LinkedIn groups: What are they? How can they be beneficial for your business? How can you use them to grow your client list? We’re answering all of these questions in todays episode!

 

 

 

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen has Rebecca Vertucci back on the podcast for another in-depth LinkedIn training and info session all about LinkedIn groups.  

 

We are joined by Rebecca Vertucci, a Senior Customer Success Manager at LinkedIn where she has trained recruiters and hiring personnel on how to find and hire top talent and build their employer brands. Rebecca is also the founder of The Vertucci Group, which provides coaching, workshops and online programs for career transitioners, entrepreneurs and business leaders. Rebecca is frequently called on to speak at conferences, universities and corporations to bring her unique perspective and expertise to audiences around the globe.   

 

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We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.  

 

Want to Uplevel Your LinkedIn Profile to Get More Business?

 

About the Episode:

 

 

 

WOW was this an episode full of knowledge! I highly advise listening to every minute or read the entire transcript to get the full effect on how LinkedIn groups can truly transform your business.

 

However, I want to get down to the nitty gritty about LinkedIn groups and what they can really do for your business!

 

LinkedIn as a company understands the value of groups and they know how it hasn’t been very strong to date. In 2020, there will be a completely new overhaul of LinkedIn groups, however for now, let’s start with the basics of LinkedIn and the differences between the different types of LinkedIn user engagements.

 

Differences between LinkedIn user engagements:

 

LinkedIn Company Page

 

Your LinkedIn company page should serve as the content hub for your business. This is where you show your ideal client EVERYTHING about your business. This can include blogs, articles about your business and industry your business is in. 

 

Whatever your content and marketing strategy is for your business, should live on your LinkedIn company page. 


The first time Rebecca was a guest on the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast we spoke all about LinkedIn company pages, so be sure to check that episode out here

 

LinkedIn Profile

 

We talk a lot about your LinkedIn profile on Good Girls Get Rich. Your profile is where you speak about YOU, your expertise and your role in your business

 

Your profile is the only way that you can make connection requests and send messages, so therefore this is where the building of your business relationships takes place.

 

Struggling with how to present yourself to your ideal client on your LinkedIn profile? Join my FREE 5-day LinkedIn Profile Challenge.

 

LinkedIn Group

 

Now the topic of this episode… Your LinkedIn groups are your community tool. Linkedin groups are a way for like minded individuals come together in one place and have autonomy on discussions about certain topics. 

 

How to share content in a LinkedIn Group:

 

Let’s get one thing on the table first… a LinkedIn groups are not the place to share content without direct engagement. This is a place to share more insights and have topics surrounding a piece of content that you already have written on. 

 

This is where you always think about the next level of engagement. 

 

Don’t just drop your content in the group because you don’t want to spam your LinkedIn network.

 

How many groups should you be part of?

 

As Rebecca says… LinkedIn is a quality game, not a quantity game. You can be in up to 50 groups, but you should pick only around 5 that you can participate in quality conversations with to have authentic engagement.

 

Now let’s dive into the differences in LinkedIn groups…

 

What type of group you’re in depends on the types of conversations you want to have. 

 

Listed (open) Groups

 

These are groups that can be found on LinkedIn in a search and come up in search results. In most of these, the group manager chooses whether or not you have to be in the group to see the content or not. 

 

Unlisted (closed) Groups 

 

These groups are invite only. These are places you can have conversations that you don’t necessarily want anyone to be able to search (i.e. discussions surrounding your current job, job search and industry, etc.)

 

Say you have a paid client program and want to use LinkedIn groups to deliver content that your clients pay for. This is also a great way to utilize an unlisted LinkedIn group. 

 

*Pro insight: Any unlisted group will not be listed on your profile, however listed groups you are a part of could potentially show up in your interests. Be sure to check your privacy settings if you want to keep your groups off your profile.

 

How to find and join LinkedIn Groups:

 

So now you’re interested in groups… how do you find the best ones to start building business connections and getting clients?

 

Start with answering these questions:

 

  • Who is your ideal client?
  • What do they care about?
  • Where are they hanging out online?

 

Now that you have these answered, this is where you can start finding groups. 

 

There are over 1.7 million Linkedin groups, so there is SURE to be a group that fits your needs.

 

Start by searching any kind of keyword that may be on someones profile that you’re targeting.

 

Go to the groups section and look at the results that come up in that search. From there, you can narrow it down from here:

 

  • Which groups have the largest audience?
    • Pick a few from here
  • What does the activity look like?
    • Don’t be fooled, sometimes smaller groups with more engagement may be better than larger groups with no activity
  • Is this group local?
    • If your business is local this is huge, however if you don’t care exactly about geography, we still recommend being part of at least one local group. People feel more compelled to use your services if they feel that you are closer to them in some capacity.

 

Now, pick 3-5 groups where your ideal client is hanging out and look at the content. Start asking and answering questions and engaging. From here, you will be able to decide whether or not the group is a good fit to build business relationships.

 

*Only pick 3-5 groups. Anything more may be difficult for you to keep up with and if you’re not consistent in a group, people won’t see you as a source of reliability. 

 

Weekly LinkedIn Group Routine

 

If there’s one thing you should take away from this episode is that engaging in these groups on a consistent basis is KEY to utilizing LinkedIn groups to build business. It’s as EASY as this.

 

Do this weekly…

 

Set time on your calendar 3 times during the work week between 9-5 to engage with your groups for 20 minutes.

 

*Pro tip: LinkedIn is a 9-5 audience. It’s a very corporate group of people. They’re not hanging out on LinkedIn on weekends and week nights. They’re on LinkedIn during work hours, so use this time to engage for maximum reach. 

 

Last thing… Is it worth it for you to start a group?

 

If you feel like the bulk of your clients and leads are coming from LinkedIn and you have a solid LinkedIn strategy now, the answers is yes! It’s about where your ideal client is hanging out and how you want to engage those clients.


LinkedIn is a highly trusted platform. The know like and trust factor has been a huge thing on LinkedIn for a while, so if you are at a place that you are using LinkedIn well, then a group is a way to really take your LinkedIn game to the next level.

 

How to attract people to your group:

 

Now if you have your own LinkedIn group, the best way to attract people to your group is with these 3 things:

 

  • Email list
  • Your content (blogs, social call outs, etc.)
  • As you connect with people and build business relationships, invite them to your group 

 

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate, huge numbers. There’s value in a small, intimate group setting and as you grow, you can expand your reach and group strategy to be beneficial to your overall business

 

LinkedIn has a good job at providing training information in LinkedIn’s help center if you ever get stuck!

 

Huge thank you to Rebecca Vertucci for all the INCREDIBLE knowledge bombs that were dropped in this episode! Feel free to contact her for her services at thevertuccigroup.com

 

Episode Spotlights:

 

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/091
  • Intro to today’s episode (1:42)
  • Start of the episode with Rebecca Vertucci (2:42)
  • Where things are going with LinkedIn groups (5:48)
  • Inside information on what will be changing with LinkedIn groups in 2020 (8:08)
  • The difference between your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn company page and LinkedIn groups (9:08)
  • How to utilize your content in LinkedIn groups (11:40)
  • Features that have left LinkedIn to avoid spamming your network (14:12)
  • Different kinds of LinkedIn Groups and the differences between them all (19:32)
  • Are groups a part of your profile? (27:14)
  • How to use groups to get the message out and grow your network (30:50)
  • Ways to utilize center of influencer marketing on LinkedIn groups (34:24)
  • The importance of local groups even if geography isn’t important to you (37:46)
  • Are you ready to start a LinkedIn group? Should you even start a LinkedIn group? (40:38)
  • The first step in starting and promoting a LinkedIn group (43:51)
  • Navigating LinkedIn group tools vs Facebook groups (47:22)
  • Final tips on starting your own LinkedIn group (55:42)
  • Where to find Rebecca (1:00:22)
  • Episode recap and brand new free resource introduction (1:02:37)

 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

 

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the Good Girls Get Rich podcast episode 91.

 

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

 

Karen Yankovich 0:24
I am Karen Yankovich, the host of the Good Girls Get Rich podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by Uplevel Media where we teach the simplest relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing system that gets you on the phone consistently in a micro targeted way with your perfect people, people who you can’t wait to have the opportunity to chat with.

 

And we have a show for you today. Boy, we have our the second time we had a guest come back for their second episode. The first one was Marie Forleo. So Rebecca is in good company for sure. I can’t wait for you to hear what we’re going to be talking about today. But before we do that, just a quick reminder, if you loving what you hear today, take a quick screenshot of this episode and share it on social media. And let your audience know what you’re loving about this podcast.

 

You know, we always love your ratings and reviews as well. And if you go to the blog for this page, KarenYankovich.com/091. You can see a link to speakpipe and leave us an audio review not just for this episode. But maybe you want to just let us know about it guess we should interview or a topic you’d love for me to talk about. I’d love to hear from you on speak pipe and the link to that is on the show notes and on the blog page.

 

So we have got Rebecca Vertucci back. And Rebecca is somebody that I met through a business group we both belong to, and she was on the show a few episodes back will link to it where we talked about LinkedIn company pages. And I knew we needed to be really specific about what we talked about. Because just after our initial conversations, I knew that we could talk for hours and hours about LinkedIn marketing. So we picked a topic and then I kind of surveyed my audience after that. And we decided that this time, we’re going to talk about LinkedIn groups. And LinkedIn groups are undergoing some massive changes. They haven’t actually undergone them yet at the time that this episode is going live in October of 2019. But maybe if you’re listening to this, a couple months later, you’ll have you’ll be able to actually implement some of the more of the stuff that we talked about here today. There is lots and lots of reasons to start paying attention to LinkedIn groups. And you’re gonna learn a ton about that in this episode with Rebecca Verducci. So I’m just gonna let this episode speak for itself. Check it out.

 

Okay, so we’re so excited to be back with Rebecca Vertucci. Rebecca is a second time guest on the good girls get rich podcast. The only other person that has done that so far is Marie Forleo. So Rebecca is in such good company. And I’ve gotten such great feedback from the first show, she knew what it was all surely I know, we’ll talk about that will link it in the show notes. Rebecca is presented to some of the biggest companies and organizations in the world as a senior customer success manager at LinkedIn. She’s trained recruiters and hiring personnel on how to find higher and higher top talent and build their employer brands, and is also a founding member of the women at LinkedIn organization. Rebecca is also the founder of the refugee group, which provides coaching workshops and online programs for career transition owners, entrepreneurs and business leaders. She’s frequently called on to speak at conferences, universities and corporations to bring her unique perspective and expertise to audiences around the globe. Rebecca, thank you so much for being back here with us on the good girls get rich podcast.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 3:40
Thank you so much for having me again, I had no idea I was in the company of likes of Marie for Leo, I need to find a way to work that into my website.

 

Karen Yankovich 3:49
You totally do. Yeah, yeah. So thank you so much. We listened when you know, we’ve gotten 70 such people love our first episode together, I should have looked up and see what the episode number was on that. But we’ll definitely put it in a blog in the show notes. But then we got such great feedback on that, that I knew we wanted to have you back. And, you know, we’re doing a bunch of, you know, really great LinkedIn focus episodes in a row here. This this fall and winter. So I knew this was the time to bring you back to really dive in. And that and you know, one of the things we talked about in our first episode was that, and which is definitely proven to be true, is that when you and I started talking about this, there’s like 100, different directions is, right. So we decided we’re going to keep this one focused on LinkedIn groups, because I get a ton of questions about that. And I think just having a show where we’re totally focused on how we can use and leverage LinkedIn groups and where, where it might make sense of where it might not make sense, right group. So that we, you know, as entrepreneurs and small business owners, which is the majority of my audience, you know, we’re pressed for time, I am right, and we don’t have a ton of time to be wasting. So we want to make sure I like to make things really, really simple for my audience. So by doing the show, just specifically on groups that could make it simple for them to use groups. I think that can be really powerful. So yeah, so thanks for being doing this with me. Do you get a lot of questions about groups as well?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 5:21
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And you’re totally right, Karen, you and I are LinkedIn geeks, so we can talk about a lot of things. But one of the reasons I’m also excited to talk about groups is because there’s a lot coming down the pipeline with groups. So what’s nice is that since I work at LinkedIn, I got some of the inside scoop. So I think it’s really good timing for you and your audience to be thinking about this topic. So I’m really excited to dive into it.

 

Karen Yankovich 5:46
Okay, so should we start there? Or should we start on some of the questions that I’ve had,

 

Rebecca Vertucci 5:51
I think, let me lay the groundwork because I think if someone’s listening to this episode, and they’re wondering, maybe they’ve tried groups, or they’ve, you know, been wondering if groups are right for them in one way or form for their business, I would like to give some insight into kind of where things are going so that they can make some informed strategic decisions as you move forward in their business. So perfect. LinkedIn, as a company, absolutely understands the value of groups,

 

Karen Yankovich 6:20
Do they? Do they really? Okay.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 6:26
the group’s experience has not been strong to date. So a little behind the scenes, we’ve been going through a lot of work on our data side, and like our tech side, to get a lot of our data and information in one place. So if you think about LinkedIn, and how it rolled out over the course of the past 15 years, you know, we started with profiles and jobs. But then we added like company pages, and we added ads. And we have all these different features and tools that we kind of added over the years things like groups, alumni page is all this stuff. And it was sort of just like by user demand, but not necessarily being housed in the same place, believe it or not on the back end. And so we’ve for two years now actually been under a major project. And I say we as if I’m an engineer, I am not. I’ve hadn’t done any of this. But we’ve been basically doing a lot of things with our tech platform on the back end, in the way of like machine learning and data and insights and analytics, so that the user experience both on the member side and the corporate side, going forward, will be robustly different. And we’re actually in the process of a major corporate rollout right now. So ultimately, what that means and what has been communicated to us, the customer success team and the sales team, is that within the next nine to 12 months, there’s going to be a complete overhaul of LinkedIn groups.

 

Karen Yankovich 7:54
But just to set the stage for somebody who’s listening to this later, it is like October, it’s like September, October 2019. So you’re saying in 2020, we’re going to have some major changes. Correct?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 8:06
Yep, absolutely. So some things that have been historically painful, that will be updated as examples. And right now, there’s only really one place to access LinkedIn groups, you have to be on the desktop experience. And you have to go to the groups section. And unlike other platforms, like Facebook, for example, you can access groups directly on your phone, and it’s part of your user experience. We have not historically had that. And that’s something that’s going to change. LinkedIn has been really investing in our mobile experience. So especially the mobile experience for groups, it was going to be brand new, we’ve never had it before. But it’s going to be robustly different. And then I would say a lot of the interactivity features that have been really popular on other platforms, things like polls, live videos. And all of that will be coming to a LinkedIn group near you in 2020. For sure.

 

Karen Yankovich 9:04
Awesome, awesome. Yeah. So let’s, let’s oh my gosh, so feel free to keep feeding us these things as we talk if you think of anything else that’s coming to LinkedIn groups. But um, let’s talk a little bit about like the difference between your LinkedIn profile and your LinkedIn company page and a LinkedIn group. Now, when Rebecca was on the show earlier, we focused the show on LinkedIn company pages, so I don’t want to spend a ton of time talking about that, you can listen to that. Well, let’s just touch on it. So people understand the difference. So can you give us in a couple seconds the difference between those three things, those are the main three different types of user engagement, right? Three different platforms, okay.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 9:42
Yep. So let’s say because your audience is entrepreneurs and business owners, let’s start with the company page. The company page is your hub of where you’re going to push out your content. So everything that you’re creating or sharing that’s about your ideal clients, or customers and your industry experiences, you want to really push that out from the company page, or at least originated it and upload it in the company page. So that you can use the tools of the company page, like tracking and data and analytics and targeting and retargeting and paid ads, all of those things, from the company page, say versus your personal profile. So for any company, whatever your marketing strategy is, you would employ that on a company page. And then anybody that works for the company, you know, a lot of people listening might be solo printers, but you might have dreams of having a team of people, or some people listening might already have a team, or employees that even work full time for them. Especially if you think about brick and mortar stores, things like that, you as individuals would share out content from the company page, and your personal profile talks about you, you’ll talk about your business, but you talk about your role in the business, your own philosophies, as an example. And through your personal profile is the only way that you can make connection request or send the messages. So your personal profile is really that personal one to one networking tool, where you’re going to build business relationships. So the company page is the content hub and sort of home of the company content. The personal profiles are your tool for business networking, and business relationship building. And then your group is sort of your community tool. So whether you have a group or you participate in groups, it’s a way for like minded individuals to come together in one place and all have like autonomy to ask questions and share content and engaging conversation.

 

Karen Yankovich 11:39
Okay, so let’s talk about content for a second, as most small business owners, if they certainly if I’m working with them, they are producing content regularly, let’s just say weekly. So I have a weekly podcast, right? So every week in my podcast, I have content related to my podcast, I would put that on my company page, and then share my company page to my personal page occasionally meant maybe drop it in my personal page. What should I do with that content when it comes to my group?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 12:05
Yeah. So I think what happens is a lot of people who are producing content, whether it’s groups on LinkedIn, or groups on Facebook, I’m sure we all see this, they post their blog, or they post their podcast, or whatever it is that that’s sort of their weekly content. And then they go to all these social platforms, and they share it out into groups and on ads and different ways that we share out content. What I would say is different for groups. And I would argue this is true, regardless of LinkedIn, right? Like, regardless of where you’re engaging in groups, as I don’t think it’s a place to just share content without direct engagement. So I don’t think that any entrepreneur should be a part of any group, whether they’re running the group, or they’re participating in the group, simply to share out a link, I think it’s important to use those platforms to think about creating conversation around the content piece that you create it. So let’s say you created this podcast about LinkedIn groups, instead of just saying, Hey, here’s my new podcast episode about LinkedIn groups. It would be what Karen, I saw that you already did. And I know you’ll do going forward, but like a head of the podcast, you asked your community, hey, what would you like to have answered in this podcast? Or, hey, I’m thinking about having these blogs in the coming weeks? which ones would you guys want to hear about more? What questions do you have? And maybe you’re even in those groups answering questions, right. And then once the podcast is live, instead of just saying, Hey, here’s the new podcast, you have a highlight of the three things you covered, and why somebody should tune in to the podcast, and what would be in it for them. So really thinking about that next level of engagement, not just sharing content and making it available to the public, but really taking it that step further to really engage with your ideal clients in a way that’s more meaningful.

 

Karen Yankovich 13:53
Well, I love what you’re saying. And there was no surprise there. But though, I think one of the you know, some of the, there’s been a lot of changes to groups over the past couple years, and some of them I don’t love and some of them I do love. And one of the things I do love is I don’t know if you guys will remember, but there used to be an ability when you posted something on your personal page, to share it to all of the groups you’re in. And it was crazy, because somebody would like drop a link in to their blog, and then share it across 25 groups, without any context, without any posts without any engagement. And I remember somebody I know really well reaching out to me saying that’s terrible. Why did they get away with that I was like, um, you should never even do that in the first place. Because it’s a terrible way to engage in groups. It’s just just spamming the groups, you know. And I call that like drive by blog posting, you know, like, you drive by a drop in your blog, and you keep going. And I. And I think what that does for people that are building with authentic relationships on LinkedIn, the fact that there are so many people that do that, that there are so many groups that are just full of driving by content posts, there’s people that are looking to engage a real opportunity to get known in that group, because most groups, many groups that most but many groups that when you go to them, there is just a blog in there, and there’s no actual engagement in there. So if you are the person engaging on those blogs, you may be the only person engaging on those blogs. And it’s a great way for people to get to know you, right, like who’s this Karen check, that’s always got something to say about my blog posts, you know, and and if you’re being if you’re being strategic, about the group’s you’re doing that in, and your ideal clients, your ideal partners, your ideal, like center of influence, people are hanging out in those groups. And, and putting content in those groups, it’s a great way to get visible if you’re the one of the only active people in the groups right now. But I hope, my hope is that more and more people become active in the group. So So you’re saying, you know, don’t be afraid to put your content in there, but do it in a way that it brings value to the group?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 15:59
Yeah, I would say whenever you see a feature going away on LinkedIn, it’s usually because the feedback from the members is that it’s not good. So I’ll give another example about something that went away. Because I work in the talent acquisition space, helping recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn as part of my day job at LinkedIn. And you used to be able to do the same thing with jobs, right? Like you would post a job. And then you could share your jobs out to groups. And it used to be in the feed. And then there used to be a tab just for groups. And now it’s gone all I mean, for jobs, and now it’s gone all together. And part of that is because nobody in those groups wanted to just see a bunch of spammy jobs from recruiters, especially groups where people were really in demand, like engineers, or sales professionals, or marketers or SEO people, they would be in these groups to learn from one another and be with like minded people. And instead, they were getting spammed by recruiters. And so at the end of the day, what you can’t take a shortcut on LinkedIn.

 

Karen Yankovich 17:00
Oh that’s such a great tweetable. I often say like, I don’t know, LinkedIn is not the place to bring your magic wand, you know, I don’t have a magic wand, you’ve got to do the work. But there’s, but there’s so much profit on the other side of that work.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 17:16
I agree, I’m here to the other side. The other thing I say a lot is that LinkedIn is a quality game, not a quantity game. So the reality is, even with groups, I wouldn’t say you can join up to 50, every member can be up to 50. But you should probably just pick five that you can actually be active in and participate in and bring value to. And I you know, I say that even about when we talk about the company page and content, or ads, or even connection requests, better to have quality than quantity. And not every platform is like that some platforms are definitely going after quantity. But when you look at LinkedIn, it’s a group of business professionals 650 million and growing, who are here to engage in a profession fashionable way, and they don’t want to be spammed, they really don’t. So you have to really think about authentic engagement on LinkedIn in a totally different way than you do on other platforms.

 

Karen Yankovich 18:08
So one of the features that went away that I was a little bummed that went away is the ability for the admin for the group to do a message to all the members once a week, did you get any feedback about that? Why that went away? And is that on the horizon to come back? Or is that gone?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 18:25
I don’t think it’s gone forever. I think it had to do again with the spamming this. So because, you know, it’s always the bad apples, right? Like people would start the groups and they were kind of abusing that feature. And I think at the end of the day, they’re trying to move towards more like authentic communication through things like Sales Navigator or LinkedIn recruiter or some of these premium accounts where, yes, you can still contact people that are in your group, but it’s more one to one messages versus bulk messages and things like that. I don’t know that it’s never coming back, I think what’s some of the new features of the groups, there will be other ways to kind of have continued content or contact with your members as an admin. But I will say another thing is that sometimes, you know, a lot of bulk messages that go out on LinkedIn are never opened. So we also look at things like open rates and engagement rates. And if we find that those features are really not used or valued by our members who are receiving the messages, that’s another reason that it might go away. Got it.

 

Karen Yankovich 19:31
So I mean, like I’m itching to get to strategy, but I want to stick for a minute with the just use just like the basics. So there’s different kinds of groups. Can you explain the different kinds of groups closed? And secret? Yeah, what are the different kinds of groups? And what’s the difference between them?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 19:47
Yeah, absolutely. So the technical names for them are listed and unlisted. That’s what LinkedIn calls them. But they’re kind of like open groups or closed groups is what we’re used to in social media. And ultimately, it’s exactly like it sounds. So elicited group is going to be able to be found on LinkedIn, if you do a search, like if you’re in the group section, and you’re searching, and you’re going to be able to that’s going to come up in your search results. And then within the listed group, you can decide a privacy setting like is it a public group? Or is it a private group as far as the content goes? So do you have to be a member of that group in order to see it, see the content? Or do you have Can you just see it, even if you’re not a member, right. So even within the listed category, there’s a couple of options of visibility of the content. And then unlisted means that it’s like an invite only, and people really can’t search for it, like you would only have, you would have to know about it, and therefore it’s really private. So what I tell people is that it really depends on the types of conversations that you’re going to be having in this group. And how, what kind of engagement you really want, what settings you want to have. So I’ll give myself as an example, I work had worked for the past 15 years with career transition owners and job seekers. So any type of group that I’ve had on any type of platform needs to be private. And the reason why is because you cannot, people don’t feel safe, having an open conversation about job search, if their content is just visible to anyone on LinkedIn, who might be able to find it.

 

Karen Yankovich 21:19
Got it makes sense. Makes perfect sense. So is that do you know? I mean, I guess it’s hard to say but is there is there you know, this isn’t does a listed or an unlisted group help or hurt engagement? Or participation in the group? Like, does it so Okay, so let me put it this way. I know I’m a member of your group. And what does it matter if it’s listed or unlisted as it as whenever it comes to? what I see as far as what’s happening in the group?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 21:48
know, if you’re a member? No.

 

Karen Yankovich 21:53
Okay, cool.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 21:54
You can be a member, you, Karen, of those listed unlisted groups, in your experience, when you go to the group section. Same, the difference is for somebody who’s not a member, and who might be looking to find that group. So another example on the flip side is like, you know, you especially if you’re playing a volume game, or like, maybe you’re trying to find other people, you might want to keep things more listed and more public, but then the types of conversations you’re going to have, or the types of you know, content you’re going to post might just be different than opening up like a real conversation, right?

 

Karen Yankovich 22:30
Yep

 

Rebecca Vertucci 22:31
So what I would say is that, regardless of platform, regardless of LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever else you might be using whatever else might pop up tomorrow, and I personally believe and I’m sure you agree with this, Karen, even though we’ve never talked about it, that your list your email list, and your website should be where you’re generating, if you’re running and managing a group. That is probably should be where you’re inviting people to join your group, because they should be on your email list. Yes, yes, yes, yeah. And then send them your content, and then say, Hey, we also have this group going on. So I would say anything from a lead generation for engagement for your own business, your own company should be getting people into your own email list and not relying on these platforms to grow your audience in that way.

 

Karen Yankovich 23:21
Okay, so. So I’m a member of the group, whether it’s listed or unlisted. Does the content and the posts and the activity in the group come up on my wall on LinkedIn? Or do I have to go to the group see what’s happening there? In today’s current state, you have to go to the group to see what’s happening. Okay, that will change. Okay, cool. So right now, you know, I have a Facebook group that teaches LinkedIn tips, and it’s very active. If you go to you know, actually anybody that wants to check it out, go to Karen yankovich.com, slash Facebook group, and it is you can ask to join, and we talked a lot about LinkedIn tips there. And I would love to bring that group over to LinkedIn. But it is a lot harder for me to get the same level of activity on my LinkedIn group. I freaking teach LinkedIn marketing, right? I want to use my LinkedIn group for this. But at this moment in time, am I missing something like is your Do you think that we’re ready to do that yet where I would, because here’s the and this is really the maybe even fundamentally, why I wanted to do this episode, people want to be off Facebook. So many people want to get their groups on Facebook. But as business owners, we have to make decisions around what is best going to support our community. Right. And as a business owner, I know that if I want the activity, especially around my paid programs, if I want to support them and be able to jump in and do a Facebook Live and answered live Q and A’s and things like that, I’ve got to still do that on Facebook. So do you think that that’s changing? And like to tell me a little bit what your your thoughts as I say all of that,

 

Rebecca Vertucci 24:58
Yeah, so I can speak to them why the engagement is higher in the things that we’ve noticed that I think you can anticipate being similar as we go forward in 2020. So one, and I kind of hit on it before is that part of the reason why people on Facebook and I would say Instagram and even Twitter are more active is because of the ease of use on mobile. And because most people on any of these apps are coming from mobile devices. So even for LinkedIn, about 60 to 70% of our daily millions of users are also coming from mobile devices. So we’ve gone all in over the past couple of years about making the member feed and the content feed and the jobs feed more mobile friendly. And that’s kind of what we’re going to be doing with groups as well. And so that’s really the big thing where everyone’s on mobile. So I would think about that when it comes to any thing to do with your strategy, your ads, you know, your content, whatever you’re doing, like most people on these platforms are coming from mobile. The other thing that Facebook does, is that you can set notifications as a member of a group of what groups you want to be notified about, and whether or not you want them in your feed. And so it’s not on I mean, actually, I think Facebook defaults that if you join a group and it’s on, you automatically get notified, you automatically see it in your feed, but you can change those settings. And right now, LinkedIn doesn’t have any settings like that there’s no notifications, you don’t get to choose whether or not you see it in your feed, it just isn’t there right now. So those are the types of things that we know will make groups more successful as we go forward, including the ability to just pop in and do a live, LinkedIn live is already up and running and by 2020 will be accessible to all members. So it’s those types of things that we have to get right first, before we relaunch groups, but trust me, we see what’s working on other platforms, we’re not missing the boat. It’s just we want to get it right. And we want to roll it out. So that it’s a seamless experience for you once it’s live.

 

Karen Yankovich 26:59
Got it? Got it. So you know, one of the when I was asking my community what they wanted to know, from this conversation, a few people mentioned things around this topic of our groups a part of your profile. And I actually, I actually want to answer that first and say that I think they are I think that, you know, I think that if you belong to five groups or 50 groups, it is a part of your profile, people can see what groups you belong to. Is there a way to hide that by the way?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 27:32
So that’s going to be about the the setting of the group is it listed or unlisted? So that sure, and then yesterday was a member. So what I mean by that is any unlisted group would not be in your on your profile. Those are just private, literally, private groups.

 

Karen Yankovich 27:48
But listed groups will be listed on your

 

Rebecca Vertucci 27:50
profile groups. I’m actually just checking one thing real quick, while you’re asking me that because they are no longer there. So I thought that this changed. So I think now instead of it saying, so at the very bottom of your profile, it used to have the logos of the groups. Yep, yeah. And now it says interests and your interests are going to be things that are companies, you follow influencers, you follow groups, that you’re part of an schools that you were a part of, or went to or follow. And so it’s anything that you’re kind of engaged with on LinkedIn. So if people go all the way down to the bottom of your profile, and click into groups, they’ll see what you’re a part of it. They are indeed listed groups, but it’s not how it used to be, which is that it was you would have companies following every part of that we just said like influencers, companies, groups, schools all had their own section. Now, it’s just all under interests,

 

Karen Yankovich 28:50
Right. But under interest, there’s, there’s separate options separate, they’re separate categories, and you can click groups, so you still pretty much can see listed groups that people belong to, too. So I do think that in some ways, you got to know that, that that is a part of your profile, but whatever that’s worth, right, for whatever that’s worth if you you know, I don’t know that I would worry too much about it from about, you know, from a profile standpoint, but it you know, it is a part of your profile. That being said, where the strategy, I think comes in around that is if you’re trying to find good groups to join, you can go to, you know, maybe some of your LinkedIn contacts that you think maybe are similar, do similar things to what you do, see what groups they’re in, and maybe choose to join. And maybe that will give you an idea of maybe some groups you might want to join. Right. So that’s where that kind of might be where strategy might come in around that less around what it means your profile and more more around how you find other groups you might be interested in being a part of.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 29:52
I agree with that, there’s a couple other things I would say, which is that anything on your profile, I just want to delineate that in case people do have privacy concerns. Anything on your profile that is visible to you is only visible, like your full profile. And the sections that you and I are talking about is only visible to your first degree connections. So you can’t see that with your second third degree connections, or even people that you’re only in a group with. Because we you know, basically, first degree connections have the strongest visibility into a profile. So everything else is considered a public profile. So what the public sees, and you can edit that. So I just want to let people know that for privacy sake. LinkedIn is a members first company, and they never want anyone feel uncomfortable with what is or is not on their profile public or first degree visible. So just take a look at your privacy settings, because there’s a lot of things that you can tweak, you know, in case that’s a concern.

 

Karen Yankovich 30:47
Awesome, fabulous. Cool. Okay, so what else should we talk about, as a from from, you know, Karen, the LinkedIn marketer, not Karen, the group owner, right, Karen, the LinkedIn marketer, what else? How else can I use groups to help get my message out? Or, you know, or meet more people grow my network? Like, what other tips do you have? Not we’re not talking about I’m going to start a group yet, or we’re talking about just how do I best use groups?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 31:16
Yeah, absolultely so. And this would be true, I would say, for any business owner, or any entrepreneur influencer. My guess is, and Karen, I know this is true for you. But let’s just pretend like maybe this isn’t true for the audience. The first step is you got to know who your ideal client is. And you have to understand what they care about, and where they’re hanging out. So in the example I gave about myself, I, for the first chunk of my business, I would say even the first chunk of my career, probably for seven years or so, really worked with job seekers and job transition owners. So I would start by looking at groups on LinkedIn, there’s 1.7 million groups. So any kind of keyword, any kind of activity, any kind of thing that might be on someone profile, and job seeking, or maybe you work with entrepreneurs, maybe you work with retailers, whatever it is, I would go to the groups section. And I would start by looking at the results that come up in that search. And then seeing which groups have the largest audience and click into those and see, you know, what the activity levels look like to know if that’s a good group to join. So like a group of 50 people that’s really active might actually be better than a group with 10,000 people where nobody’s even posted anything for the past 10 months, as an example. So I would kind of do the keyword searches, I would know, you know, think about your ideal client, where are they hanging out? If you have a local business, and this was true for me, when I moved from New York City to upstate New York, I kind of did this from a networking perspective, because I needed to meet new people, I looked at local groups, like local chambers of commerce, local women in business groups, local entrepreneur groups. So thank you with 1.7 million groups, I promise you, there’s a lot there to research. And I would pick five groups, this is always my advice, I would pick five groups, you know, maybe one or two more or less based on your bandwidth and your time. But I wouldn’t do significantly more or significantly less five groups where your ideal client is hanging out. The people that are in that group are your people that you want to be helping and supporting. And I would look at the questions that they’re asking, I would look at the content that’s posted. And I would do exactly what Karen mentioned earlier, which is start answering questions engaging. And and to be honest, guys, this is so easy. So when people give me pushback about this, it just drives me crazy. set time on your calendar three times a week, Monday through Friday to go in for 20 minutes, spend four or five minutes in each group. It’s not that complicated. answer some questions, help some people out. But LinkedIn is a Monday through Friday, nine to five site people are not hanging out on this site nights and weekends. Okay, this is a very corporate audience is a professional audience, it doesn’t mean, you know, it’s a suit and tie audience, but they’re working on work hours, right. So think about that, don’t save all of your engagement for the weekend, people probably won’t see it really be active 20 minutes a day, two or three times a week and be intentional about it. It’s not that complicated.

 

Karen Yankovich 34:25
I agree. I agree. And you know, I often say like, if you do a really good job on your LinkedIn profile, and really stand out as a leader, and then you find you do research, I recommend people typically, and I love your idea of five, I might expand that a tiny little bit. Because I like people to do is like find a group or two that you think your ideal clients are hanging out in, find a group or two that you think your ideal partners or like years of influence you’re hanging out in, you know, find a couple local groups, because I agree completely with you about local groups are amazing. And be when you’re the person that sharing and liking and commenting. You’ve already done the research that says My people are in this group. So when you you reach out, and you’re just commenting and saying really insightful things on the comments, your ideal people are going to be initiating connection request with you 100, they’re going to click and say, who’s this Rebecca chick that has all this good thing to say? No, I blog posts all the time. And they’re going to see your profile, they’re going to see it’s amazing. And they’re going to want to connect with you. Right? So your people are initiating relationships with you, just by spending a couple of minutes a week on these groups. Right? It’s that easy. It’s that easy. And it sounds like we’re like glossing over. But we’re not

 

Rebecca Vertucci 35:40
know, I think we’re really not I think we’re if anything, we’re not hitting home enough how easy it is. And I really glad that you brought up the center of influence thing, because I was thinking more about the ideal client. So you’re totally right, I would definitely layer in some of your other business priorities and strategies and a perfect example. I mean, Karen, you and I can to know each other in the group. Yep. Firstly, all, but pretty much, you know, every entrepreneur and every marketer is trying to get featured in some sort of publication or on a podcast to be seen as an expert. And wow, every single media opportunity I have ever had has come from groups, and come from really intentional networking on LinkedIn. So absolutely, there’s power and thinking about how to get the word out about who you are, who your center centers of influence are, as you said, and one of the things to look at is groups that are about PR media podcast, any of those things you’re focused on, there’s tons of those as well.

 

Karen Yankovich 36:42
There are there are, and you know, let’s talk about the local groups again for a second, because here’s where this is valuable, because a lot of people say to me, but my business really isn’t dependent on geography, blah, blah, blah. And I might I push back on that a little bit and say, neither is mine. But I would say more than 50% of my business are people I can drive to. Because people like to do business with people, they feel like they can meet in person, you know, when they hear, hey, we’re both in New Jersey, we’re both in New York that maybe we can meet up someday, it gives us something in common. And it makes it it makes that know, like and trust quicker to overcome. So when I joined a local when I again, it starts your profile, when you position yourself like you’re a leader, and like you’re an influencer in your industry. And you absolutely can do that. When you do that, and then you join these local groups, and then you become this person that’s engaging on the content. And then people connect with you, you do have the opportunity maybe to go to a local networking meeting, even though like my business, I have clients all over the world. But if I walk into a networking meeting, and I go into a meeting that I’ve done this work with, you know, 10 people come up to me and say, I know you were connected on LinkedIn, right? So So I’ve eliminated the know, like and trust. And that’s where a lot of my clients come from. So even though I can do business all over the world doesn’t mean I have to, there’s still a huge opportunity for me locally. I mean, granted, I live in the New York City Market, but I don’t care where you live, right, there’s still tons of opportunity for you there. If geography isn’t important to you, it doesn’t mean that it still couldn’t be valuable to you.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 38:20
Yeah. And so I’ll kind of build on that, because I left the New York City Market about five years ago, and I’m in upstate New York now. And it’s a very different market. And that’s kind of the example that I brought in before is like, Oh, I’m in this different market, I want to meet people. First of all, I was new to the area, I wanted to meet like minded people. But I will say that anything you do in business, I don’t care what your business is, it really is about who you know. And most of us do get clients from referrals, even if those people aren’t our clients. And so a lot of my local marketing is public speaking, right? If you can get in front of entrepreneur groups and business groups who are in your local community, and you can do a 20 minute workshop on your area of expertise, or bring something valuable to a group, how much easier is that to go and do in your local community than to fly all over the world and have to do that, right. So like, I just think being able to walk out your front door twice a month and go to an event and shake people’s hands and look them in the eye and maybe even lead a workshop or look, you know, attend somebody else’s workshop and learn from them. This is how business happens every single day. So I I can’t agree enough. You know, most of my clients are not from the Upstate region or even the New York Region. But a lot of my speaking gigs and a lot of my media gigs have come from people that I’ve met in person at events and this upstate area,

 

Karen Yankovich 39:45
Amen to that I’m like high five and you across New York, right now it was on your virtual high five. It came to me like a few years ago, I was in Texas speaking at the Texas women in business conference. And it was a great group of people they meet once a month for lunch. And, you know, they invited me to speak there. And it was a great opportunity. And I came to I was I was flying home. I was like, I have got to be these opportunities in New Jersey. Why am I on a plane to do this? Right. And I went, but I went out of my way to find them. And I have since found them. And it’s brought an incredible amount of business to my you know, opportunities to my business. So yeah, so yes, yes, yes to all of that. Okay, so what else have we talked to you about when it comes to being a marketer? And and the value of LinkedIn groups?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 40:36
Well, yeah, so there might if I was listening to this podcast, I might ask be asking, okay, so I understand how to how to engage in a group. If I’m a member versus a manager, you know, we’ve given a little bit of information about whether or not to start a group on LinkedIn and kind of the engagement on our platform versus say, other platforms. But I might be asking myself, like, Is it worth starting a group?

 

Karen Yankovich 41:00
That was when I was going next. I just wanted to make sure we covered, I just wanted to make sure we covered the you know, I am not ready to start a group yet. How do I best come? How do I best get that? So we’re right on the same page? Oh, perfect. Let’s go. Yeah.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 41:13
So I would say I love how you just phrase that because you don’t have to be ready to start a group to engage in groups on LinkedIn. So if you’re listening to this, and the idea of adding like, one more thing to your plate is like a non starter, please take the advice of joining a handful of these groups and engaging 20 minutes a week, two or three times a week, I promise you, you’ll see a massive difference. And it’s amazing how many people don’t do that. And listen, Karen, if we could get more people doing that, then these questions about group engagement would be non non lead issue, right?

 

Karen Yankovich 41:43
Yeah.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 41:45
But um, yeah, if you feel like your business, like really the boat, what I would say is if you feel like the bulk of your clients, and your business leads, and your business opportunities are coming from LinkedIn, and you know that another 50 million people like this is where you need to be like, your people are here, and they’re hanging out. I think it’s a non, you know, a no brainer to have a group on LinkedIn, I think that it’s really about where your ideal client is hanging out. And like how you want to engage those clients, and I agree with you, I’m just going to go on record in the Fall of Night, you know, 2019, and say, I don’t think Facebook groups are going to be the hot thing in the next couple of years. I think people are really over them. For a number of reasons. I think people are really over Facebook for a number number.

 

Karen Yankovich 42:38
Absolutely, absolutely.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 42:39
I’m telling you, if I wasn’t an entrepreneur, I probably would have been off that platform within the past year myself. And I’m actually almost not even carrying on. I’m an entrepreneur, and I might be leaving it because I just it’s becoming so bad. So the thing that LinkedIn has always done right from the beginning as it as a members first company. And people really trust our platform. We’ve enlisted them most trusted social media platform two years in a row by all kinds of publications, because we have always put our members data and our members experience before anything else. And so ultimately, I think that know, like and trust factor of LinkedIn is becoming the new hot knowing thing, it hasn’t always been the hot known thing, Karen and I have known for years, we’re about, you know, to have 2000 people that have known but the word is getting out. And I think that if if you really get are getting them, you’re at a place where you’re using LinkedIn, well, you have a great profile, you understand company pages, you’ve been putting out content, you’re sending network connections, and you’re getting a lot of value out of LinkedIn, then a group is a great way to take your LinkedIn game to the next level, for sure.

 

Karen Yankovich 43:50
Okay, so what’s the first step? I mean, obviously started the group ready. But what do you do next? Like how do we get how do you attract people to the group?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 43:57
Yeah, I would say email list. Right? So you have your email list, which hopefully, if you know, I know, we’re not spending today talking about that. But hopefully, if you walk away with one thing, you know that Karen, I think that’s the most important thing. Yes, yes to that, you definitely invite people, you know, through your email list, and then your lead generation, right. So like, for me, I have people who sign up for free v content. And I say, join my group, right, I don’t have a LinkedIn group today, but I will be starting on actually for 2020. But you know, traditionally, it’s been my facebook group. So I get people who are already like seeing my ads, seeing my content, I actually put it on, you know, every YouTube episode, because I have my YouTube show, join my group join my group. So same thing that you’re already probably doing for your Facebook group, you know, you would do it in exactly that same way. And then as you’re connecting with people and kind of building business relationships, say, Hey, you know, wanting to let you know, I have a group where you know, and it’s going to start, I was an intimate group. So you can say it’s an intimate group, or a small group that, you know, is on LinkedIn, where we’re really digging into some of these topics around LinkedIn, for business as an example, or around, you know, leadership in male dominated spaces, whatever your topic is, and I was whether you have five members or 15 members starting out, or whatever the number is, you have to really nurture it. I mean, you really do. Because if you can set the example of asking great questions, answering questions being on there, people will spread the word for you and say, Hey, I’m getting a lot of value out of this group, you should also join this group. So I think the mistake that people make, and I think they make it on every platform, not just LinkedIn is that if they don’t see immediately huge numbers, they’re like, this isn’t working. Right. And they give up and they move on, it’s not going to be big to start, and you just have to be okay with that. And you just have to say, you know, that you’re going to be consistent in in telling people about it and inviting people to it and all the other platforms that you’re using. And I think what’s hard is that because most of us have Facebook groups, I could just hear the audience asking this now, because I would be asking the same thing. Well, why would somebody be in both my facebook group and my LinkedIn group?

 

Karen Yankovich 46:19
Or why would I was just thinking the same thing? Because Because even as a group owner, I’m thinking like, do I need to do a hard cut of that someday? Like the Facebook group is closing the LinkedIn group is is now where we’re, we’re going to be or do we try? I mean, I don’t know there’s a real answer to this. But that’s what was running through my head, I really want more engagement in my LinkedIn group. And is that not going to happen until I close my facebook group? You know, so? And the answer probably is no, but you know,

 

Rebecca Vertucci 46:48
And I think you can think of each as a different thing, right? Like, if you really want to use Facebook for the volume, maybe you have LinkedIn for your clients, just your patronage. Maybe you have a LinkedIn group, just for your VIP students, and you say, Hey, this is where people are, you know, where I’m going to use Facebook to build this audience. But as people are really wanting to go to the next level, and move beyond the basics, we’re here’s our intermediate group on LinkedIn.

 

Karen Yankovich 47:18
Got it? Got it. Like, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay, so so how else can we build a group? You know, the challenge that I have with that, and this is just, you know, Rebecca, and I just literally hashing this out a little bit, is I can’t do video on the group’s yet, I can do video on my Facebook group, you know, and sometimes if I get the same questions a couple times in a row, I’d so much easier, you know, my camera on and say, let me tell you why Sales Navigator is my favorite tool ever, you know, versus having to either record a video and then upload it or whatever, right? Yeah, you know, to YouTube or whatever. So. So it’s not really all that conducive to engagement with a, like a client where you really have, hopefully a higher level engagement than a traditional group.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 48:04
Yeah. I 100% feel you and you’re 100%. Right. And even the fact that you can’t access it on mobile, right. And so therefore, like you’re on the go, and you want to answer a quick question, so I would really say just between you, me and the walls, and anyone listening,

 

Karen Yankovich 48:20
And all the people that listen to podcasts!

 

Rebecca Vertucci 48:23
Yeah, all of the people listening, that I would get really comfortable and engaged with groups that I’m not managing in this moment. And I at the start of 2020, or the end of this year, I would maybe start a small group and test a couple things out. Or if you already have a group and you’re already managing it, start, you know, absolutely doing some more engagement, but just know that it’s going to get better. And that ultimately, you’re kind of putting in some time now, but like not all of your time, and not a ton of your time. But you’re you’re slinging a foundation right now. So that when you’re ready to start doing all those other things, things that you’re excited to do, people are actually paying attention. Because at the at the end of the day, if you’re if you’re just going to try to start once all the features come out and hope that everyone’s engaged right away. It’s that’s not going to work either. Right? Right, right, with testing about setting the foundation of getting these groups in place, knowing your strategy and knowing where you want to focus, like what kind of group Do you want to have on LinkedIn, start small, and then get it going now, like, you know, a few months ahead of time, or maybe at the end of the year, whatever it is, with the intent and knowledge that more will be coming, but you’re getting the foundation in place.

 

Karen Yankovich 49:36
I love that. I love that. And you know, I have had a group for a bunch of years. And there’s a lot of people in it and I go in cycles with it. Because I it is it I do get a little frustrated with the rule changes and you know, things like that. But we’re on an up cycle again, because I really want to start providing value. And truthfully, if I’m going to teach this stuff, I need to be seeing what works, right. So we’re on up cycle again, with our group to see what works best for us and how we can best support our clients around their groups. That being said, You know, I do think it’s, I do think it’s a good thing, it’s a good thing to to create a group now right and and start to get it but I I still wonder, like what I don’t, I don’t know what I’m going to still really do with it yet. I do invite people do it, we do get some engagement in our groups. And a lot of it is relationship building as well, right? You know who else is in the group? And what are you doing? And others will jump in there with questions like, hey, LinkedIn just introduced this, what do you think about this feature? And but here’s the other thing that isn’t that I can’t figure out where this makes a difference where this is going to help me yet. And that is people on Facebook, they hang out on Facebook, right? hang out on LinkedIn, right, you probably hang out on LinkedIn. But a lot of people don’t really hang out on LinkedIn, the way they hang out on Facebook. So they pop into LinkedIn, they see what their message are, and they close it and they leave, right, whether it’s on mobile or desktop, I think just just the you know, the user experience is different, generally, on how we behave on Facebook versus how we behave on LinkedIn, which I think impacts the way we need to manage our groups.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 51:20
You’re 100%, right. I mean, I would say the same is true of Instagram and Twitter. Right. And so I mean, that’s kind of something we joke about at LinkedIn, it’s like, wow, the engagement on those platforms is way higher, you know, if we could get paid for every, you know, every time someone logged in, or no, if they could live in London, they would be doing light years ahead, you know, LinkedIn has really invested in the corporate, professional landscape. And so we have a lot of corporate products and services. And we do a lot of things in our business that, you know, always with members first and building our member platform, but isn’t about being logged in all day, every day, because our people just aren’t logged in all day every day, like you and me are.

 

Karen Yankovich 52:05

But don’t you, I hope they’re looking at the engagement around LinkedIn live. Because the engagement around LinkedIn live is off the charts. I know when I love that, and I think so I think that they’re starting to see that there are ways to keep people hanging out on the platform and having like, even just the ability to kind of chat in the messaging thing. I think that was a big change, where instead of it being your LinkedIn message, I’m like, Hey, you see that little green dot? she messaged them now you can chat with them. Right that’s huge!

 

Rebecca Vertucci 52:33
Yeah, you’re pointing out changes that have already been underway for all the right reasons. So an example is that we have more daily unique visitors than any publishing platform, more than number one publishing content aggregator in the world. So we’re getting 10s and 10s of millions a day of people a day coming to LinkedIn just for content. And so that has made a massive difference over the past five years of how many people are coming to LinkedIn every day, because before, you would only come to LinkedIn if you were looking for a job, right? And so things like content engagement, things like LinkedIn live, things like the messenger app, these are little ways that we’ve already even just being able to upload video is brand new to LinkedIn the past year now. Yeah, so these are ways that we’ve been getting people engaged more and more, I mean, our engagement numbers are just so much more than they ever have been. I mean, they keep climbing quarter over quarter over quarter. So people are on LinkedIn, they are hanging out. So I don’t want to make it seem like people are not hanging out on LinkedIn, you and I both know, people are absolutely hanging out on LinkedIn, they just don’t have it open 10 1220 times a day all day like they do Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Right. And so they’re coming here very intentionally. And I think that that’s why as entrepreneurs, we should be really intentional about how we are engaging them. One of the things that we even says like in our Help Center, about groups or even messaging is that like Spam is the top reason people leave groups or remove connection requests or like contacts. People don’t want to be spammed. And there are you and I both of us are a lot of people teaching LinkedIn right now that are teaching it way wrong. It’s all about quantity and pitching and sales. And all of a sudden, it’s not, that might work on other platforms. I don’t know how it’s working on other platforms. But it certainly doesn’t work on LinkedIn, people are here for authentic professional networking period.

 

Karen Yankovich 54:37
Rebecca, I did a whole episode on that about four or five episodes ago that was literally titled you are spamming your LinkedIn network. You know, I mean, for that same that very thing. Like you are the person that you never were the like encyclopedia salesman that was used to be knocking on doors 20 years ago that people closed their blinds came by, that is who you’re being when you’re doing those things, you know, nobody would wants to see you when you’re, you’re you’re losing your network. And that’s such a valuable network, it drives me crazy. So that’s a nice review.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 55:07
And I could do a whole other episode about messaging best practices, we won’t spend the time today, but at the end of the day, if you want to get if you walk away with one thing from the episode, and people, you know, if it’s a message that you wouldn’t respond to, if it’s an engagement in a group that you want to engage with, or a piece of content, whatever it is, like you are a human being think like a human being, and stop focusing on quantity, quantity, quantity, be authentic, build your business in a real way. Do the work.

 

Karen Yankovich 55:36
Awesome. Okay, so I feel like we’ve been evangelizing for like a half hour. So once I wrap this down to a couple of things, right, we so we talked, we gave some tips around what to do to how to use groups for you know, build your network. And as a marketer, we talked a little bit about how to start to build a group. What else do we need to know about if we want to start our own group? Is there anything we didn’t cover around that? Is there anything else that you want to talk about when it comes to groups? Because I feel like we’re about ready to kind of wrap this? Yeah, no, the thing

 

Rebecca Vertucci 56:06
I would say is that LinkedIn actually does a really good job at having a lot of training and content available for all aspects of our website, I don’t know that they do a good job at telling people that or marketing it. But as a member, there’s a lot of information and LinkedIn Help Center. So basically, when you’re on your profile, under your own photo, you can do like a quick search for topics. And if you go in and look at LinkedIn group or group management, they have a ton of like, best practices and ways to engage and ways to participate. So it’s a lot of things that we talked about today. But if you’re the type of learner that needs like a PDF for a quick tutorial, or some some writing and black and white, LinkedIn actually does an amazing job at having so many resources at people’s fingertips. I just don’t think we make it clear on where to find it. So I just wanted to wrap with that.

 

Karen Yankovich 57:01
Awesome. So I love that. And the other super secret this is coming up in group soon tips for us? Like things. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to lose your job, but

 

Rebecca Vertucci 57:12
I would love to tell you that they tell us everything. I mean, I’ve only gotten the high level myself. But what I will say is that once the official announcements of certain features come my way, Karen awesome them your way, so that you can send them to your audience. Oh, guys, we do do again, a great job at public announcements of things forthcoming, but not a great job at marketing them. That’s always been my one funny joke, when I speak about LinkedIn and about working here is like, they do a ton of great work for the members a ton of stuff for free. so much stuff like free webinars and free content. They just people just don’t know about it.

 

Karen Yankovich 57:45
I think what they do, and I understand this, and why shouldn’t say I understand why I’m, I’ve come to I’ve come to live with this is reality as you wake up one day, and it’s changed. It’s not like they’re saying, oh, okay, on Tuesday, this is going to happen. like Facebook comes out with these big announcements. And this is what’s happening in q4, and I bought LinkedIn, you wake up and something has changed to your email, and you’re like, Oh, that’s so cool, or is it? Cool? What do I do with this? So so you’re right, they have been doing some amazing things that we’ve talked about some of the amazing things here. But you just wake up and find out that it’s changed. Like one of the things that’s changed since we’ve talked last, I think, which I think is a huge change in LinkedIn, to my knowledge has never talked about it, is they changed the name of the summary to about I think that is a huge change. It’s a tiny little change with massive psychological implications. And you just, I just woke up one day, and it was there. I was like, wait, what did this change? You know? So anyway?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 58:45
Yeah, I think you’re you’re totally right. With every platform with every tech platform, there’s things that change that, that they might announced, but we might have missed or that they didn’t announce, and that is my everyday reality with LinkedIn. So I think, Oh, my gosh, the constant in life is changed. So the way that we navigate that is knowing that especially in technology, yeah, this is a joke that some some new platform will be out tomorrow. And that is what’s you know, both exciting and hard about being an entrepreneur is keeping on top of all of it. So I would say, you know, with all the bright shiny object syndrome, and fun things you can do in your business, make sure at the end of the day, that you’re just engaging the right people in the right way for your business. And keep it simple, you know,

 

Karen Yankovich 59:33
Yeah, and you mentioned this a few times, and it bears repeating, even though it has nothing to do with necessarily LinkedIn groups. You know, because of the fact that we don’t own these platforms, and we don’t have any control of them. Be sure you’re all of these things. You know, this is the hub of your business is your email list, not LinkedIn, or any other platform us because we we’ve got an amazing resource at our fingertips that’s free, although I love Sales Navigator, use it. But use it to to funnel everything back to your business back to your website back to your list. Cool and

 

Rebecca Vertucci 1:00:06
Also value your value your lesson value to your members privacy and, and nourish it. And honestly, that’s that’s where the magic is with building a brand and the business and building a community. So treat your people well, and all the rest will fall into place.

 

Karen Yankovich 1:00:21
Awesome Rebecca, thank you so much for being here with us and to tell people how they could find more out about you tell us about your YouTube channel. Yeah, and what else they can do to follow you?

 

Rebecca Vertucci 1:00:32
Well, I always like to tell people that I am on this platform called LinkedIn. And under Rebecca for TG, so please don’t hesitate to reach out and connect with me. I’m always happy especially like Karen said after our last episode, lots of people reached out and I love being connected. So that’s one, I am on YouTube under the Verducci group, which is also our website. And ultimately I put out weekly episodes about business is development, about career development. Sometimes it’s about LinkedIn sometimes about all the other things Karen and I mentioned, but didn’t dive into today. And that is what I would say we have some unique courses and some different things on the website. So definitely check that out. And I’m always available for any sort of keynote speaking, workshop conference speaking, so if anyone listening knows anybody that needs that for their company, I’m your girl.

 

Karen Yankovich 1:01:25
Cool. Thank you so much for this. This was so fun. You might have to be our very first third time. I got you a binary for Leo. Yeah. Bob Murray. Alright, so we’ll have to think about if you guys are listening to this, if there’s a topic that Rebecca and I either touched on or you want us to dive deeper into, let me know. And we’ll, you know, maybe that will be the next show we do we do together because I think she’s just a great resource for the show. And I think, you know, there’s a part of me, Rebecca that says, maybe I should bring people on that have different points view than me on how to approach the agenda, then I’ll just be annoyed the whole time. So I like that we think alike where this comes? Because I don’t get just I think it reinforces the importance of how to be authentic.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 1:02:11
Yeah don’t listen to any of those people teaching all the bad tactics.

 

Karen Yankovich 1:02:14
Gosh. Okay, thank you so much for being here. And we definitely want to have you back. So hopefully, you’ll reach that at some point soon.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 1:02:24
And always a pleasure.

 

Karen Yankovich 1:02:26
You know. Let’s go with our groups. Guys. I think it’s time.

 

Rebecca Vertucci 1:02:30
Yeah, this is the time strike while the iron is hot. Thanks, Karen.

 

Karen Yankovich 1:02:36
All right, take care.

 

So another fun episode with Rebecca. We always enjoy chatting, you can go to speakpipe, Karenyankovich.com/speakpipe. I’m sorry. Yeah, I think that’ll work actually, or Karenyankovich.com/091. And you’ll see a link to speakpipe. And you can tell us what you want Rebecca, and I have to talk about next on the good girls get rid of podcast if we can convince her come back again.

 

So I hope that that was helpful, I please make sure that you join, my LinkedIn group will put links in that to the show notes. But you can go to Karenyankovich.com/LinkedIngroup to get to that. But also remember that when you’re when you when you’re active in these groups, it’s really important that you have done the work of your profile first. Because when people check you out, right, whether you own a group or you’re active in a group, people are going to check out your profile, you have to have done that first. And we have an amazing, free LinkedIn profile challenge that we’re running again for the first time and I think five years in October of 2019. If you’re listening to this in replay, don’t worry about it, we’re gonna come back, you can still get on the waitlist.

 

So if you go to LinkedInprofilechallenge.com, you can either get on the waitlist or get in on the challenge live, depending on when you click on that either way, even if you’ve done the challenge before do it again. Because there’s always new things to learn your challenge is a living, breathing thing. And imagine if at the end of a week, your challenge was just done. It was done, you’re good. You show up like a big deal. And you’re ready to rock and roll on LinkedIn. So don’t miss this out. Join us at LinkedIn profile challenge. com, get on the waitlist given on the live challenge, depending on when you’re listening to this and get this take get this off your to do is once and for all. This is not your brother’s challenge. This is our challenge.

 

We’re going to go behind your profile to the heart behind your profile, we’re going to push you a little bit to show up how you want to show up how you want to be seen. It’s not just tactical, is a lot of emotion and mindfulness behind this challenge. So it is like we’re really excited to to present this challenge to you in this new way. I don’t think anybody’s doing what we’re doing with this and I can’t wait for you to see it. LinkedIn profile challenge. com check it out. All right. We’ll be back next week with another episode of the good girls get rich podcast. Don’t forget, if you haven’t already take a quick screenshot of this episode and share it on your phone. Share that on your social media so that I can share it with my audience and then we both get more visibility. The bottom line is I am here to support you. I want this to be simple for you. Most of the work we do is upfront and I’m offering things like this free challenge to hold your hand every step of the way. Let it be simple I’ll see you back here again next week.