even find groups of job seekers dedicated to specific domains like sales.
5. Finding a Job
Obviously if you are a job seeker you can also join these LinkedIn groups to connect with other job seekers and recruiters.
There a job seekers LinkedIn groups focused on location or job type. Go join what you think are the most relevant for your situation.
Where are my LinkedIn Groups?
You can find your LinkedIn groups in the left sidebar of the LinkedIn homepage. Just above the Event and Hashtag section.
If you click on “Groups” you can access to the complete list of LinkedIn groups you are part of.
If you click on the “Requested” tab you can see all your pending LinkedIn groups request that are waiting for group admins to be approved.
Best Groups to Join on LinkedIn
The best LinkedIn groups to join for you heavily depends on your business and the problem you need to solve at the moment. You need to search for LinkedIn group using the search engine and build your own curated list of LinkedIn groups.
There won’t be a “magic LinkedIn group” with best people solving all your problem. Like everything, work by iteration and you will end up being part of the best LinkedIn groups for your business within weeks?
