When you own a Linkedin group, it positions you as a thought leader in your industry and an expert and through a group, you can perform very effective Linkedin marketing campaigns.
It also allows you to own a network of likeminded people which you can leverage for business such as marketing your products or services.
Plus, when you use Linkedin groups for business, they can be a considerable traffic source as your links can feature permanently in the Linkedin profile of the group and you can send personalised, private messages to any group member for free and send group weekly messages too.
This is why it can come in handy to build a large and engaged Linkedin group when using Linkedin for small business.
There are many Linkedin growth hacking strategies for groups.
First, make sure your Linkedin group is keyword optimised. In other words, the name of your group and the description of your group includes keywords people are likely to search for in Linkedin’s search engine.
So if your Linkedin group is about digital marketing, make sure the name of your group and the description of your group includes the keyword “digital marketing”. If your keyword is too competitive, in other words, many other Linkedin groups appear in the search results for the keyword of your choice you might want to be more specific. For example, “digital marketing for business coaches”.
To check whether your keyword is too competitive or not, simply perform a search on Linkedin. Type in your keyword and see how many groups appear in the search results for that keyword. It’s important that yours stands out from other groups to perform more effective Linkedin marketing campaigns.
Another Linkedin growth hacking strategy for your group is encouraging existing members to promote it to their network.
Chances are, some of your members have an engaged and large following on their own social media accounts. If that’s the case, contact them privately and incentivize them to promote your Linkedin group. You can incentivize them to do so by either paying them for the promotion or offering your product or service for free, or offering to do the same for them by promoting them to your social media audience in exchange.
Simply go through the list of most engaged group members and look at their websites and social media accounts. If they have an active audience that matches your target audience, send them a personal message through your Linkedin group offering them a winwin solution if they promote the group.
Make sure that your incentive is a nobrainer, don’t try to get something for nothing. Remember, as the group owner, you have a lot of leverage, so you can even offer as an incentive to record a testimonial for that person or to endorse the person’s products and services as a thank you for promoting the group.
Another Linkedin growth hacking strategy is promoting the Linkedin group URL to your connections either by publishing a post on your newsfeed or by sending private messages to your Linkedin connections.
If for example your Linkedin group is about helping business coaches attract more clients through digital marketing, your post to promote your Linkedin group could be:
If you’re a business coach needing to grow your business further and attract the right clients, join our Linkedin group. You’ll meet likeminded people who will share insights and tips on how to effectively market yourself online and avoid the common timeconsuming and costly mistakes.
If you plan to send personal messages to some of your Linkedin connections when you use Linkedin for small business, make sure your message is personalised. Check the person’s profile carefully before you send them a message, to make sure they would benefit from joining the group and to make sure you can personalise the invitation according to what you know about them. The more personalised a message is, the more likely they will join your Linkedin group.
Another effective Linkedin growth hacking strategy is to manage it well. When you use Linkedin groups for business, you have to ensure that people don’t spam it or don’t use it as an outlet to complain. This will affect other members’ experience and they could leave the group or not invite others to join. Therefore, when you use Linkedin groups for business, check them daily and delete anything that breaks the rules of the groups and remind the rules to the members who breach them.
A well managed group is the key to keeping and growing its members and the key to running effective Linkedin marketing campaigns in the future.
Lastly, to grow your Linkedin group members when you use Linkedin for business, make the group members feel special. Don’t make the same offers to Linkedin group members as you do with other people.