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Finding the Right LinkedIn Groups to Join
With many thousands of groups from which to choose, picking the right groups can seem overwhelming at first. Here are several ways to find the perfect groups to meet your goals:
- Let LinkedIn recommend groups for you. On the global navigation bar, select Groups You May Like from the Groups drop-down menu. LinkedIn displays a list of potential matches based on your profile content.
- Search the Groups Directory. If you want to search groups by keyword or group type, consider searching the Groups Directory. On the global navigation bar, select Groups Directory from the Groups drop-down menu. In the Search Groups box, specify the keywords you want to search on, the type of group you're looking for (such as an alumni or professional group), and the language of your target groups (English, French, or Spanish, for example).
- Look at what groups other LinkedIn members belong to. When viewing someone's profile, scroll down to the Additional Information section to see a list of groups this person belongs to. Click the link of a group that looks interesting to find out more about it and to potentially join the group.
For example, if you indicate that you're a business analyst on your profile, LinkedIn suggests groups related to that profession (see Figure 1). If one group stands out as a particularly good match, you can join it by clicking the Join button. Clicking the Similar Groups link displays other groups that share a similar audience.
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Figure 1 See which groups LinkedIn suggests for you.
For example, you could search on a profession such as marketing, an industry such as aviation, a professional group such as the PMI (Project Management Institute), or a location such as Los Angeles. Trying different combinations of keywords often returns different results, so get creative with keywords to discover the greatest number of potential matches.
Looking at your colleagues' group membership should give you some good ideas about the groups you should belong to as well. Also review the profiles of your competitors and others in your industry for additional inspiration.
Remember that LinkedIn allows you to join only 50 groups. This is plenty for most people, but if you use LinkedIn for business development you could discover that you reach the 50-group limit quickly.
To evaluate the potential benefits of a group, click the group's name in search results or on a profile to open its group description—where you can read a group summary, see how many members it has, and view a list of members in your network. If you reach your maximum and want to join more groups, it's easy to leave current groups that no longer provide value.
In general, a larger group offers more networking opportunities than a smaller one unless the group is highly targeted. A general-interest group about social media with 25,000 members is probably a better place to network than a group on the same topic with only 250 members—unless the smaller group is focused on a specific audience.
Some examples in this case would be a group for social media professionals in Indianapolis or a group focusing on social media for environmental non-profits.