Networking

Networking

Post image for Top 10 Largest Linkedin Groups

Top 10 Largest Linkedin Groups

by Jake on April 17, 2012

The power of groups on Linkedin should never be under estimated as it is one of the most powerful networking tools available on the site. There are well over 1.2 million groups on Linkedin so that gives you a fairly large field to play in although do remember, you are limited to joining 50 only. Due to this it is a good idea to choose wisely depending on what it is you are looking to gain from Linkedin.

If you are looking to find sales leads or hunt talent for clients or company, then it is beneficial to join the right groups that are relevant to your industry. It also helps massively if that group has a huge number of members rather than just a couple. Not that small groups are pointless, far from it. A small but highly targeted or niche group that suits your game plan is still worth engaging with.

If you bring up the groups option on Linkedin you will find that just about every conceivable niche is represented, so you should be able to find a few that are relevant to you.

A great reason to be in a large group is also the networking potential if you are looking to grow your 1st degree contacts. Now don’t go spamming people at random as this will simply get you a restricted account in no time. I get invites all the time claiming that we worked or have done business together. It’s a clear lie to try and get into my network and at best I’ll click ignore, but if someone pushes their luck I will report as spam.

But if you honestly want to network, then there is nothing wrong with making a connection and saying hi, we are both in XYZ group and I thought it might be beneficial to connect as we have a shared interest. You are far more likely to get an acceptance this way. Also, if you engage in the community discussions regularly with quality and relevant insights, then you will really boost your chances of the target person accepting your invite.

So which groups are the biggest and how many members are in them? Well let’s take a look at the top 10.

Job Openings, Job Leads and Job Connections!

#1 LinkedIn Jobs, Career and Networking Group: HR human resources recruiter recruiter’s executive executives managers management consultants consulting business marketing sales information technology finance media telecom healthcare open networkers education alumni US UK Europe Canada Asia India USA

770,147 members

Linked:HR (#1 Human Resources Group)

Leadership CHRO professional management executive executives consultant consultants coaching training HRIS SHRM ASTD corporate recruiter recruiters recruitment recruiting headhunting headhunters staffing hiring health care workforce safety employer employers employment engagement career education

640,422 members

LinkedIn Accounting OFFICIAL

Join the conversation with 500,000 other Accounting professionals. All contributions here are moderated to keep the conversation at a high level of quality. There are over a million groups on LinkedIn – discover other interesting groups at http://lnkd.in/GYML.

499,584 members

LinkedIn Residential Real Estate OFFICIAL

Join the fully moderated conversation with 500,000 other Residential Real Estate professionals. All contributions here are moderated to keep the conversation at a high level of quality. There are over a million groups on LinkedIn – discover other interesting groups at http://lnkd.in/GYML.

497,095 members

LinkedIn Entertainment OFFICIAL

Join the fully moderated conversation with 500,000 other Entertainment professionals. All contributions here are moderated to keep the conversation at a high level of quality. There are over a million groups on LinkedIn – discover other interesting groups at http://lnkd.in/GYML.

441,337 members

eMarketing Association Network

Largest marketing group with 411,000+ members. Managed by the eMarketing Association, the world’s largest Internet Marketing Association. Focus on Social, eMail, Search and Web Marketing. Open to all interested in business marketing. Join us April 3rd – 4th in San Francisco for the eMarketing Event.

417,521 members

Social Media Marketing

This is the LARGEST and most active social media group on LinkedIn.com with amost 300,000 members as of January 2012, and 20 special interest subgroups. It is intended for interactive advertising, marketing and other professionals who are actively engaged in social media and community websites.

350,589 members

The Recruiter Network – #1 Group for Recruiters

Recruiter: #1 LinkedIn Recruitment & Career Networking Social Media Group. Network with recruiters, find a job or headhunter. Read recruiting, HR, staffing, & employment news. Recruit talent, find jobs, careers, executive, alumni, and professional connection. Members in US UK Europe Canada India USA

318,994 members

The Project Manager Network – #1 Group for Project Managers

#1 Project Manager Social Media Group & Community on LinkedIn. Find PM jobs or a job in a PMO. Discuss methodology, management of projects. Research PMP certification, Prince2, CMMI, PMI PMBOK, RUP, Six Sigma, ITIL, IEEE, Agile & Scrum, Software, PDU career education. USA, Canada, UK, India, Europe.

304,171 members

Telecom Professionals

The group for Telecoms & Media discuss: New Devices & Technology, Mobile Content & Apps, Billing, IPTV, Cloud Computing, LTE, WiMax, Connected TV, Pay TV, Telecoms Marketing & Advertising, PR, Jobs, Events, Social Media, VOIP, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Symbian, 3G, Wireless, SaaS, Broadband, OSS.

260,675 members

Now I’ll be honest, if you apply some advanced Boolean logic to the group members here you will find a lot of them contain a lot of recruiters and HR professionals. But they are still huge groups and depending upon your Linkedin strategy will give you access to a vast number of people to connect with and leverage off their connections.

So take a look and play around with the group function. Use it correctly and you can really start to network like a champion. Do a search for industry. Maybe you are into digital marketing or social media? Search the groups for those keywords and see which are the largest that get returned and join them.

As a final note though, size doesn’t always mean better with Linkedin groups. Some markets are naturally small or you may find a smaller group that has a high engagement of its users. This is a good thing. Take a look at the discussions and see how well they are moderated. If it’s all spam then maybe use it to quickly network then get out and join another. If its high quality content being discussed, join in and make your mark.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Post image for Linkedin Apps That Will Rocket Your Network

Linkedin Apps That Will Rocket Your Network

by Jake on April 16, 2012

When I’m out with friends and the subject of apps comes up it is normally about the latest must have one for the iPhone, but for those of us who happen to make a living from services such as Linkedin then there are certainly a bunch of other programs that come to mind. There are some truly outstanding apps for Linkedin which if used correctly can have a really major impact on your network building and engagement efforts. Now you won’t go finding millions of apps on Linkedin but the quality is very high and some of them are really ingenious uses of the API.

So where should you start if you are new to Linkedin or just haven’t got around to actually giving any of the apps a spin? Well let’s start with a quick top 5 list of some of the best ones to get your networking effort kicked up a gear or two.

Reading List by Amazon (Linkedin)

This happens to be one the older applications that you can plug-in to your profile but also happens to be one of the best. I guess we all have our favourite genres when it comes to sitting down with a book, but it is always nice to get a recommendation or two from our peers and this is where this app comes into its own. All you need to do is activate the app on your Linkedin profile and then start to populate it with what your are reading now, have read in the past or plan on reading in the future. You can then start to look at other peoples reading lists and for those people with similar interests start following them to see what they recommend. In business it is a huge advantage to be able to find those little conversation openers that do not appear like obvious sales lines, and a common interest in books is a very subtle door opener. Look at your network connections or people you are targeting and see what they are reading now or have recommended. Drop it into chit chat and see if it brings down a few barriers for you too.

WordPress (Linkedin)

If you run a personal or business blog then odds are that you use WordPress as the actual blogging platform, and why now? It is a damn fine blogging solution and the one I use for all of my sites. The WordPress app for Linkedin is a great way to help increase your presence on the site by giving you valuable exposure across your network. It could not be simpler to set-up too, so if you’re a bit of a technophobe you will still find this one as simple to use as buttering toast. All you have to do is enter your blog site URL and you are ready to go. You can even set it up to only post those updates that have been tagged with Linkedin so that maybe some of your more personal entries don’t get published automatically to your network. Social media is increasingly driving more traffic to our businesses so I consider this app a must have.

Card Munch (iPhone)

Now this is a fascinating little app that I’ll be doing a more in-depth post about very shortly. I think many of us still have a lot of love for the good old business card I think that scene from American Psycho is one we can all relate to as we compare cards. So what does this cool little app do? Well it’s a business card scanner on your phone that synchronises the uploaded information from the card with your contacts on Linkedin. All you have to do is line the card up, take a photo of it with your phone and Cardmunch does the rest. It will cross reference all of the data on the card such as contact details and match them up with the contact on Linkedin. Then you can view the persons profile on Cardmunch and it will give you a list of mutual contacts too. It’s a free iPhone app so go and download it right now.

Tripit (Linkedin)

Tripit has been around for a long time now and is a very handy little piece of kit because it allows you to keep all your travel information such as flights, hotel and car rental confirmation emails in one central spot. How many of us have got to an airport and realised we have forgotten a confirmation? I know I have. The Tripit app for Linkedin is fairly similar as it allows you to plan out your travel and share that information with your contacts. Once this has been done you can see if any of your contacts will be in the city or location you are visiting. Very handy for instigating conversations or arranging business meetings. It will also keep track of the miles you have travelled and rank these stats against your contacts, giving you a little fun seeing who is globetrotting the most.

LunchMeet (iPhone)

So are you a fairly sociable type of person who isn’t afraid of meeting people and chatting away? If so then this little app is probably for you. What LunchMeet allows you to do is broadcast your lunch availability to people in the same city and see who is willing to agree to meet you for lunch. An interesting way to make a few new connections and maybe get introduced to a new business opportunity. Of course not everyone out there is that keen on socialising, but for a lot of people within sales this may just be the thing for getting to know new business contacts. So don’t be shy, go get out there and ‘never eat alone’ as the app says.

So there it is, a quick list of 5 app associated with Linkedin that can be used for boosting your network. Check back soon as we will review some of these in more details and discuss all of the others available too.

Photo courtesy of TAKA@P.P.R.S at flickr. Some rights reserverd