Social Networking: Leveraging the LinkedIn Groups in Practical Ways
Social Networking: reaching out to a thinking network of people. You don’t want promiscuous networkers who link up just to add numbers -- that’s not effective. People in LinkedIn Groups are usually more focused and effective.
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PrintThere are times where i really don't like to reveal my secret ways of prospecting. But I am, at heart, a collaborative guy and I want to help the companies I work with and my readers (growing steadily, thank you everyone).
LinkedIn Groups: My friends, if you are not using LinkedIn for your own professional development, networking, and general awareness of new business and sales opportunities, you are missing out. Maybe others tell you they don't get much value from LinkedIn or from Facebook. I think I've said it before and so have many others -- you get out what you put in.
Here's the thing -- maybe you don’t like to answer questions in the general areas of LinkedIn. You can go deep into your own areas of expertise or industry by joining the appropriate groups. I do this for myself and for my clients. We think strategically and join the most appropriate groups. This isn’t to build a network of 5000 people that you don’t know or want to know, but to expand your network with the right people.
Recall the lessons from the Centers of Influence study -- it isn’t about who has the most people in their network in many cases. It isn’t about the so-called A-list bloggers or highly networked LinkedIn players. It is about touching and tapping the people who are more likely to talk to others about what you do. Often, those folks have a decent size network, but not necessarily huge.
I’ll be writing more about online lead nurture in the coming weeks as I’m weary of the current lead generation methods -- collect names and bombard them with emails and direct mail and telemarketing calls.
Back to LinkedIn Groups -- I’ve read that you can join 50. That’s a lot of groups if you do it in a targeted way. So, you join the group. You sign up for the weekly digest of activity by email (or maybe RSS, if that’s available yet) and you see some relevant questions you can answer.
Better yet, you see people you want to meet or learn more about. And because you are a member of the group, you can reach out to them most of the time.
And don't forget to check out the Sales Rescue Team project
