Has anyone out there used LinkedIn Groups for inbound links and conversation in the B2B world? What kind of response did you get? I see a lot of spam out there and am debating whether it’s worth our time and how to entice people to join the group and engage.

Karen,

I’m with Optoma Technologies. I was just brought on board to conquer social media. We have a company page, but no groups yet. I was hoping to capture the B2B market in LinkedIn to narrow the sales funnel and have a high level conversation about projector uses and technology for businesses and schools. 

I’m not seeing much conversation going on about projectors and am playing with the idea of starting it or making it more broad (ie: home theater, gaming technology, etc.)

What do you think?

http://www.linkedin.com/company/56407?goback=%2Efcs_GLHD_Optoma_false_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&trk=ncsrch_hits

The great thing about groups is that once you do get it going, and it takes a lot of work and communication, you now have permission as the group moderator to send out group mailings. Can you see the potential of being able to send out emails to a tightly targeted, specific group of professional decision makers? 

In my opinion, a well developed LinkedIn group is probably the most powerful social media tool of them all, now that says a lot. 

@lauraringer I think you should start a LI group about it and include the topics you mentioned so it will appeal to a larger group, and to men and women.

If I was going to start a group, I would conduct research to learn how successful (non-spam) LI groups were created and are managed. It’s a big undertaking and I wouldn’t want to waste my time on certain efforts if they aren’t needed.

Good luck!

I started a B2B group on LinkedIn last summer and it is hard to get going. It takes more time than I originally anticipated. I did some research and discovered there weren’t very many groups dedicated to helping companies from industrial sectors with Social Media endeavors. Yet, there were many of those companies who wanted to try and use Social more effectively.

I have been able to get over 80 people to join the group, but the hard part is to get interaction going. I try to post at least a couple of times a week and ask questions, but there are very few responses. I try and share thought-provoking articles relevant to using LinkedIn and Social in B2B.

I also participate in a number of other groups and have invited their members from time to time – very low key of course. I don’t want to appear to be “poaching”.

The group is called Social Media for Industrial Companies (I know, really clever huh?

I would welcome any ideas and/or suggestions.