I have recently talked about how I have built my LinkedIn group with a few people from within my mentoring program and since people wanted to know more about the specifics, I decided to write this blog post for you.

I launched my LinkedIn group, the Career Network Switzerland, in October 2012. Since then, it has grown to over 5000 people.

Depending on which groups on LinkedIn you look at, this may seem big or small.

When looking at the number, I think you need to consider a few aspects.

1. My target market is extremely specific being English speaking business professionals in Switzerland

2. The group is very active and spammers are banned relentlessly

3. I haven’t been doing crazy amounts of marketing for the group

77 Paid Clients in 2013 Through My LinkedIn Group

Maybe instead of the raw figure of 5000 people in the group, we should rather talk about the results.

Over the course of 2013, I have worked with 96 coaching & mentoring clients and based on the feedback I received, most of them became aware of me through my LinkedIn group.

If we say that only 80% of the people I have worked with last year, initially became aware of me because of my group, that’s 77 coaching & mentoring clients in one year. Not a bad result.

Now, let me show you how the whole process looked like going from zero to 5000 members in 15 months.

1. Starting the Group

Obviously, the first thing I did was start the group. I created a name, the Career Network Switzerland — Your Career. Your Business. Your Life., designed a very simple logo and hit the create button.

I chose this name for some specific reasons.

A. It has the keywords “Career” and “Switzerland” in there

B. The purpose is that people get to know each other so “Network” was the right decision

C. It’s clear what it is and the tagline gives an idea about why people should join

I chose the tagline because I did not want people in there who are looking for an average job but rather people who want to follow their passion, people who want to start their own business full time or on the side and people who want to create a life on their own terms.

How to Get More Email Subscribers Through Your LinkedIn Group

When you go into the settings of the group, you can create different templates, one of them to be sent to welcome new people to the group.

You can then thank them for joining and provide a link to join your email list.

My welcome message looks something like this:

“Hi there

Welcome to the Career Network Switzerland. Make sure you make the most from the group and connect with others, share ideas and insights as well as start and join discussions about topics you care about.

If you would like to make your communication more effective when reaching out to influencers & decision makers, download the free Communication Excellence Workbook here.

I hope you will benefit from the group and it will help you get closer to your goals.

Best Regards

Daniel”

2. Invite People From Your Network & Nurture the Group

The first thing you should probably do after you have created your group is invite all the people within your network who could benefit.

These can be your LinkedIn connections, your email subscribers, your friends and anybody else you can think of who could receive value from being in the group.

After I have invited almost everyone from my LinkedIn network, there were around 100 people in the group.

That is great to start with because when the group is new, the engagement level is the highest.

Make sure that you properly nurture the group by starting discussions around topics that people eagerly want to comment on.

Here are some examples that would fit into the Career Network Switzerland:

“What is your #1 issue when relocating to Switzerland?”

“What is your favorite thing about Switzerland?”

“Do you mostly hang out with Swiss or international people?”

3. Embed the Group Logo Into Your Website

I have embedded the LinkedIn group logo in the sidebar of my blog. I did not do it do drive massive amounts of traffic to the group because people won’t usually click on too many things in a sidebar.

I did it to create awareness of the group’s existence.

Guess what happens when people see the logo unconsciously 7 times in one month when reading one of my blog post and then search for career groups in Switzerland on LinkedIn?

They will most probably recognize the logo of my group and join it instead of joining another one.

4. Regularly Mention Your LinkedIn Group in Blog Posts

This is crucial because it will probably drive the biggest amount of people to your group. I started very soon to mention the Career Network Switzerland in some of my blog posts.

I wrote something like this in a suitable spot in my articles:

“If you want to expand your network in Switzerland, join the Career Network Switzerland.”

“Do you want to build your network in Switzerland? Join the Career Network Switzerland on LinkedIn.”

5. Share Your Blog Posts in Other Relevant LinkedIn Groups

I have around 10 other groups I am a member of that are highly relevant to my target market.

Every time I publish a blog post, I go into those groups, start a discussion with a highly engaging question or comment and share my blog post as an attachment.

This does not only drive people from that group into your group but it also represents you as a valuable member instead of a spammer.

Choose a title for your discussion that is highly relevant to the group you are sharing your blog post with.

If you want to maximize the results, make sure it’s also highly engaging. Ask questions that people love to comment on.

I recently asked this question that has received 30+ comments in several groups and made me a “Top Contributor” over night:

“What do you think is the #1 thing that is wrong with the corporate world?”

Attached to that question, I shared my blog post on 7 Reasons Why a Corporate Career Sucks & a More Fulfilling Alternative.

6. Keep the Group Engaged and Provide Lots of Value

Regularly join discussions in the group, start your own threads, sometimes with blog posts attached and sometimes without.

Find a good mix between marketing and simply communicating.

Ask questions that you really want to hear an answer to, otherwise you won’t bother with joining the discussion later again.

Send an announcement to all members ever 1-2 weeks. You send one per month as long as you send them regularly.

See it like sending an email to your subscribers and keep the marketing messages at less than 20%.

Also treat the headline of your announcement like a message to your email list or the title of a blog post.

I usually send announcements about my most popular recent blog posts, invitations to events and workshops I am hosting, free webinars and simple thank you or seasonal greetings.

Follow the 80/20 rule and only send marketing messages in less than 20% of the time.

7. How to Keep the Group Spam Free

There are a few things you can configure in the group settings.

For example, you can choose if you want to have it as an open group so anybody can join without your permission or you can set it up as invitation-only.

The Career Network Switzerland is an open group and anybody can join it, however, not anybody can publish something.

My assistant reviews every single new post that is submitted to the group.

Jobs are redirected to the jobs tab, promotions go into promotions if they are relevant to the people in the group. Non-relevant postings are deleted and spammers are banned.

This way I keep the group spam-free and people are more likely to join when they see that there are real humans communicating with each other instead of spammers spamming spammers.