From a user perspective, there are many advantages for joining and participating in LinkedIn groups. What many users and organizations on LinkedIn do not understand is that there are also powerful advantages for them to create, grow, and moderate their own groups. Here’s why: Groups are more engaging and interactive than company pages A company page on LinkedIn is an absolute necessity, but they are limited in their utility. Unlike other social platforms, LinkedIn users cannot directly message company pages, post content to company pages, or leave reviews. With a group, your clients, prospects, and fans can share content (which can be moderated) and more easily reach out to other group members and moderators. Posted content will be reflected in a user’s newsfeed, where their connections and followers can engage with it as well. This is a powerful feature in that it creates visibility for your group and users who wish to like or comment on posted group content get sent to the actual post in the group when they click to engage. [caption id="attachment_615" align="aligncenter" width="647"]Content posted into a group will also appear in users newsfeeds Content posted into a group will also appear in users newsfeeds[   LinkedIn provides free tools to help you grow your group Getting users to follow your company page on LinkedIn is hard. It requires consistently sharing high quality content and more than likely running paid ads. It can actually be easier to grow a large group membership than to build a large following on your company page, because LinkedIn provides group managers with the ability to invite people to the group. LinkedIn provides group managers two ways to send out group invitations. One way involves manually typing in connections by name. The other, more efficient, way is to upload a spreadsheet of contacts and have LinkedIn send out a mass invitation. Here is 30 second video demonstrating both: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwJzdl5aau8[/embed]

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You can read a quick tutorial from LinkedIn on how to use the feature here. Groups can be used to push content directly to members LinkedIn group managers have the ability to send out announcements to all group members through LinkedIn. This is a customizable email that goes out to all group members accepting notifications. As a marketing tool, this is a powerful function that can be used to share content such as an e-book, invite group members to a webinar, or announce new products or services. From a lead capture standpoint, try sending out an announcement with a link to gated content that is highly relevant and engaging. By requiring group members to fill out a form to download or read the e-book, you will build a list of qualified prospects. [caption id="attachment_629" align="aligncenter" width="709"]The announcements feature allows group managers to push content to members The announcements feature allows group managers to push content to members[ You can read a quick tutorial from LinkedIn on how to use the feature here. LinkedIn groups provide individual users and companies with a unique opportunity to engage their audiences in ways that company pages do not. Groups can be grown quickly, provide a powerful channel for sharing content, and when leveraged correctly can be used to build high quality leads.

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