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Officially (i.e., per the company), the purpose of LinkedIn Groups is to “…provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share content, find answers, post and view jobs, make business contacts, and establish themselves as industry experts.”

I’d agree with that description – LinkedIn Groups are a terrific resource for all of those activities. But it helps if you have a bit more background and strategic guidance to really max out groups’ benefits. So with the goal of using LinkedIn Groups to do cool LIS career stuff, here are some ideas to help you get started.

Officially (i.e., per the company), the purpose of LinkedIn Groups is to:

…provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share content, find answers, post and view jobs, make business contacts, and establish themselves as industry experts.

I’d agree with that description – LinkedIn Groups are a terrific resource for all of those activities. But it helps if you have a bit more background and strategic guidance to really max out groups’ benefits. So with the goal of using LinkedIn Groups to do cool LIS career stuff, here are some ideas to help you get started.

Identifying potential groups to Join

There are a number of ways to identify groups you may be interested in.  For example:

Use the Groups search function.  In the Search box found at the left top of the home page, put your cursor in the search box and then click on the search icon (yep, you’re actually leaving the search box blank). This will bring up a ton of results, but what you really want is the options that show up right under the top menu bar, e.g., People, Jobs, Content, More. Click on the More drop-down menu, and select Groups. NOW put in your search term, which will bring up results related to your term of interest.

Alternatively, click on the Work icon the in right-hand area of the options bar at the top of the page, then chose the Groups icon. Click on the Discover option, which will bring up a page of groups that the LinkedIn AI algorithm thinks might interest you.

As you do your research, keep in mind the quirk of LinkedIn’s search function, i.e., the search term must occur in the group’s official name or description. For example, a recent search on the keyword libraries brought up 537 results, whereas a search on the word library resulted in 1,389 group listings.

Check out your connections’ groups.  If you have a connection with someone you know shares your professional interests, go to the bottom of their profile page where an Interests section will show you a sampling of the LinkedIn groups that individual belongs to (and is willing to have visible on his or her profile page). In order to see all of that person’s groups, click on the See All option.

Evaluating which groups provide your best return

LinkedIn allows members to join up to 100 groups. For some individuals (recruiters, consultants, business development people, etc.), it makes sense to join every one of those 100 groups because it’s such a great way to see – and be seen by – a large number of professionals in a specific discipline or practice area.

It’s also a great way to learn more about a professional environment that you’d like to transition into. You can see what people are discussing, identify leading contributors, see where they work, and otherwise learn information that can help you bridge from where you are into your potential area of new opportunity.

Or, you can decide that you simply want to grow right where you are by learning more about your discipline, building your visibility as a thoughtful discussion contributor (asking good questions can often be as valuable as answering them), or connecting to others in your field so you can more effectively share knowledge and resources (okay, and possibly at some point job opportunities). In this case, you’d want to join the groups that related most directly to the work you do.

Big or small?  Depending on your career goals, a group with lots of members could be just the right venue for you to quickly expand your network and professional visibility. For example, the American Library Association has over 65,500 members, and as you can imagine, covers many topics in its discussions, many related specifically to the activities of the organization. A big LinkedIn group like this might be great for information monitoring, but it would be easy to have your contributions get “lost in the crowd” unless you post regularly.

A smaller group, say Collections Management in Heritage Organizations (11,260 members) or the Health Informatics Forum (3,792 members) might offer a better opportunity to have your participation become more visible if this is one of your goals.

How active?  One of the criteria for whether a group will be worth your time is how active it is – how many discussions are going on regularly? Are people asking lots of questions, getting good answers, talking about new information, sharing resources, suggesting discussion topics? The more active a group is, the more you’ll get out of it, and the more impact/visibility your own engagement is likely to have with other group members.

It’s probable that there will be a few regulars who start discussion threads, but how many others jump in to comment or share insights? This will help you gauge engagement, which is one of your key metrics when deciding which groups to join.

Do the members align with your career goals?  One of the reasons to join specific LinkedIn groups is to be able to reach out directly to their members for purposes of networking, connections, or information gathering. So it makes sense to become active in groups that may help advance your short-term or long-term career goals.

You won’t be able to see or search a group’s list of members until you’ve signed up to join and been approved by the group manager. Once you’re in, however, you can explore the members list by going to the About This Group section in the right sidebar. A bit further down you’ll see Members and the number of members. Click on the number of members to bring up a list of all of the group’s members, which you can sort by join date or last name. You can also search by an individual’s name if you know it.

Although LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to request to connect to a group member, you can direct message them. It’s fascinating to cruise through the member list, looking at their job titles and where they work – it’s a terrific way to expand your thinking about all the ways you can deploy your LIS skills.

Your getting-started strategy

If you’re just getting started with LinkedIn Groups, I’d suggest that you join and/or engage with these groups at a minimum:

Your alumni group.  LinkedIn automatically adds you to your college LinkedIn alumni group, although alumni groups vary wildly in terms of how active they are. Nevertheless, alumni groups are sort of like what Robert Frost said about family, i.e., when you go there they have to take you in. Alumni groups are the no-brainer of career networking, so you want to make sure you’ve joined your grad school’s own alumni group as well as its LinkedIn alumni group if they have one. The basic assumption is that alumni will all take each others’ calls, and help if they can. Invaluable for job-hunting and networking.

Your main professional group.  Most LIS associations also have LinkedIn groups, for example the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) or the Special Library Association. This might also be the American Library Association, Digital Library Federation, RIM Professionals (records management and records information management), DAM Foundation (digital asset management) or some other LIS specialization. Think of this as “your tribe” – the people who get what you do, share your interests and issues, and with whom you could hang out at conferences.

An LIS career group.  There are a number of useful ones: I’ll recommend my own (LIS Career Options), but other good LIS career groups are Job Skills for Future Library Careers, and INALJ (I Need a Library Job) for starters.

A group just for fun.  No judging here – if it makes you happy, go for it! Why not connect with others who share your passion? (I’m delighted to report that there’s actually a Surfers in Technology group for all of us landlocked bodysurfers….) Depending on how, ah, generally accepted your particular passion is, you’ll be able to choose whether or not to make the group visible on your profile. But if it’s not totally out there, consider that it might be great for potential interviewers to know something fun and personal about you to distinguish you from other job applicants.

Don’t worry about what to say and when – just jump in and join a couple of groups, then lurk for a while and observe each group’s conversational style. Check out the past couple of months of discussion topics to get a sense of what types of topics seem to be of greatest interest to the group members (i.e., get the most comments), and when you feel comfortable, post something.

Could be a question, a resource you know will be of interest, an answer to someone else’s question, or even just a comment of appreciation for a previous poster’s contribution. The point is to start contributing for the benefit of the group’s members, thereby demonstrating why you’re such a terrific professional to know (and connect with).