You've heard it before: LinkedIn is an incredibly valuable place for business-to-business (B2B) social media marketing.
You know how to train your team to get the most out of their LinkedIn profiles.
You've read up on LinkedIn lead generation tactics.
You're aware of the benefits of being a top contributor in a LinkedIn group.
You feel inspired, confident and ready to dip your toes in the water of what LinkedIn has to offer. You’ve decided that this is the year you’ll finally commit to using LinkedIn strategically to build and expand your professional network and connect with qualified prospects and leads. You’ve come up with a detailed approach and excitedly started working at seeking out valuable groups to join, engage in and start dazzling your prospective buyers.
So... Why is that when you search for relative, high quality groups, you see something like this?
How can you get a word in edgewise in such full, busy, active groups? If you’re feeling intimidated, rest assured that you’re not alone. It’s easy to feel daunted by the amount of noise that most groups produce daily, but following these best practices will help you get the most out of your marketing approach to LinkedIn:
A general rule of thumb for sharing in LinkedIn Groups is that less is more. Not only will you risk being flagged for spam and losing your group membership if you oversaturate the group with your content, over sharing leads to the risk of your fellow group members finding you to be less of a helpful resource and more downright annoying. So, what's the magic formula for how often you should start a discussion in a LinkedIn group? Unfortunately, there's no set frequency guideline - instead, it will vary from group to group. If a group is more active and sees multiple new discussions started each day, you may want to start your own discussion once a week. If another group is less noisy and only sees a few new discussions each week, you may want to start your own discussion every two or three weeks instead. You can also stay relevant in a group by switching up the types of discussions that you start. Rather than consistently sharing a link to your blog post or advanced content pieces, ask a genuine, relevant question that will encourage group members to engage and share their opinions.
You might be tempted to keep your eyes on the prize and focus solely on sharing your company's content in a group, but don't discount the value of taking part in the other discussions that are going on within the group. Read through the discussions and add your two cents when appropriate. You'll not only build a sense of credibility with your peers in the group, but your conversations could also present you with the opportunity to lay the groundwork for quality relationships with some of other group members - and you never know when they'll remember you and refer you to a friend or seek out your expertise (or product or service) themselves.
Don't get frustrated if some of the discussions that you start don't garner much (if any) engagement. Realistically, you can't expect each discussion in a busy LinkedIn group to get the attention that it deserves. Committing to the group, however, and continuing to share content and regularly asking and answering questions will better your chances at being seen and engaged with. If you're still not noticing much engagement, try switching up the times that you're posting in groups. Take a look at some of the previous discussions that have performed well and try to emulate the valuable pieces of those discussions. After all, sometimes the smallest changes in detail can go a long way!
Sure, it's easy to be intimidated by large, active groups on LinkedIn or to give up when your discussions aren't garnering much attention, but by incorporating these best practices, you'll be on your way to reaping the rewards that LinkedIn Groups can offer a B2B marketer!
Topics: Social Media
