LinkedIn Groups Tips: How Many LinkedIn Groups Can I Join?

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How Many LinkedIn Groups Can I Join?

Until today this was an easy question to answer: as many as you want. However, today LinkedIn informed me that there will now be a maximum of 50 groups per person. The official E-Mail reads like this:

“We are in the process of adding new functionality to enhance the experience of Groups, including the recent release of a searchable directory. We are also working with our development teams to bring new tools and widgets to this collaborative space throughout the rest of 2008. We are also at this time making some changes to the user-created groups we host. These changes include adding a limit to the number of user-created groups any LinkedIn member may be part of at one time. Currently we are setting that limit at membership in 50 (fifty) user-created groups.”

I personally have no problem with this policy, as the added functionality should make group membership even more valuable. However, I was shocked when they told me that I was a member of more than 90 and needed to get this down to 50 or else! I thought that there must be a mistake, but indeed this is what happened. It was actually a good experience looking at all of the groups and deciding which ones really mattered to me. Even for someone with a lot of personal and professional interests, it actually was not hard choosing to remain a member of those that meant the most to me.

Anyways, in the future, please be aware of this new limitation.

(Additional Thoughts)

Since I wrote the above post there have been many loyal and hardcore LinkedIn members who have cried about this limitation, but combined with the new Search capabilities and Discussion boards, I believe it is now much easier to find, join, and communicate within groups. If you really think about what your objectives are in joining, and you look at membership numbers as well as each group’s objective, you should be able to easily narrow down your membership numbers as I have. For instance, there is a Gmail users group…do you intened to connect with other Gmail users to exchange information or do you just want access to a group with large membership numbers? If you are looking for membership numbers, just enter the search button on Group Search with an empty text box and you can confirm what the most popular ones are in descending order of membership. Until now you had no idea of how many people were in each group until joining, and even then your search results were limited to 500. So thank you LinkedIn for this additional functionality!!!

And, if you are looking for a great group to join, please check out my Windmill Networking LinkedIn Groups for open networkers who are also interested in social media:

Windmill Networking LinkedIn Global Group

Windmill Networking LinkedIn Group for Southern California – “So Cal Sushi”

Windmill Networking LinkedIn Group for Northern California – “Nor Cal Sushi”

Windmill Networking LinkedIn Group for Japan – “The Izakaya Club”

Steve

Welcome this new control about the groups,
but we are moving from one extreme to the other

It has to be highlighted that suddendly some groups will “dry up”
because many people were forced to unsubscribe, and this could
even create a domino effect, with such groups downgrading the
interest for them

There will also be some more difficulties for new groups (even if interesting) to be established: who is actively subscribing to groups,
already used all his/her 50 subscriptions .. and will never subscribe
to a start-up-group, because of the initial low number of participants
Steve

Welcome this new control about the groups,
but we are moving from one extreme to the other

It has to be highlighted that suddendly some groups will “dry up”
because many people were forced to unsubscribe, and this could
even create a domino effect, with such groups downgrading the
interest for them

There will also be some more difficulties for new groups (even if interesting) to be established: who is actively subscribing to groups,
already used all his/her 50 subscriptions .. and will never subscribe
to a start-up-group, because of the initial low number of participants
http://www.linkedin.com/in/strategicinternetmarketing Allura

It may also be a positive as some groups have no activity except self-promotion. It will force everyone to take a closer look at the groups they have joined and weed out the dead ones.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/strategicinternetmarketing Allura

It may also be a positive as some groups have no activity except self-promotion. It will force everyone to take a closer look at the groups they have joined and weed out the dead ones.
http://www.LauraFenamore.com/ Laura Fenamore

Well, as a body image mentor, I think that being part of many groups has been an important way to encourage other women (and men) to find their own path toward health and self-love. The fifty groups limit should not effect the average LI user, but it could effect those of us who use our groups to share our expertise.

Thanks for another GREAT article!

Laura Fenamore, Body Image Mastery Mentor
http://www.LauraFenamore.com
http://www.LauraFenamore.com Laura Fenamore

Well, as a body image mentor, I think that being part of many groups has been an important way to encourage other women (and men) to find their own path toward health and self-love. The fifty groups limit should not effect the average LI user, but it could effect those of us who use our groups to share our expertise.

Thanks for another GREAT article!

Laura Fenamore, Body Image Mastery Mentor
http://www.LauraFenamore.com
http://www.complianceonline.com/ yazdan fraz

I don’t like the idea of restricting group limit, what if people really need adding and getting close to new and different groups for their business prospects. Considering Linkedin isn’t a dating or simple socializing website, its important to understand that in business where we need to interact with hundreds and thousands of people its quite understood that for the same we may have to get involved with numerous groups.
http://www.complianceonline.com yazdan fraz

I don’t like the idea of restricting group limit, what if people really need adding and getting close to new and different groups for their business prospects. Considering Linkedin isn’t a dating or simple socializing website, its important to understand that in business where we need to interact with hundreds and thousands of people its quite understood that for the same we may have to get involved with numerous groups.
Neal Schaffer

Hi Yazdan,

Thanks for your comment and I couldn’t agree with you more!

- Neal
Neal Schaffer

Hi Yazdan,

Thanks for your comment and I couldn’t agree with you more!

- Neal
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