In my first post I covered how to get your profile set up in LinkedIn. Now that you have done the hard work of getting all your localized and areas of specialties keywords packed into your profile, it is time to start connecting, which is the whole reason you do this.
LinkedIn describes Groups as:
Many professionals advance their careers and business goals by counting on industry and professional groups, alumni organizations, industry conferences and corporate alumni groups to help them make vital new business contacts. LinkedIn Groups offers extra features to group-based organizations to help their members stay in touch with one another and discover powerful new business contacts within their groups and beyond. LinkedIn Groups allows event organizers and group organizations to extend their brand’s reach and strengthen the brand with existing users by providing additional value through LinkedIn’s features.
The Groups functionality will allow you to connect with other professionals, but it can also allow you to connect with local business owners, and even homeowners if you position your group(s) right. The Group functionality allows you to broadcast messages to the group. Members of the group have a few options regarding their participation, such as whether or not to display the Groups Logo next to the LinkedIn listing or if other group members can contact you directly (instead of going through your LinkedIn mailbox). As the administrator, you can send out messages to the group as a whole and you approve new members into the group.
A quick search on LinkedIn for “real estate” in the Groups, returns 1,034 groups dedicated to real estate issues, from home builders and tradesmen to agencies. If I then refine the search to “real estate” Chicago, then I get 11 groups. Most of the localized groups are dominated by existing trade associations and groups started to get professionals in the industry to network with one another or post important and timely information to the group regarding the issues that they are concerned with.
To start a group, read here: http://www.linkedin.com/createGroup? You will be asked for a logo as well as a name and description, type of group, a website associated with the group (key thing to have as this is what will drive the traffic) and your email address (kept private except to those you allow to contact you directly). The main thing is to have an excellent name that describes the groups purpose succinctly. The description also must be accurate to bring in the right people that find your group or you invite (and hopefully other members will invite) to your group.
HINT: Make sure to pack your group’s description with keywords/phrases, as this will make you more easily found within LinkedIn. Make sure to use town names, zip codes and of course excellent descriptions of your groups overall goals and benefits.
For real estate professionals there will be two types of groups that will help you get your business’ promoted. The first is for buyers and sellers that you have previously worked with to join. This will allow you to connect in a meaningful way to your past clients and allow them to promote your group’s logo in their profiles. The thinking here is that if friends and associates of your past clients see the group on their friends profile and they may want to joint. It also allows your past clients to be connected to you. So in creating this type of group you can give out real estate investing tips, house staging tips, advice on how to get the most out of the market, etc. The key take away here is to give past clients a reason to promote you and a fast easy way for them to connect with you and you with them even if they are not in the midst of a real estate transaction.
The second type of group you may want to create is a group that is focused on specific market segments in a geographical region. If you are a commercial broker, you may want to start a geographically based group that is dedicated to keeping local business owners abreast of the latest buildings up for sale/lease in their area. You would want to name the group appropriately, such as “Current Chicago Commercial Real Estate Listings”, then weekly blast out a group message on the hottest properties and link them back to your commercial properties page on your site.
Another group you can create for the Commercial side of things, is a geographically based group concerning itself with real estate investors in the market you serve.
HINT: Right now there are almost no groups specifically named Real Estate investors for specific geographic areas, it is practically wide open.
Since investors are rabid information hounds, you can tap into their network by producing weekly blasts that gives them good advice on how to take advantage of the market in your area, what the latest trends and reports are and generally try to drive them to an “Investors” information page on your site to get them to call or connect through email with you. The goal here is to provide information to the group so that when they need your services they know you are the expert.
As you can see, you have to be relevant. LinkedIn will not allow you to search homeowners in your area and connect with them. It does allow you though, another avenue for the people you meet at open houses or other client attracting events to get a better sense of who you are and what you can offer them. So when you are going through your contacts, make sure to search for them on LinkedIn and then request that they join your LinkedIn network. The “I told 2 people and they told 2 people and they told 2 people, and so on” principle is at play here, and can increase the prospect pool you have to call on. Create a group so you can easily connect in a relevant way to those in your prospect pool and over time your network will grow organically.
The next post will be on how to use LinkedIn’s Recommendations feature to get “social proofs” for your services. Recommendations are one of the most powerful ways to generate Word of Mouth advertising as well as excellent content for your website.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at jim@synergyintermedia.com or visit my blog: www.jimlillig.com for more internet marketing tips.
