The Transcript

Little-Known Strategies for Using LinkedIn Groups Effectively

Voiceover: This is The Missing Link with your host, the insufferable, but never boring, Sean Jackson.

Sean Jackson: Hello everyone, and welcome to The Missing Link. I’m your host, Sean Jackson, joined as always by the unique and differential, Mica Gadhia. Mica, how are you?

Mica Gadhia: I am excellent today, Sean. And how are you?

Sean Jackson: As always, I am doing fantastic. I am especially excited about today’s show. Can I tell you why?

Mica Gadhia: Yes.

Sean Jackson: Okay, let me tell you. Because as you know, this whole show is about LinkedIn. There’s one feature of LinkedIn that when I started playing with it, I got so damn excited about. I was like, “This is the ultimate marketing tool for people doing social networks.” And that feature is: groups.

I love LinkedIn groups from a marketing perspective. They’re some of the most powerful free features inside of LinkedIn that I think change the way people market on that particular social network. I think this is absolutely essential — to understand how to use groups effectively — if you’re serious about marketing on LinkedIn. Wouldn’t you say that, Mica?

Mica Gadhia: Love it. Yeah! Let’s learn about groups.

Sean Jackson: I know, I know. I think this is absolutely awesome. In fact, when people sign up for our text messaging at 41411 with the keyword MYLINK (all one word, don’t let it autocorrect), we send you a link to a LinkedIn group so that you can start participating in the conversation. The reason I designed the show to push that LinkedIn group is because it’s hugely powerful in the ongoing conversation we want to have with our audience. Mica, what do you think of the LinkedIn group we’ve got, by the way?

Mica Gadhia: I love it. And I am loving all the people that have joined us so far already.

Sean Jackson: I know, and it’s great! This is one of the powers of the LinkedIn group concept, that people are asking questions on our LinkedIn group. They’re coming in and they’re doing it because they’re sending a text to 41411 with the keyword, MYLINK. For our international people, please remember our SMS does not work outside of the U.S. — it’s their fault, not mine.

Mica Gadhia: We love you.

Sean Jackson: We love you, so we sent you missinglink@rainmaker.fm. If you just email that email address — missinglink@rainmaker.fm — I’ll get you an invitation to that group if you’re international. But if you’re U.S., please go ahead and get to that text messaging. Because our LinkedIn group is awesome. Today we have someone who I think is an absolute expert in using LinkedIn groups. I am so excited we have our following guest, Mr. Jabez LeBret. Pretty cool name, don’t you think?

Mica Gadhia: Yes.

Sean Jackson: I know. It’s funny because I met Jabez at Pubcon. We were on a panel together talking about LinkedIn. Out of like 100 panels they had going on at Pubcon, there was only one on LinkedIn. Jabez and I were there with this other guy. We were talking about all these different tactics, et cetera, and I was looking at Jabez’s presentation. I was like, “Man, that guy is really smart.”

Then somebody from the audience asked a funny, kind of hacky question about LinkedIn. It was really kind of interesting. I was sitting there going, “Hacking LinkedIn that way…hmm.” I look over — there’s Jabez going, “Hmm, that’s an interesting hack.” I was like, “This is a guy I got to talk to,” because he and I were thinking the same exact way on how to use LinkedIn to the benefit of a marketer. After that, we became friends. We talked. This guy’s stories about how he uses LinkedIn is awesome.

Mica Gadhia: Oh, that’s cool. I’m excited.

Sean Jackson: If you have a chance, look up Jabez LeBret on LinkedIn. Did you do that, Mica?

Mica Gadhia: In fact, I did look up Jabez LeBret on LinkedIn.

Sean Jackson: And?

Mica Gadhia: And he is cute. Can I say that? He is a real looker.

Sean Jackson: You know, I would agree with you.

Mica Gadhia: And I’m impressed with what he’s doing too.

Sean Jackson: I would agree with you. Because you said that … Mica, are you up for a three-way with Jabez?

Mica Gadhia: Oh, Sean.

Sean Jackson: Mica, I mean a three-way interview. Come on now, Mica.

Mica Gadhia: I could do an interview with Jabez LeBret. Yes.

Sean Jackson: As soon as we come back from the break, we are going to have a three-way interview with our friend, Jabez LeBret.

Mica Gadhia: Podcasting is a great way to build your online authority, but the key to success is to publish online. The Rainmaker platform makes that easy. Rainmaker is the complete online marketing solution that makes it easy and simple to execute your online marketing strategy. Whether you need a design, landing page, or a simple way to publish your own podcast, Rainmaker is the solution for you. Head on over to Rainmaker.FM/platform right now, and sign up for your free, 14-day trial, because this is the same tool that we use to publish The Missing Link. If Sean and I can use it, then so can you.

Sean Jackson: All right. Welcome back. We have our three-way interview ready. Mica?

Mica Gadhia: Yes, Sean.

Sean Jackson: Do we have Jabez LeBret on the line?

Mica Gadhia: I think we do. Jabez, are you there?

Jabez LeBret: I am here and excited. Can we call this a menage à LinkedIn? Is that a thing?

Sean Jackson: Menage à LinkedIn! A menage à link.

Jabez LeBret: Try texting that to the number.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. Your auto correct’s going to go crazy on that one. Everybody, Jabez LeBret, my good friend and truly an expert on LinkedIn groups, is with us. Jabez, thank you so much for coming in. Tell our audience a little bit more about you.

Jabez LeBret: First I just want to say, Sean and Mica, thanks for having me. It’s fantastic. The audience, thanks for coming on board and listening today, that’s fantastic. Man, I’ve been digging this podcast a lot.

Mica Gadhia: Thank you.

Jabez LeBret: Been listening to it since you guys kicked it off. It’s pretty fantastic. I’m looking forward to the next episodes for sure. A little bit about myself, I run a digital marketing agency for law firms. I figure if you could market for lawyers, you could probably market for about anybody. I’ve been speaking at Pubcon for years and State of Search down in Dallas. Sean, I’ve had the opportunity to get to sit side-by-side with you on some panels for quite a while, so it’s been great over the years.

Sean Jackson: Jabez, you’re also an author, aren’t you?

Jabez LeBret: Yeah, got a few books, mostly all on technology and digital marketing, which is great. We are the bestselling authors in the legal marketing space. Don’t tell anybody that it’s like three books in that category.

Sean Jackson: Easy to dominate when there’s not a lot of people.

Mica Gadhia: Congratulations.

Jabez LeBret: Thank you. You know, when I was in junior high I came in second in a chess tournament. Sadly there were only 2 people. That’s a true story. Yeah, I’ve written a few books. I write for Forbes on their CMO network. I’ve done a lot of journalism for NBC as well. A lot of that writing’s been revolving around social media strategies.

Sean Jackson: Okay, enough of how awesome you are. We get it.

Jabez LeBret: Hey, you kept asking. First, I’m getting Mica saying I’m cute. You guys invite me into the secret LinkedIn group that we’re not going to tell anybody about.

Sean Jackson: That’s right.

Mica Gadhia: Jabez, you’re catching on quick.

Sean Jackson: All in lieu of payments. Let’s get into the meat of this. Because as you and I both know, LinkedIn groups is one of the most powerful ways to really do some fairly sophisticated marketing in the LinkedIn network. Give us a little bit of overview of how you use LinkedIn groups — for your legal clients, for yourself personally — because I think that’s a fascinating story of how you personally are using LinkedIn groups and some of the tactics you’re doing.

Jabez LeBret: LinkedIn groups are, as you mentioned, probably the biggest area of gold on LinkedIn. And mainly it’s because of your ability to get in front of people in their inbox on their normal email. LinkedIn’s constantly trying to drive users back to the LinkedIn network, and the groups is one area — through commenting and discussions within the groups — where you’re able to actually get yourself into somebody else’s email box. Which is a valuable place to be if you don’t have their email list or may not even know who they are.

It also is an incredible mechanism for driving traffic to your LinkedIn profile. I use LinkedIn groups a lot to drive people back to my profile, and then build a profile that has the proper conversion elements on it. I know you talk about that at length. Those are two major ways to get that traffic and eyeballs into your marketing messages.

Should You Start A Group or Participate in an Existing One?

Sean Jackson: Jabez, let’s go through a couple of very quick things. First off, start a group or go to an existing group, how do you prefer to start on this?

Jabez LeBret: If you’ve got a lot of time and you don’t have a job, starting a group might not be a bad idea. It’s getting hard. There are a lot of groups out there now. I think the window of opportunity to start your own group if you don’t already have an audience …

If you already have a following — like you’ve got a big following Sean, and all of your organizations and Copyblogger and everywhere else, you all have a good, solid following, and so it makes starting a group a little easier. If you have a following, starting a group is great because you get total control of it. You can control when you send messages out to all the members of the group. You can do moderator control.

We’ve talked in the past about helping people give you their groups, is another way to go about it. Become an administrator and find someone who’s tired of running a group, and then eventually offer to just take it over for them. I’m a big fan of just jumping into groups that already exist. Find where your clients are already at. Where are your clients? Go join those groups and start participating in there, because someone else has already done all the legwork to get those clients there.

Mica Gadhia: Tell me about the discussions when you’re in these groups. How does that work, because I’ve heard that it can be a little bit scary starting out or going in there?

The Best Way to Start a Discussion in an Existing Group

Jabez LeBret: Yeah. That’s a good question, Mica. It is challenging. Starting discussions is a real … I’ve started some discussions where I wrote the discussion question for the group, and when I hit publish, the update button, I was like, “Boom, drop the mic, that discussion’s going to blow up.” Then nothing happens.

Mica Gadhia: Ugh, right.

Jabez LeBret: No one comments. No one says anything. No one likes my post. I’m like, “I know this is good. What did I do wrong?” I think I just figured out that timing is everything when you’re starting a discussion. If it doesn’t get in front of the right people at the right time, no one’s going to be interacting with it. Nobody interacts with it, it drops below the feed, and then it gets lost. If you are going to start your own discussion, then a good route to go is — on the right hand side of a group it’ll tell you who are the most influential people in that group. Those people are the ones who comment the most.

I like to send them a message — just write to their LinkedIn and say, “Hey, here’s a link to my discussion. I value what you say in this group. I think you bring a lot of smart stuff to the table. Would you mind commenting on or giving me feedback on this discussion question?” Because people love to talk about their own opinions and things, and so when you email someone asking … or I might email Sean and say, “Sean, you’re an expert at all things LinkedIn, like everything.”

Mica Gadhia: It’s true. It’s true.

Sean Jackson: Like everything.

Jabez LeBret: You have no ego, so please just …

Mica Gadhia: Also true.

Jabez LeBret: Also true. It is a little bit of an ego play. When you somebody an email saying, “Hey, I think you have really smart things to say in this group. Would you mind adding smart things to my discussion?” It’s almost impossible for them to say no. They like that kind of public notice.

Mica Gadhia: Now have you had a discussion that’s fallen flat and then you revived that exact discussion, knowing that it needed energy and life?

Jabez LeBret: No, I burn bridges. I just move on. There’s no time. I’m like, “Next, let’s get to something fresh.” The other side of that coin is to not start the discussion. Find the discussion that’s already working and then jump into that discussion.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, this is great advice. I want to back up for just a second and put context around this. If you don’t have a following, go into an existing group where your audience is, where your potential customers are. Start either creating your own discussions or participating in discussions. If you start a discussion, reach out to those top contributors on the right-hand side, send them a fairly flattering email about how you value them, and then let them start coming in and helping invigorate that discussion that you’ve started or just start chiming in on things that are already there. Is that essentially the sum of it?

Jabez LeBret: Yeah, absolutely. That was much more eloquently put than I said about the last however many minutes I was chatting about it.

Sean Jackson: I didn’t say it as cool as you did.

Jabez LeBret: The last part there though — this idea of someone’s already got a discussion going — to go along with what you were talking about. Hijacking. This is where I think the easy opportunity is. Hijack the discussion.

Mica Gadhia: What does that mean?

The Smart Ways to Build Relationships in Groups.

Jabez LeBret: What LinkedIn does is LinkedIn sends out that email. We all get them in our inbox which is such-and-such group — it’s a weekly update. You can set it to daily. It’s super annoying that way, but often most of us get it weekly. It just lists the top discussions, but it also lists...