Linkedin Groups – Nicole Munoz Consulting

How to Join the Best LinkedIn Groups

The one place you can find everyone – recruiters, influencers, potential networking connections and prospective clients – is within LinkedIn Groups. Known for their strong focus, Groups provide a unique way for you to become visible, known and trusted – without members even being connections.

You can:

Give and get feedback
Ask questions
Answer questions
Present offers
Share resources
Invite people to share your content and visit your site

And best of all – monitor the response you get to all of the above.

You can also share links freely with Groups – but don’t use this as an excuse to spam. Always make sure that any links you share are highly relevant, timely and interesting, with a clear purpose for sharing.

LinkedIn has done away with the ability to create polls for Groups, but you can now perform some actions that weren’t approved before: Namely…

Post job discussions and promotions
Flag or delete posts according to Discussion Types

(If in doubt as to what you can and can’t do, check out Changes to Groups Format in the Help section.)

Used regularly, consistently and wisely – with a clear goal in mind – LinkedIn’s Groups feature remains one of the best arenas in which to conduct business research.

When you join the right Group, you can use it to check out:

Areas of the common Group interest that its members are having trouble with
Gaps in available resources and products
Resources or products currently available
Complaints about competitors, or existing products or services
Complaints about lack of products or services currently available
Brainstorming sessions and ideas
Community culture
Industry or niche influencers
Competitors

So how do you know which Groups to join?

Get into the habit of scrolling down LinkedIn’s right-hand, vertical sidebar. That’s where you’ll find suggestions tailored to your Profile – including “Groups You May Like”.

In addition…

1. Make a commitment to spend time daily monitoring or interacting with your Group or Groups.

2. Decide how many Groups to join.

3. Find Groups that are active, with ongoing discussions and dialogues.

4. Avoid Groups that are too big (over 1,000 members) or too small.

Taking these simple steps ensures you’ll create maximum visibility and interaction – which in turn will impact your searchability when others research you. Successful Group participation also creates trust and shows you without any need for third-party apps or stats who to follow – and learn from.

How to Connect with the Right People on LinkedIn

by Nicole Munoz

LinkedIn is a fertile ground for those wanting to research almost any business niche or industry. Even with all its adjustments and changes over the last several years, LinkedIn still remains the most business-oriented social network, with a strong slant towards jobs and careers – as well as on networking, in the truest, most traditional sense of the word.

LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to “Friend” everybody like Facebook does. In fact, indiscriminate contacting is considered a major LinkedIn faux pas. This social network operates with contacts restricted to first, second and third level contacts… and also Group contacts.

Without diligent networking, it can take a long while to build up a solid contact base – but do avoid the typical beginner mistakes, which are:

Adding everyone in your email accounts, past workplaces and educational institutions. Stick to those people who share or influence your interests, goals and industry only
Recommending everyone they can – whether or not they’ve ever worked with them before
Joining too many Groups; then not bothering to monitor or interact
Joining Groups that are inactive

Finding the right people on LinkedIn is a vitally important foundation to lay – so choose or accept contacts carefully and with an overall goal in mind. After all, you want to be able to monitor your business branding feedback and interaction – as well as research others.

Who should you connect with on LinkedIn? The network will offer to search your friends via email accounts, previous and current workplaces, professional organizations and educational institutions first.

Only connect with those who:

Are in related or similar careers
Possess similar interests
You are currently networking with in other areas of your life
Possess skill sets you can learn from
Are consistently active on LinkedIn

If you find someone you’d like to connect with, but you don’t know them:

a) Follow them, if you can

b) Look for someone you already know to introduce you (but make sure you have an excellent reason to want to be introduced)

c) Look for Groups they are active in. Join this Group (providing it is actually a good fit for you and your goals) and make sure you are consistently active there too.

You can invite people to become first level contacts by accessing the See who you already know on LinkedIn page.

How to Use LinkedIn to Increase Your Leads

by Nicole Munoz

If you are still on the fence about how LinkedIn can help you expand and grow your influence, it’s time to jump in. One of the strategies for generating leads online is to be everywhere your potential customers are. But even with a presence in a variety of places, sales and leads aren’t guaranteed, your company’s brand, your services and products do gain visibility. The social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn are the most popular of these platforms.

LinkedIn, as the social network focused on professionals, can increase your leads if used in the right way.

According to an internal study of Hubspots customers, they found that LinkedIn connections generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, higher than both Twitter and Facebook. To get those leads you have to promote your business and share links to the landing pages of your services and offers in your Status Updates, in the Answers and Groups and of course the Products and Services sections.

So how do you get lead generations? There are many ways to attract leads on LinkedIn. Here are a few you can implement right away.

Ask for connections. It’s hard to believe but you can just ask for leads. When someone views your profile, you want to be able to capture them with a call to action and good content. In your summary or in a video, let the prospect know you would love to have their connection on LinkedIn. Connect with everyone who asks to connect with you as well. You never know when one of those connections can lead to a big sale.

Respond to and answer questions. Give the most informative answers you can and add a lot of value by being a resource for the person asking the question. Follow up on the replies with private messages letting them know how you can be of more assistance.
Showcase your credibility. Recommend others. Give others a good recommendation when you find someone with a great product or service. In turn ask others you have worked with to give you recommendations. Having good recommendations increases your credibility which leads to sales.
Join 10 of LinkedIn’s Groups. Even with a free account you can join up to 50 groups. Sign up for at least 10 of them in the beginning. Just make sure they are a good fit for your goals. Research them to find the most active ones and are filled with your target customers.
Get rid of the resume profile. Your profile should be more results-based and customer centered. You want your profile to represent you in the best way for those checking you out.

LinkedIn is one of the fastest and most powerful professional oriented social media platforms online. In the hands of the B2B marketer, LinkedIn, along with other social media sites, should be a part of your marketing strategy. By leveraging the many tools and built-in services LinkedIn has to offer you can generate leads and make lasting and profitable connections.