Page 200 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

One great benefit of joining a LinkedIn group is that you can directly connect with
members of the group without having to use InMail.

Starting your own group

If you have determined that starting your own group will help you meet your
business goals, you’ll be happy to know that LinkedIn provides a great framework
to do so. The most important thing to consider before starting is whether you have
the time and enthusiasm to be the leader. Managing a group takes work. If you
start a group and then let it falter, it reflects badly on your professionalism. With
more than 640 million people as potential members, you can develop a solid group
fairly quickly, but it’s your responsibility to keep it lively and active.

Imagine yourself as the host of a party that needs your attention to be a success.
This is particularly true for small business owners who wear all the hats in their
organization. Picture yourself running this group a year from now and see how
that fits into your plans.

Rather than hope that everyone will police their own groups, LinkedIn has set
some guidelines that can be accessed from https://www.linkedin.com/help/
linkedin/answer/61178/linkedin-groups-best-practice. Some of the guide-
lines include the following:

» You can send only one email a week to members of your group.

You can envision the amount of email that could be generated by a group
leader eager to connect (and sell things) to his members. Limiting email
communications helps everyone control the information flow.
» The group must either be open or closed (by invitation only).
You can choose to have an invitation-only group or an open one, as shown in
Figure 11-2. If you choose a closed group, members must be approved by the
group leader and are the only ones who can see and participate in
discussions.
If you choose to have an open group, anyone can join. You should be aware
that the discussions generated in an open group can be seen by anyone on
LinkedIn, not just group members. In addition, the content can be shared on
Facebook and Twitter.

Leaders of open groups can decide whether everyone on LinkedIn can
participate in discussions or just be able to view them.

184 PART 3 Reaching Your Audience via Mainstream Social Platforms