I always talk about how much value there is in joining LinkedIn Groups, and I will repeat that I recommend that you join the maximum 50 that you are allowed if you can find enough groups of value for you.  The specific value I have seen in Groups is being able to meet, connect, and discuss things with similar-minded people, all unified around the theme of the Group.  One area that I specifically thought lacked value in Groups was the News section.  And I could be biased because I am a heavy Twitter user and that is where I go to look for news.  But with the addition of the new Action Bar, LinkedIn has definitely created more value for Group members who do read the News that other Group members are providing.

But before I go into discussing this Action Bar, it is interesting to note that this is another example of LinkedIn cleverly “borrowing” ideas from Twitter and customizing them for their own site.  The LinkedIn Application Company Buzz itself is purely based on Twitter, yet LinkedIn has added new functionality on top of Twitter to allow you to easily monitor Twitter keyword trends.  The What are you doing now? Status Bar is obviously influenced by Twitter as well, but LinkedIn cleverly does not archive the history of what you enter here, and only your current status will be shown.

I believe that Action Bar is very much based on similar services that exist for Twitter, most notably Big Tweet and Hoot Suite.  For someone who wants to share an article on Twitter, they simply go to any site on the Internet, launch these applications from the browser toolbar, and then they add their comments, have the URL shortened (to fit Twitter’s 140-character limit), and can post their message to Twitter without having to go on to the site.  After the news is posted, it now becomes easy for people who view the article to not only see who originally posted the news but also to “re-tweet” it and broadcast the same news out to their network.  In this way, news can and does spread very quickly between Twitter members.

With LinkedIn, this sort of shortcut to post news from different websites directly on to your Group News does not exist.  You still have to go to your Group, select “Submit a news article”, and then manually input the URL.  I am awaiting the day that LinkedIn can develop something along the lines of the above Twitter services.

But LinkedIn has actually improved upon the Twitter services in what you can do after the news is posted.  When you view a news post, the new Action Bar is displayed on top of the news.  In addition to seeing the person who posted the news, the following options are now displayed:

• Share – launches an InMail for you to share the news with your LinkedIn contacts
• Add Comment – launches a window allowing you to add a comment to the Group News page
• Follow Comments – allows you to follow future comments on the post
• Read Comments – brings you back into the LinkedIn Groups News discussion board to see the comments
• View Next/Previous Group News Article – will forward to the next/previous Group News article

All of the above functions (with the exception of reading comments) can be done without having to return to the LinkedIn Groups News page like in the past.  This provides a significant increase in performance and usability.

The catch to the above is that all of this information is contained within the world of LinkedIn.  In other words, you can’t “share” the news article with people that are not registered on LinkedIn.  And, of course, your comments will only be displayed on the Groups discussion board.  That being said, although it is a minor tweak to the News functionality, I think LinkedIn should be applauded for providing some unique functionality to enable news to become more “viral” like it is on Twitter.  And it has definitely made it much simpler for us to interact with our LinkedIn Grous news now.

Thank you LinkedIn!  We are noticing even the “minor” tweaks and looking forward to simlar improvements in the future!

LinkedIn recently updated their blog with a post entitled 5 Ways to Get More from Your LinkedIn Groups.  But, as with information that LinkedIn is beginning to religiously blog and tweet about, I find it is too little and too late.  After all, I was first in providing LinkedIn advice for College Students before the LinkedIn introduction of their Grads Group (at least to my knowledge, if I am incorrect in the timing please correct me!), and I find the best practices information that has recently provided on Groups can be further enriched by this blog.  After all, this blog exists because people are looking for resourceful information not found elsewhere.

Let’s take a look at their blog post one piece at a time and my advice and tips for best practices in Groups:

1. Commit to a couple of groups focused on your key professional interests.  This is absolute sound advice.  But I wouldn’t stop there.  Join local groups.  Join alumni groups, both from your college as well as your high school as well as past companies.  Join a group for every industry you have ever worked in.  In fact, as I wrote on this subject back in November on Which LinkedIn Groups Should I Join?, you should absolutely be maxxing out your group membership at 50.
2. Follow other groups. The idea here is to receive the daily/weekly digests from your Group as well as follow certain conversations.  Well, this is a mixed bag.  I don’t care which LinkedIn Group you are a member of, the Discussion Boards can get quickly filled with spam and other messages that might have no meaning to you.  Yes, there are some diamonds in the rough with some Groups providing valuable information in the Discussion Boards.  But I would recommend to first subscribe to the weekly digest, but if you find it is not of value to you, you can and should unsubscribe to it.  And, as for following discussions, it really only makes sense to follow discussions that you have contributed to in the first place.  It is easy to get information overload from Social Media in general, so hopefully this will help you out.
3. Use the news. The news on the Groups is only going to be as good as those who post it.  I have yet to see a Group that does the news better than doing a Twitter search.  If you are not on Twitter, subscribe to some keywords in the excellent Company Buzz application.  You will find the news you want a lot faster than searching through LinkedIn Groups.  But, if you do find a Group that provides just the news that you are looking for, great!  Follow it religiously! I have just yet to see this done…and just adding an RSS feed could include not-so-relevant posts that are automatically spun out by a robot, so be careful here.
4. Involve your coworkers. The advice here is to include your coworkers and get them to sign up to the same Groups.  Why?  LinkedIn is about making new connections, about building out your virtual network.  Rather than invite people you already know, try to make a personal connection with people that you don’t know in the same Group.  Now you’re networking!  This is what Social Media is all about!
5. Learn about your fellow LinkedIn members. Read my answer to 4. above.  But you know what my #5 would be here?  Use the Discussion Boards to brand yourself and to offer pay-it-forward help.  Network and connect.

If you found my response to the “official” blog post of value and informative, please leave a comment and/or tweet about it!  Thanks!

And if you reading my blog, you are invited to join the official Windmill Networking LinkedIn Group to help you keep abreast of the latest in social media and discuss and connect with your fellow readers!