Managing Groups in LinkedIn so far didn’t require a whole lot of management, nor was it very useful to those who created them. While other social networking services have long incorporated ways for group administrators to communicate more efficiently with their members, LinkedIn for whatever obscure reason never even bothered to create a feature that allowed admins to e-mail group members directly for the sake of sharing announcements.
I got an e-mail from LinkedIn just now letting me know that this feature is now finally being added, “in response to overwhelming demand from group managers” (no kidding) and that group managers can now blast out e-mails with announcements and create a discussion topic that members can comment on automatically in the process. As a privacy measure, LinkedIn is removing the ability to download or view member e-mail addresses.
Furthermore, as announced in the e-mail and on the corporate blog, group owners and managers can now create a custom news stream they consider relevant for the group by enabling support for importing custom RSS and Atom feeds. As an aside, check out which blog they’re featuring in the screenshot!
Last but not least, Group managers now have control over whether to enable the jobs discussion capabilities within their group or not, a feature that allows members to discuss job opportunities without cluttering the main conversation. This is of course a big part of what makes LinkedIn so popular, especially in this economic climate.
linkedin seems nice in theory, but I would be curious to know how many people get real utility from it?
I canceled my account some time ago and bet about half are dead.
Hi David
I have found LinkedIn a valuable tool in lots of respects from Groups and of course the networking. The only words are you have to work at it and choose you networking contacts carefully. certainly better the card index or outlook
Graham
Hi David,
I’m sure there are certain users that could say that about any social networking site out there. However, I have reconnected with many past work colleagues and college classmates that I lost track of well over a decade ago, and I can’t imagine many of those contacts occurring anywhere else (Facebook has been helpful in that regard also, but not as often with former co-workers). In fact, just this morning I reconnected with one of my managers from over 13 years ago on LinkedIn.
Joe
David, it’s great to see someone calling out the Emporer’s New Clothes rather than just toe the line on LinkedIn being some fantastic business utility.
Networking is just a means to an end, not a goal in itself. Once you’ve reconnected with ex-buddies the novelty wears off and it starts to get hard to see real business benefits unless you are job hunting.
There are no tools to help easily engage you with specific individuals who have a need for what you do. Even if you find them and reach out, you have getting your account restricted as a spammer as someone below pointed out, because LinkedIn advises you only connect to people you know.
They’ve done a great job of selling people’s e-mail address books back to them as a revolution in networking!
I took all the things I didn’t like about LinkedIn after 5 years on there into consideration when I built WeCanDo.BIZ. We are growing but you’d be amazed how many people reply to invitations from contacts to join our site saying “I’m already on LinkedIn” even though they aren’t getting sales leads, engaged with potential customers or anything they can quickly turn value on.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
I gained my last two clients from Linkedin and they just checked my website for my phone number. Linkedin is NOT a Social Media site it is a Professional tool for solving challenges. So if you go to it think it is the next Facebook you will be disappointed.
Also I just posted this blog posting on my Twitter – Using Linkedin:
http://twitter....m/Usinglinkedin
Martin Brossman
LinkedIn has been a great tool and resource, all three pieces of my practice has retained new business from this tool. On a side note; I have connected with great people across the globe. Its always about using the tool effectively.
@david,
I am about to get my masters, meaning I’m on the job hunt. I’ve had great success with LinkedIn and Twitter, and haven’t even used the more traditional sites like monster or careerbuilder.
I think it obviously depends on what industry you’re in, but for mine (search engine marketing), it’s a very useful networking tool.
-Peter
ok… then what???? I agree w/David. I have a free account that I ignore on a regular basis.
Not the most user-friendly site.
It could be because of their weird pay-upgrade scheme.
Talking about the e-mail addresses masked from the group administrator – THIS IS A WRONG MOVE.
It’s even more wrong that it has been done without warning.
Maybe… MAYBE I would approve masking e-mails from administrators but showing them to the group owner… but it still would be questionable.
Congratulations with your first voluntaristic move, Reid! Way to go! You will become a World of Warcraft banning people in thousands for ‘violations’ and changing the service without any notice pretty soon.
See, people on LinkedIn are NOT stupid kids or obsessive BSers like FB ‘clientelle’, these are PROFESSIONALS in case you didn’t notice. You can’t you just CAN NOT impose rules on them as you please all of the sudden.
And by the way it’s just a stupidity, because e-mails are displayed to the admin when new members apply to join the group. We should copy-paste these e-mails into a table manually of course… Right.
Funny. You are just funny with your ‘crowd-sourced’ mentality people.
David, you are right. That is what you get in a monopolistic situation. Linkedin has enjoyed zero competition and it clearly show based on their lack on interest on their own site.
Not to mention, they are becoming more and more irrelevant. People spamming the hell out of each other. I am getting connection request from 100’s of people who i have never met.
The fact that LinkedIn has survived so long, is very surprising. I hope someone will put LinkedIn out or at least give them a little jolt.
I’ve been using LinkedIn for years now and have actually found it really useful – especially since the groups were set up. I have since linked up with a number of really useful contacts and hope that the groups option creates more and more a pool for knowledge sharing.
I have been using LinkedIn since it was launched. I find it an excellent tool for keeping track of co-workers from previous companies as well as business contacts. Think of it as a giant electronic Rollodex that updates itself. As stated abloe, it is also an excellent tool when searching for a job.
Good moves except for removing the ability for group owners to download member emails. I sort of understand why, but I still wish I had that option.
I view the groups I manage as my groups, not LinkedIn’s groups. Why should they have access to member email addresses but not me?
Nice post! Check out my site as well at http://macmaniapodcast.com.
I’ve had a “restricted access” LinkedIn discussion group for my business for about a month.
In it, I pose questions about client preferences and ask for feedback about product ideas. More than 100 of our clients have joined the group (more join every day), and they’ve been generous with their commentary and counsel.
LinkedIn has really stepped it up over the last eighteen months, and I’m especially impressed with the discussion group functionality. Glad to see they keep the improvements coming.
Linkedin is IMO the most useful social network for business but as mentioned it really depends on what line of business you are in. Its obviously B2B. We have had great success using it to drive registrations for our home improvement community. My only complaint is if you truly use it to network you have to contact people, and if only like 5 poeple say “I dont know this user” when you invite them to connect, you risk being flagged as a spammer and banned.
Hi
I have found LinkedIn a valuable tool in lots of respects from Groups and of course the networking. The only words are you have to work at it and choose you networking contacts carefully. certainly better the card index or outlook
Graham
I hope those RSS feeds don’t overwhelm group members. I know I’d want the feeds filtered for good content not just spam. PostRank filtering could be a pretty helpful feature in my obviously biased pov.
We’ve have a hell of a time connecting with LinkedIn to get the nod for API access and get on their partner list. We’d love to provide feed filtering for the group news service. Wish we could at least have the conversation.
LinkedIn can be useful if they get their act together. So far they have been so unresponsive in fixing their bugs, that I canceled my premium account with them. If their bugs prevent members from growing their networks, they will use other alternatives. I have.
You will find that the new release is not well accepted by the group managers
LinkedIn Groups Product Forum
http://www.link...ck=%2Eanh_51082
Linkedin hasn’t answered yet the negative reaction of those of us using the download of email adress for cross platform interaction or real life interaction. (Association, Alumni, Organizations etc.) The sharing of email adress by group members to the group manager has always brought an additional level of trust that was also a way to reduce spaming within the groups.
Bad, very bad move from Linkedin. Group managers are organizing themselve to have this feature re activated.
we ask for immediate re activtion of this functionality.
Group managers are organized in groups for better action, for example the SuperGroup Founders group with an agregate 5 Million users reprented in those SuperGroups.
http://www.link...ups?gid=1204737
LinkedIn remains a slightly-moving target. These group changes are a continuing effort to get it better…
It will be good to send a message to a group, but it may not be such a good thing to pull email addresses – time will tell.
It is still the best professional networking platform out there.
If you wanted to use it as a personal spamming platform, you may be very unhappy… Of course, that was never what it was intended to be.
steve
–
Steven Tylock
http://www.link...naltrainer.com/
I never will understand what took them so long to introduce this functionality…..
Over the last two years (whilst gainfully employed) I had over six job offers and reconnected with some great mates I used to work with in Europe in FMCG marketing and Internet marketing. I am now located in Australia and have been conecting with people whom I belive professionally are worth staying in touch with to benefit both connectees.
I have had nothing but positive experiences with LinkedIN. Also it allows for recruitment consultants to keep in touch with their core candidate pool whilst being able to filter relevant and irrelavent candidates through a simple interface. I am sure they love it.
To not particpate in this community is almost the beginnings of a death knell for your virtual online ‘career’. As William Gibson recently forecast “the new poverty will be that of a lack of social connectivity” in other words exclusive ‘Gated Online Communities’.
Participate or die! (Aacker did not say that
)
Gibson, also predicated the internet and the ultimate mash-up of cyborb tech.
Cheers Clinton.
And the SPAM has started!!!!!
With most tools, expectations have to be backed by an understanding of its value to the individual and a larger group.
I look at Linked In as a valuable addition to my professional toolset – marketing my professional profile and a way to exchange work related ideas with other professionals in my areas of competency and interest.
I’ve been quite happy with my experience with Linked In and I use Facebook for my family and social circle.
What about making Linkedin’s group names shorter or meaningful?
This is my group URL:
http://www.link...p;trk=hb_side_g
The premise of linkedIn seems good, but the site is very difficult to use. Maybe because of that, I have never quite seen the value in having a paid account so I wonder how they are getting people to pay them? The groups idea seems interesting, but I never really knew it existed until now – ha
LinkedIn has been an effective tool for all three pieces of my practice. We have been using this tool since 2004; I have also made great contacts across the globe. Its like any tool, use it correctly and it will add value.
Groups are a good way to connect with more people without having your invitations restricted with email verification.
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