Use LinkedIn Groups to Grow Your Business with These Three Creative Tips

Do you participate in LinkedIn Groups?  Some of you might just pop in and out of this social network’s groups to quickly scan the latest posts when you are killing time at work.  If that sounds like you, then the following three tips will help you see LinkedIn Groups for what they can be – a very useful resource to grow your business.

By the Numbers

We recently read a blog post that shared almost every LinkedIn statistic you could ever need if you were researching a blog post on LinkedIn.  One that caught our eye was the amount of groups on this social network.  As of writing this post, there were 1.5 million LinkedIn Groups.  We’re going to share some creative ideas for making the most your group experience on this social media channel.

Bright Idea

Do you have trouble coming up with quality content for your blog posts or social marketing posts?  Use LinkedIn Groups to crowdsource your content.  Find well-established, active groups and post questions related to your business or your brand’s target audience.  Then, let the group members provide you with content ideas for your social networking and blogging strategy.

Connect to Clients

This may seem obvious, but chances are many of you are not using groups to prospect for clients.  The key for connecting with clients is to not be pushy or come off like you are selling your services.  Instead, find the LinkedIn Groups where your target market interacts and start being helpful.  First, you should answer questions and provide valuable information.  Then, wait for your goodwill to attract prospects and bring clients to you.

Driving Traffic

Have you seen the latest news about Google eliminating keyword data and throwing a wrench in many businesses’ content marketing strategies?  The simple fact of the matter is that businesses need to find new ways to drive traffic to their brand content.  If you use LinkedIn Groups to answer questions, there is no reason why you can not link to your own content.  In order to not come across as link spamming, make sure you provide an answer in the group and only link out if you are connecting readers to more valuable information related to the question.

Get in the Game

These are just three tips for using groups on LinkedIn.  There are many others like branding yourself as a thought leader in your industry or finding business opportunities such as partnerships, joint ventures or speaking engagements.  None of these benefits will appear out of thin air.  You must participate – and participate smartly – in LinkedIn Groups if you expect to gain anything in return.

Have any tips you would like to share?  Our readers would love to hear from you.  Use the comments below to share your knowledge on the subject.