Make my coffee black!
Imagine being able to drop into a coffee shop comfortable in the knowledge that everybody in there was interested in the same thing that you are. What could you hope to gain apart from a caffeine-rush? Well for a start you can get information, news, latest developments, opinions, trends and all related to your pet subject.
Added to that you can meet new people who you could buy from, sell to or just interact with and learn from. You could even use it as a platform to show how much you know, confirm your personal belief that you are an expert and generally “get yourself around a bit” Brilliant!
Well that’s what the group feature of LinkedIn is like except without the coffee and the annoying background music.
The thing I really like about the Groups feature of LinkedIn is the way it enables you to communicate with people who have a clearly defined shared interest. If they’re not engaged with the general gist of the group why be in it in the first place?
So here are my top 7 tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn Groups: –
- Go through the profiles of your clients and prospects and see what groups they are in.
- Join the same groups.
- Spend a couple of weeks lurking around and seeing what the most popular discussions are.
- At the same time put your two-penneth in; make a few considered contributions where you can
- Launch your own discussion on a subject the group seems interested in or based on your own market knowledge
- When you seem to be developing an e-rapport with useful looking contributors invite them to join your network.
- On a weekly basis trawl through the members list and invite more useful looking people to connect.
