LinkedIn Groups - Finding And Joining Groups

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November 28, 2012 LinkedIn Groups – Finding & Joining LinkedIn Groups By Erik Bunaes, Endorphin Advisors LinkedIn is a terrific networking, marketing, sales and career enhancing platform. It is particularly good for those in professional, business careers, as all profiles are built around work experience, education, business skills and a myriad of networking groups. Here is a quick overview of LinkedIn today:

LinkedIn was launched on May 5, 2003.

As of September 30, 2012, professionals are joining LinkedIn at a rate of approximately

two new members per second.

As of September 30, 2012, LinkedIn has 187 million members in over 200 countries.

LinkedIn members did nearly 4.2 billion professionally-oriented searches on the

platform in 2011 and are on pace to surpass 5.3 billion in 2012.

More than 2.6 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages.

Source: http://press.linkedin.com/about The mass and growth of LinkedIn is impressive. Today, there are more than one million LinkedIn Groups in existence. These represent defined communities of professionals organizing themselves around topics and interests. From a marketer’s perspective, these groups of like-minded users are a dream come true. They are easily accessible, they have self-identified themselves and their interests, and they possess appealing demographic characteristics. Plus, there are easy ways to contact these people! LinkedIn Groups are possibly the most powerful feature of LinkedIn. So, how do you go about finding the most useful and appropriate groups for you and your particular goals and interests?



There are two great ways to find good groups to join.

1. Other People’s Profiles: Visit profiles of people that you are connected with on

LinkedIn. On your connections’ individual profiles, you can view the groups they have

joined. You can navigate to any group simply by clicking the logo or title of group.

2. LinkedIn Search: Use LinkedIn’s search feature by entering key words that interest you.

For example, you can search be geography (e.g. Tech Valley, Boston, East Coast) or

interest (e.g. technology, marketing, sales, accounting).

Note, the search feature in LinkedIn serves multiple functions. In screen shot below, the selector shows “Groups” but you can change that to people or companies by clicking on the small white down arrow next to the search box (see red arrow below):

Once you visit any LinkedIn Group’s page, you can learn more about the group. You can learn about any Group before you join it, to see if it is right for you. You should look for groups that have many members, and that seem to have a lot of interaction.



Here are a couple questions to ask yourself as you are researching Groups:

1. Do you recognize any Group members?

2. Are there industry leaders or prominent individuals in the Group?

3. Are Group members posting things that are interesting to you, or are they just

spamming the group with useless information or sales pitches?

4. Has there been a lot of recent activity (meaning is it an active group)?

5. Are Group members interacting with each other?

6. Are Group members generally helpful and friendly towards one another?

Group Information & Settings Notice the tabs under the group name, which include:

1. Discussions

2. Members

3. Promotions

4. Jobs

5. Search

6. More

Note, if you are the administrator of a group, there is also a “Manage” tab. Click on the “Members” tab and you will see listing of all members in the group. Under “More” tab, you will find additional useful tools and information. Tabs include:

1. Updates

2. Your Activity

3. Your Settings

4. Sub-Groups

5. Group Profile

6. Group Statistics

This is where you will find some interesting and detailed information about this particular group. Here you can manage how members of this group will be allowed to interact with you. Join the Group If you are not a member of the group, you will see a yellow “Join Group” button.



If you decide to join a Group, your request to join will be sent to the Group’s administrator or owner. Each Group can define its own membership requirements. You will be notified whether your request to join has been approved or not. Now it’s time to go out there and join some groups and get involved. Here is a good time to invite you to join the Endorphin Business Center LinkedIn Group. Our group is designed for business professionals, entrepreneurs and others interested in building their businesses, learning more about business and developing new skills to enhance their businesses (or careers). We look forward to seeing you on LinkedIn soon! Article By Erik Bunaes, Endorphin Advisors Learn more about Endorphin Advisors at http://www.EndorphinAdvisors.com or 518.250.9035. Connect with Erik on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikbunaes

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