Over the years LinkedIn has proved its metal as the largest professional online network, surviving technology, demographic and several other challenges along the way. It has given birth to a new approach to B2B social selling while helping job seekers get timely and valuable advice.
With little competition whatsoever, LinkedIn doesn’t shy away from experimenting with several of its features to make sure its users get the most out of this professional network.
Being a LinkedIn trainer myself, one such change I’ve been keeping track of since it rolled out, are the new Group Features LinkedIn announced following its member feedback and after a thorough research on how the groups are being used.
So following my same acronym style, let’s see how your LinkedIn GROUP experience will now become easier to understand and navigate.
If yes, then you are probably one of the majority of LinkedIn users who still don’t see the value of being part of the group.
However, the revamp to LinkedIn now offers group highlights and email digests helping you grasp useful insights on what’s been happening in your group with a single snap shot and helps you follow the conversations that you find most interesting.
Not anymore! With better content filtration LinkedIn groups allow you to follow more relevant topics and participate more actively in groups.
- Soft-skills improvement – finding the right active group and be a part of it has become much easier. You can learn from role models on a number of topics that are relevant to you.
- Deepen your area of expertise – With more relevant content being discussed in your group you can not only provide useful insight with respect to your field of expertise but also ask others for help on topics that you find challenging. This opens a new door for building a credible and trustworthy relationship with your network.
- Social Selling – Additionally, if you are seeking social selling as part of your goals to grow your business via LinkedIn but you don’t know where to start, then its best to join the group with members from your target market. This will help you get closer to your audience, gain useful industry insights and share content that the matters to that particular group.
- Now all groups are either standard groups or unlisted groups.
- All groups have become private and members-only group.
- More focus is given to timeliness of content and high-engagement, with changes to content moderation and use of images in conversations.
- Removal of promotional tabs and subgroups which means no more spamming or confusion between groups and sub-groups.
- Now you can stay updated on group conversations on-the-go with the introduction of LinkedIn iOS mobile app.
- Introduction of mentions using “@” to notify other group members about a topic of their interest.
So now you can have group that specialises in:
- A particular subject
- A community in focus
- An industry related to your or your target audience’ interest.
Practice makes a man perfect, that’s how the saying goes![bctt tweet=”LinkedIn groups are most fruitful when you become an active member of a group that interests you. ” via=”no”]
To do so you need to:
- Join an existing group or create your own.
- Bring your own unique angle to conversations.
- Connect with people that are engaging with a post that’s relevant to your target market.
- Acknowledge other people by liking or commenting on group posts. Learn more on how to do it, here.
Now that you know what the new LinkedIn group features mean to you as an individual or as a business, it’s time for you to start leveraging this powerful network to your benefit and get the maximum value out of it.
Grab my Presentation on SlideShare:
Time to get the ball rolling!
Still not sure how to get started with LinkedIn groups?
If you are a small and medium enterprise seeking to improve your social selling skills and get the most out of LinkedIn groups, we can help! We can help you create and maintain LinkedIn groups in a way that will allow your business to build a strong online identity, find and connect with the right people, engage effectively and foster stronger and meaningful relationships with your LinkedIn groups members!
Feel free to contact me via LinkedIn or our website for my customised training sessions.