LinkedIn discussion groups serve as potentially great networking hubs, connecting professionals in the business-to-business space around common interests and goals with an easy-to-use social network that includes emailed notifications and post summaries. But if a group becomes full of pushy marketing posts it can quickly turn into a toxic environment that no one wants to visit.
Joshua Rodriguez at the Content Marketing Institute lays out some tips on how to effectively market to this channel without devaluing your group with spam.
- Make a spreadsheet of your LinkedIn discussion groups and every time you have a new piece of content, flag which ones might be interested to see it.
- Don’t just post your content, but accompany it with a comment of your own or a question that invites response from the community.
- Engage in the conversation on the thread, but not with marketing pushes. Focus on creating a dialogue and follow-up with interested candidates in a direct conversation or offline.
- Pay attention to those who are contributing a lot to your discussion groups and think about ways to build your relationship with them.
LinkedIn is a platform that requires the right balance
The complaint often heard about LinkedIn is that it’s just full of people looking to promote themselves. Appearing too self-promotional is one sure-fire way to drive people away from you and turn an active discussion group into an online ghost town. Always keep in mind that you must add value to the conversation for everyone in the group if you want to really create engagement and drive discussion.