LinkedIn Groups are Making a Comeback
It appears as though LinkedIn will be putting more emphasis on integrating LinkedIn Groups into the overall LinkedIn experience. Here is a message that was sent out yesterday to LinkedIn group admins:
We’re currently working on making some changes to the LinkedIn Groups experience, and because you are a valued group admin, we wanted to give you some advance details on what’s coming. Groups is at the heart of what makes LinkedIn a trusted place for professionals to help and support one another, and the changes we’re planning will make Groups a bigger part of the main LinkedIn experience.
Our focus on re-integrating Groups back into the core LinkedIn experience means that we will no longer be able to support a standalone iOS app for Groups; that app will stop working as of February 15, 2018. But please know that your existing group memberships and contributions will not be affected as part of that change.
As a preview, here are some of the improvements you can look forward to when we roll them out to the main LinkedIn Groups web and mobile experiences:
Discover and access Groups more easily. You’ll be able to access your Groups right from the homepage, and you’ll see the latest content from your Groups in notifications and the homepage feed.
Be a part of richer conversations. You’ll be able to post videos into your groups, @mention the members you want to weigh in, and keep the conversation going by replying to comments.
Ultimately, our goal is to create an even better Groups experience within the primary LinkedIn applications, so we are putting our focus there over the coming weeks and months. We’ll be sending you updates as these improvements and many others become available. Stay tuned!
Sincerely,
The LinkedIn Team
Some of you might be wondering if it is best to start a new group or participate in one. This depends on what level of resources you plan on putting towards LinkedIn marketing. Companies with substantial resources may have enough to create, grow and maintain a LinkedIn group. This might be well worth the investment if your products and / or services are mostly business-to-business. If you don’t have substantial resources, try joining a few related, neutral (not owned by a competitor) groups and participate. Ask questions, provide tips, participate in the existing discussions. Please don’t just use this as an opportunity to promote your blog posts. If your blog post can add value to the group members, then explain this as part of your discussion. Participating in LinkedIn groups could be a great way to determine if it would be worth investing more for your own group or not. Every company needs to evaluate their own business needs and strategic objectives.
But if there is one thing that ALL companies should be doing on LinkedIn, it is creating a LinkedIn company page and updating it regularly with information that would be of interest to employees, would-be employees, business partners and business clients.
Considering the recent news about Facebook making changes to its newsfeed, digital marketers should be diversifying their online presence, if they aren’t already. If you are managing a B2B business, then LinkedIn probably can present you with some great opportunities.