The Research Playbook

Archive for the ‘LinkedIn’ Category

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The Social Media for SMB Group is designed to help address the needs of small and midsize businesses. 

It is where business owners, and executive teams that run businesses ask questions on how to leverage social media marketing, social media research, and the broad area of internet marketing and business research to advance their opportunities.

Professionals with credentials to offer guidance, advice, how-to suggestions, resources, and other  information are invited to bring their expertise to the group.

Please join Social Media for SMB Group to learn and share your knowledge!

 

Special Report: Website Traffic Businesses and Experts Speak Out 2012

 

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Some LinkedIn groups are so good (a.k.a. “cool”) you want to share them with some or all of your connections. You can do this in a number of ways, but the simplest way is to use the LinkedIn Share group option.

Select the group you want to share. Then click on the Share group option, which you will find toward the top of the page on the right hand side.

 

 

 

When you open this dialogue box this is what you will see (of course the group you selected will replace the Social Media for SMB Group heading).

As you can quickly see this screen allows you to post an update, which is valuable, but not our focus. It also provides a check box, which will allow you to post the name of the group you want to share to other groups, again not our current focus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last check box gives you the option of sending an invitation to one or more (up to 50) of your connections. Check that box and this is what you’ll see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Type the first letter of the name of the people you want to send the invitation to and LinkedIn will supply a list of the contacts whose name begins with that letter. Add then to your send list.

Then do one more thing – personalize the message. You don’t have to write a long letter, in fact, a short one is better, but personalizing the message speaks volumes to people about how important they are and how important your message is to you.

Now you can share the groups you like and find useful with the people you think can benefit most from your discoveries!

 

 

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Many of you have asked me how to weed out the groups you belong to on LinkedIn. Sometimes you simply don’t want to be a member any longer and sometimes you have reached the LinkedIn limit of 50 group memberships and you’d like to replace less useful groups with new groups.

Either way the process is the same and it’s easy, but not obvious. Here are the steps you need to take:

Step # 1 – Go to “Groups” on the main menu and select “Your Groups” from the drop down choices

Step # 2 – Select the group from the list of groups you belong to that you would like to leave.

Step # 3 – Then click on “More..” which is the last item on the group menu (below the main menu).

Step # 4 – Select “Your Settings” from the drop down menu (you’re almost done).

Step # 5 – In the lower right hand corner of the page you will see a button for “Leave Group” click on that button and you’re done!

It’s easy, but only  if you know where to look.

 

This issue came up repeatedly when I asked people to join the Social Media for SMB group and they told me that they had reached the LinkedIn limit of 50 groups. My response was to “do what I do,” weed out the least useful groups and add new ones that have greater potential! Hint Hint.

Here’s the group link for Social Media for SMB

Have fun on LinkedIn!

 

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One of the more important elements of running a business and/or developing professionally is staying on task. And, one task we’ve talked about on many occasions is how to use LinkedIn to move you forward professionally and make progress in your business. I’m assuming this is an important topic for you or you wouldn’t be reading this article.

Here’s a basic question I’d like you to consider “What are you doing to leverage the LinkedIn (or other platform) groups you belong to?”

I think this question is worth your time to answer. There are tangible benefits we can achieve from spending time on LinkedIn groups, however, a systematic approach will yield greater benefits than a casual poke-your-head in the door one will.

First, join and embrace discussion groups to enhance your authority. You do not have to become a world renowned Guru (though that would be great) to establish a position of authority. You simply have to show you are well informed on a topic and willing to share your thoughts with others. Demonstrate that you both appreciate the perspectives of others and that you have a perspective that adds value to the discussion. You can certainly go beyond this approach, but walk before you run.

One mistake a number of people make is only joining groups related to their profession, impressing your peers is fun, but will it leverage your time on discussion groups – LinkedIn or any others? A market researcher who only joins Market Research groups will find customers there, but he or she is likely to be one voice among many. Joining a marketing or communications group where potential clients hang out (marketing departments are often the purchasers of market research) might make more sense.

It is important to find out where your prospective customers hang out and join those groups too! This may take some investigation, but it is well worth the effort. The results can be dramatic.

Here are two additional posts from last year worth reading. Each will help you to use discussion groups more productively.

Keep your discussion on the first page

Does group size matter – yes it does

Staying on task whether it’s related to group discussions or another aspect of using social media is as important as keeping up with client or customer service requirements. In fact, one way to stay close to customers’ needs is to listen closely to the discussions you take part in.

 

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When you start a new discussion, it will be displayed on the first page, but not for long, especially if you posted your discussion in large group, with perhaps 100,000 or 200,000 members. A large number of discussions might be posted on such a group and to make room for the newest topics the not-so-old discussions are pushed to the background (page 2 and then to page 3, 5, 10 etc.) relatively quickly.

 

Unless your discussion attracts comments and “likes” very quickly it may not see the light of day for very long. Unfortunately, some good discussion topics that may attract attention simply do not stay on the front page long enough for interested parties to see them and comment. However, there are ways to extend the life of your discussion and give people who have an interest time to read it and hopefully comment.

 

If your discussion is quickly noticed and even one-person comments on it others are likely to comment on it too. Once the ball is rolling, you’ll have a fighting chance to achieve a measure of sustainability. Others will be curious and take notice, which often generates more comments and so forth.

 

Nothing succeeds like success!

 

The question is how to increase the chance your discussion will attract that all-important push from one or two initial readers. The answer is to invite people you have a connection with who are also members of the discussion group and ask them to comment or at least click on the like button.

 

Of course, this tactic works best if you are connected to a large number of people who share group membership with you. If this is not the case, get to work building your contacts!
 

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