LinkedIn groups are a great way to establish yourself in your field and to connect with other professionals. Groups function as a place where LinkedIn members with a common professional interest, for example the fact that they’re interested in marketing or interested in leadership for women in business, can meet and exchange ideas. Within each group, there are opportunities for discussion, product or service promotions, job opportunities and more, and perhaps the greatest advantage is the chance to discuss and network with others in your field of interest.
There are currently thousands of different groups to choose from on LinkedIn, so getting started by finding the right group for you can be a little bit intimidating at first. There are two good ways to find a group: search for one you may like, or check LinkedIn’s recommendations for you. On the toolbar at the top of the screen, you’ll see a section called “Groups,” and if you hover your mouse over it a drop down menu will appear. You’ll see an option called “Groups You May Like.” If you click on this option, you can see some groups that LinkedIn believes may interest you based on the information you have given LinkedIn about your profession, skills, and interests. This tool is a good place to start, as it may give you some decent suggestions, but some of their suggestions can be way far off from your actual interests, so be prepared for that. If you don’t find what you’re looking for here, go back to the “Groups” drop down menu and try “Groups Directory.” Here you’ll find a list of featured groups in the center, but what’s even more helpful is the search box on the left side of your screen. Here you can input keywords relating to what you’re interested in (such as “marketing” or “women in business” or “University of Maryland”), then select a group category (such as alumni groups, corporate groups, or nonprofit groups), and finally select the language you’d like to find a group in. With this search tool, it becomes easy to find groups that are really tailored to your interests.
If you don’t find what you like through any of these methods, try creating your own group! You can create a group by going once again to the “Groups” dropdown menu and selecting “Create a Group.” This will take you to a screen that allows you to customize your group, with details including the group name, type, logo, summary, access preferences, language, and many other choices. You will also have the choice of whether you’d like to create an “Open Group” or a “Members Only” group. An “Open” group allows anyone to see your discussions, and allows search engines to find your group. On the other hand, in a “Members Only” group, discussions can only be seen by members, only members can contribute, search engines can’t index the group, and it cannot be shared to Twitter or Facebook. After you’ve chosen all your settings, you will have the option of inviting members, and then you can get started! One important thing to know is that when you create your own group, you’ll take on the role of group manager, which gives you control over requests to join, group settings, group rules, group ownership and much more.
So once you’ve found or created a group, what’s next? Within a group, members can post different discussion questions such as, “What is the value of a Facebook “like” for a company in my field?” or “How does your company use Search Engine Optimization for marketing?” and other members can respond and comment. Members can also post interesting articles, opportunities or professional tips, such as “2 Simple tricks to bring your Website’s Bounce Rate Down” or “To all New Jersey Internet Marketers and Bloggers! Come join us Tuesday, January 16th!” Any group member can also respond to those posts as well. Members can also put polls on their group to ask the opinion of other group members. To post a question or a poll, look at the top of the screen where you will see a box that says, “Start a:” and has two buttons next to it labeled “Discussion” and “Poll”(you usually need to be a member of a group to see this). Click the “Discussion” button or the “Poll” button depending on which you’d like to post, and then for a discussion, just type the header or title of your post in the white box beneath for a discussion (this should be your main point or question, and is limited to 200 characters) and in the white box beneath that type the rest of your text to include more details or information. For a poll, type the question in the first white box (which is limited to 200 characters), and then use the boxes below to write the answer choices (limited to 40 characters each). For a discussion, you may also choose to include an internet link by clicking the blue “Attach a Link” icon on the bottom left of the gray box, and for a poll you may choose a date to end the poll using the calendar icon in the bottom right of the gray box. When you’re done, just click the blue “Share” button at the bottom right of the gray box (just beneath the calendar icon), and your post will appear on the group page.
If you’d like to interact with the posts of others, you can hover your mouse over the post to get the options to: Like, Comment, Unfollow, or, under the “More” tab, you can Flag as Promotion, Flag as Job, or Delete. Flagging as a Promotion or Job will move the discussion to either the Promotions page or the Jobs page. Also, you can click “see more” at the bottom right of any post to see the post in its entirety with all of the comments on that post.
Under the Group title, you’ll notice a tool bar with seven options. The “Discussions” tab includes polls and discussions, and the “Members” tab allows you to see the members of the group, see new members, or search for members. The “Promotions” tab allows you to see all recent product and service promotions, or to post your own promotion by clicking the green plus sign in the upper right corner. The “Jobs” tab works similarly, where you can see all jobs discussions, search for jobs, or post your own job discussion by either typing in the gray box on the “Jobs” page (just as you would for a normal discussion) or by clicking on the green plus sign as you would to start a Promotion. The “Search” tab allows you to search all discussions and polls. The “Manage” tab allows you to manage the group and control several setting if you are the group owner.
Then, of course, the final “More…” tab gives you several options: you can see “Updates,” “Your Activity,” “Your Settings,” (which manages your public visibility settings and the ways you can be contacted) the “Group Profile,” “Group Statistics,” and “Subgroups.” The first three are rather self-explanatory, but these last three are very interesting tools. The Group Profile shows you the group type, owner, date of creation, and description of the group, while the Group Statistics show you things like the number or members, who has seniority, the number of recent comments, recent activity levels, and the demographics of group members.
Finally, a group can have up to 20 subgroups, which allow for more focused discussion and sharing within the larger group. Only managers can create these subgroups, and only group members can join the subgroups. If you are a group manager, you can create a subgroup by clicking the “Manage” tab and then choosing “Subgroups” from the left side of the page. A green plus sign will appear center screen allowing you to “Create a subgroup,” at which point you’ll once again have many choices about the subgroup’s name, logo, language, descriptions, and membership. Subgroups function just like regular groups, with all of the same options as a group would have.
Groups are a great way to meet other professionals and get involved, and it’s easy to find one that’s right for you and start discussing, promoting, and finding opportunities!
By Sara Calvert, Howard County Public School System, Gifted and Talented Program
Works Consulted
“Help Center.” LinkedIn. LinkedIn Corportation, 2012. Web. 1 Feb. 2012.
<https://help.linkedin.com/>.
“Your Groups.” LinkedIn. LinkedIn Corportation, 2012. Web. 1 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.linkedin.com/myGroups?trk=hb_side_grps_top>.
