Linked to Influence

by Stephanie Sammons

  Professional alliance groups are those where you can network and discuss industry trends with professionals who also serve your target market or niche without competitive overlap.

  I chose to start an industry-based group with members of my target market. My group is very high quality because I’ve managed it well from the beginning. Now the group has over thirty-five hundred members with new members applying daily. (I’ll share some tips on how to preserve the quality of your group later in the chapter).

  Through my LinkedIn group, I am able to position myself as a resource and consistently communicate with my members. I can also tap into my group to conduct valuable market research. Over time, my group has served as a key lead-generation source for my business as well.

  The goal for starting your own group should never be to overtly market your products and services. Instead, you want to share valuable educational and informational content with your group and engage them in discussions. It is acceptable to share your own content or whatever you deem to be valuable with your own group! It is your group, after all.

  When you add value and build influence with your group members, you will naturally attract new leads to your business from the group. Group members will learn more about you and how you help your clients over time, and they will already view you as a leader because of your position as the group owner/manager.

  Your LinkedIn group can be open or closed. Remember, open groups and discussions are discoverable within LinkedIn searches and search engines. Closed groups can be found in LinkedIn searches as well, but discussions won’t be visible. Entire group memberships are searchable within open LinkedIn groups. In closed groups, nonmembers can only see members who belong to the group from their 1st- and 2nd-degree networks.

  The benefit of an open group is it can grow much faster than a private group. However, a private LinkedIn group might be a better option if you want to create a more exclusive experience.

  If you start your own group, you will need a name for your group, a description, and a logo. Include relevant keywords within your group title and description to help your group get discovered in LinkedIn searches.

  Send Direct Messages to Your Group Members

  Another major benefit to starting your own group is having the ability to send weekly e-mail messages to your members.

  My friend, Jill Konrath, owns a very successful LinkedIn group for sales professionals (Fresh Sales Strategies). She has over fourteen thousand members in her group. Jill consistently finds valuable and “fresh” sales resources for her members and sends them out using the LinkedIn group e-mailing tool. This unique LinkedIn messaging capability allows you to get directly into the e-mail inboxes of your members.

  The biggest secret to getting members to open your e-mail announcements is having a compelling subject line!

  You can utilize this group e-mail function to send valuable updates, resources, and calls to action directly to your group members (the e-mails can include links). Essentially, this e-mailing feature is just like having an extended e-mail list. The difference is you don’t own this e-mail list, nor can you access member e-mail addresses. Still, the e-mail feature is a major benefit to becoming a group owner.

  Starting your own LinkedIn group does have significant benefits. Just make sure you are committed to growing and managing your group before you launch! It can be a lot of work.

  Managing a Successful LinkedIn Group

  The ideal group formula I have found is to create a public LinkedIn group, but build in parameters that can help you effectively manage group membership and discussions.

  With my group, I have required new members to be preapproved from the very beginning. The benefit of this is a high-quality membership and a discussion experience free of spam. The downside is that once your group becomes more popular and your membership requests pile up, someone (likely you) has to review and approve all of the membership requests. This is well worth the time in the long run.

  As a group owner, you can also adjust your group settings to preapprove all posts (including comments), or you can allow certain types of posts to go through without preapproval. I require all posts to be preapproved except for comments by existing group members.

  Even with a high-quality group membership, you will still have members who try to promote and market their own content to your members from time to time. Occasionally, a member will slip through your preapproval process and begin marketing to your group.

  To maintain the integrity of your group discussions, it is best to require preapproval for everything, which includes discussion submissions, promotions, jobs, and comments. Within my group, I don’t allow any marketing-oriented posts or any posts that are irrelevant to the members. As your group grows, you can add a group manager to help with these tasks.

  LinkedIn also allows you to create your own group rules. Unfortunately, most of your members will not read these rules. Because of this, I reiterate a summary version of the rules in my welcome message, which is also customizable. Your new-member welcome message can include a call to action for a valuable resource you offer as well. This is a great opportunity to build your e-mail list.

  Managing a LinkedIn group can be time consuming and cumbersome, depending on the size of the group. However, you can appoint additional group managers or moderators to help you as your group grows larger.

  One of the primary challenges with managing a group is keeping members engaged so that they will keep coming back to start and participate in discussions. Without any discussions going on, your members will have no reason to engage.

  Growing Your Group Membership

  When you first launch your group, you will have to go out and recruit new members.

  There are a number of ways to promote your group. You can send an invitation through your group manager settings to up to fifty of your 1st-degree connections at a time. You can filter your connections by geography and industry. The downside to this approach is that you cannot customize the invitation with your own words.

  I recommend promoting your group to industry influencers and professional alliances who are not competitors. When you ask influencers to join and participate in your group, they will inevitably help you attract new members. As your group grows, give these influencers access to post educational content freely in your group.

  You can also promote your group on other social networking sites, to your e-mail list, and to other LinkedIn groups who serve your target market or niche (do this very thoughtfully).

  Increasing engagement levels within your group can also help with growing membership if your group is public. Public group discussions and comments show up in the LinkedIn news feeds of your members.

  Unless you already have a big following in your industry or can partner with someone who does, growing a quality group is a slow and steady process.

  Keeping Up with Your Most Important Groups

  There are a couple of ways to keep up with what is happening within the LinkedIn groups you belong to.

  First, you can always visit your “Groups” page on LinkedIn to scan and search the latest discussions across all groups. You will also see recommended groups to join.

  From this same “Groups” page, you can navigate to any individual group you belong to, comment on recent discussions, or start a new discussion with any of your groups.

  Another way to keep up with group discussions is through group digest e-mails that are sent from LinkedIn. Recently, LinkedIn has aggregated group updates into a single e-mail in an effort to reduce the number of e-mails being sent to members. In your LinkedIn “Privacy & Settings” section, you can indicate which groups you want to receive updates from.

  You can also visit each group’s homepage and click on the “Information & Settings” icon (it looks like a small wheel) to configure your settings group by group. Here, you can select whether or not you will allow the group manager to send you e-mail announcements and allow or disallow mutual group members to mess
age you on LinkedIn. You can also have the group’s logo show on your profile.

  It is difficult (and probably not realistic) to try to keep up with fifty groups, so choose your top three to five groups to focus on and keep close tabs on those. I have adjusted my settings to receive weekly digests from my favorite groups and for the remaining groups, I visit my LinkedIn “Groups” page once a week or so to scan and search through their discussions.

  Many LinkedIn members have decided to curb their participation in LinkedIn groups, so it’s a wonderful time for you to do just the opposite. I strongly believe that LinkedIn is improving the groups experience and that it will not disappear. Online discussion forums have been around for years and they are a natural part of professional networking.

  Search for high-quality LinkedIn groups to join (new groups are created every day) and make it a point to participate in the groups you currently belong to. You might be surprised at how quickly you can build your personal influence in LinkedIn groups by investing just a few minutes per week!

  Chapter 7—RULE #7: Become a Thought Leader

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  The written word is still the fastest way to gather information or realize whether or not something is worth your time.

  - Daniel Roth, executive editor at LinkedIn

  Having access to modern-day online publishing tools has allowed anyone with something valuable to say to emerge as a thought leader.

  Not everyone cares to be a thought leader. However, if you really want to get ahead in your industry, market, or niche and make a name for yourself, online publishing is the way to accomplish this.

  When I started my marketing consulting firm in 2010, I had exactly zero clients. I was completely starting over. However, I had learned enough to know that I needed to start publishing my insights to a blog. I started publishing high-quality blog posts on a consistent basis that were laser focused on my ideal clients. It took four months to land my first client, but my credibility and visibility skyrocketed within my specialized niche very quickly.

  Precision is a factor when you publish online. Be sure that what you write about is going to be meaningful and valuable to your industry, target market, or niche. At the same time, incorporate your personality into your writing to create that human connection and build your influence.

  Outside of your own website or blog (where you should always publish your original content first), the LinkedIn Publishing Platform has become a valuable distribution channel for your thought leadership. The platform is now available to all LinkedIn members (if you don’t have access yet, you will).

  With this powerful content platform, you have a pretty amazing opportunity to get your content in front of clients, prospects, business advocates, partners, journalists, and influencers who may have never found you otherwise.

  I’m going to share with you how to leverage LinkedIn’s publishing platform to build your personal influence and attract your ideal clients. It is also a pretty handy tool for staying in front of your existing clients.

  Why the LinkedIn Publishing Platform

  When the platform initially launched, LinkedIn tapped well-known influencers to contribute their insights. These official Influencers are authors, speakers, entertainers, academic professors, CEOs, and more. The list of official Influencers has grown to approximately five hundred people.

  The good news is you don’t have to be officially anointed as a LinkedIn Influencer to build your influence on LinkedIn! You can leverage LinkedIn’s publishing platform to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, market, or niche, starting right now.

  Daniel Roth, executive editor at LinkedIn, describes LinkedIn’s publishing platform as “your insights, amplified.” When interviewed by James Altucher on the James Altucher Show, Roth explained, “LinkedIn can provide a network effect to your best thinking.” When you combine your thought leadership content with your network on LinkedIn, it’s a powerful combination.

  The LinkedIn Publishing Platform is primarily geared toward longer-form, text-based articles. However, you can also embed images and/or videos into your posts.

  Let me cover a few of the major benefits to publishing your content on LinkedIn:

  1) Showcase Your Professional Insights

  Publishing on LinkedIn is another powerful way to personalize your professional brand. Each post you publish is tied to your personal LinkedIn profile. In fact, your most recent posts are showcased very prominently, near the top of your profile!

  Anyone who views your LinkedIn profile can check out the posts you have published and become more familiar with who you are, what you know, and how you think.

  2) Build Relationships

  Content publishing is a form communication. Publishing valuable content on LinkedIn that resonates with your network can play a role in developing relationships. This can happen at scale. You publish your LinkedIn post once, and it continues to communicate your message perpetually. People who are moved or inspired by what you write will reach out to you and engage with you. Many of those individuals will be your ideal clients and advocates for your business.

  3) Strengthen Existing Relationships

  When you publish on LinkedIn, your posts have the potential to strengthen your positioning with your clients, prospects, professional alliances, business advocates, people in your industry or market, and the media. Your content can reinforce their trust in you.

  4) Expand Your Reach

  On average, your LinkedIn posts can receive six times the views from people outside of your immediate network. This expanded reach happens when LinkedIn members view, like, share, or comment on your posts.

  If your reach is expanding on LinkedIn, your network is going to grow as a result. You will you earn more LinkedIn followers who can spread your message (followers include 1st-degree connections, as well as members you are not connected to who can see your posts). You can also see who has viewed your LinkedIn posts and potentially connect with those individuals if it makes sense.

  5) Get Found in Online Search

  Once you hit the “publish” button on your LinkedIn post, LinkedIn search, as well as Google and other search engines, will index it.

  LinkedIn members can currently search published posts using the advanced LinkedIn search feature (you will see “Posts” listed as a search filter). LinkedIn search parameters for published posts can include keywords, time frame, and author.

  Currently, only posts from official LinkedIn Influencers will show up in your search results. However, I do anticipate that LinkedIn will eventually incorporate posts from members, or at least the most popular posts.

  6) Increase Profile Views

  Your LinkedIn published posts can generate more profile views. Remember when your profile views increase, good things can happen for your business! I covered the value of profile views in-depth in Rule #1 (Chapter 1).

  7) Enhance Your Knowledge

  I have lost count of the hours of research I did for writing this book. The one thing I can say is that through my research, I learned so much. Do the research that others aren’t willing to do in your industry, market, or niche. When you apply the research process to your LinkedIn publishing, you will also enhance your knowledge! By learning as much as you can about your topic, your LinkedIn posts will stand out.

  The benefits of publishing on the LinkedIn platform are too compelling to ignore. If you want to be viewed as a thought leader and build personal influence in your industry, market, or niche, publishing on LinkedIn is a must.

  Is the LinkedIn Publishing Platform Right for You?

  I don’t believe you have to be a journalist or expert writer to succeed with LinkedIn publishing, but I do believe you need to be an average writer. Your articles should be professional, easy to follow, relevant, and interesting. But they don’t have to be perfect.

  If you are worried that your writing won’t be up to par, you can always get help and feedback from others. I know people who hire editors to re
view their content or have their friends or spouses serve as editors.

  Writing is a skill that you can improve, and publishing on LinkedIn can improve your writing. One of the best books I’ve read that has improved my writing is Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. I highly recommend this book if you want to improve your writing! The book is a very practical guide that you can use as a resource every time you sit down to write.

  If you don’t enjoy writing, there are mobile apps available where you can record your ideas (I recommend having an outline in front of you) and have them transcribed into an article that can then be edited and cleaned up.

  To grow your following with your LinkedIn posts, you will want to cover topics that are valuable, interesting, and highly relevant to the members of your network. Knowing your audience and the challenges they face is critical (I will share some ways to determine what to write about later in this chapter).