Which LinkedIn Groups should I join?

Good morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to the world of social media.

So you have a LinkedIn profile and you have been updating your status (I hope) and answering questions (I hope), then you have looked at the groups and there are 000s and you are just not sure which ones to join…  First up, let me tell you that LinkedIn limits you to joining a maximum of 50 groups.  Second up, you will find it EXCEPTIONALLY hard to be regularly active in 50 groups unless you don’t have much else to do.

Before I look at groups I hope that you have worked out why you are using LinkedIn… it could be because:

• You want to connect with more people in your industry and network
• You are trying to meet potential customers
• To reinforce your position as an expert
• You heard there were 70 million people on it and thought hey I have to be there…

Whatever reason you are using LinkedIn will determine the groups you are interested in joining, there are over 55,000 groups to choose from and if you can’t find one that you like then you can create your own.

Why bother to join a group?

• Network with peers
• Brainstorm ideas
• Learn
• Look for jobs
• Meet people from other industries working in the same field
• Grow your reputation
• Post articles
• Network with prospective clients
• Promote your business (in a nice non-pushy way)

As you can see there are lots of good reasons for joining a group, but part of the point of joining a group is not just to have a nice badge on your profile, but to actually interact with people.  Choose the groups that relate to your purpose for using LinkedIn, for example I am a member of Social Media Marketing and Social Media Australia amongst others.  I use these to get to know people within my industry, share advice, ask for advice and find out about people who need help with social media – we’re quite a friendly bunch with referrals depending on each others expertise.

Other groups I belong to are networking groups such as Anthill where I find out about networking events that are happening, if people are looking for speakers and can also engage with people to see where they need help with social media which helps write blog posts like these   Plus other groups such as the Sydney Networking Group I use to chat to people about where they would look for information on social media, which helps me to make sure that I am talking in the right places about Social Rabbit.

I hope that these examples have given you some ideas about what you can achieve with groups, and will inspire you to get onto LinkedIn and start looking for the groups that you are really going to enjoy interacting in.  I’d love to hear which you recommend….

If you loved this LinkedIn blog post, then get excited because for 7 days from Aug 2nd to Aug 8th I will spend a whole week focusing on LinkedIn – how to maximise your profile, how to connect with people, answering questions, putting up events, you name it, and more or less it will be covered.  So stay tuned for the LinkedIn marathon!