Social Media: Using LinkedIn Groups To Extend Your Brand Message

LinkedIn Groups provide an online destination for to pose questions, seek expertise and recommendations within their industry or resources to use for different aspects of their business as well as make business contacts and become known amongst their peers as industry experts.
Within LinkedIn, you can find groups to join through the suggestions that LinkedIn provides as well as using the Groups Directory to seek out specific areas of interest.

The LinkedIn Group manager controls membership, discussions, settings, subgroups, rules, and more. When you submit a request to join a group, the request goes to the LinkedIn Group manager, and they have the control over whether to allow you membership in the group or not.

As a LinkedIn Group owner or manager, you are the one who controls the appearance of the group as well. With LinkedIn’s recent changes, here are two ways to take advantage of the new changes immediately:

• Upload a hero image for brand and community messaging
  
• Prominently feature manager’s choice discussions you want members to see
  

Not sure how to upload the hero image or what the size recommendations are? Here are step by step instructions:
To update the overall look of your LinkedIn Group for consistency with your branding and marketing initiatives:

1. Go to LinkedIn and log in.
   
2. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Groups.
   
3. Click the group you want to edit.
   
4. Click Manage and then select Group Information on the left.
   
5. You can now browse and upload logos from your files.
   
6. Click Save Changes.
   

Image requirements:

• Group Logo - up to 100 x 50 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 100KB
  
• Small Logo - up to 60 x 30 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 100KB
  
• Hero Image - minimum 646 x 200 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 2 MB
  

Please ensure that your image fits these sizes. There are several online tools that you can use to modify your images including Shrink Pictures and Web Resizer.

To upload and save an image, you must check the box that says. "I acknowledge and agree that the logo/image I am uploading does not infringe upon any third party copyrights, trademarks, or other proprietary rights or otherwise violate the User Agreement.”

If you don't update your hero image, it will be readily apparent to most regular users on LinkedIn. The standard image for LinkedIn Groups that haven't been updated is very recognizable, and you don't want to seem as though you aren't paying attention to your group and its members. Here is an example of what your LinkedIn Group will look like without your branding:



Note: LinkedIn doesn't allow excessive changes to a group's identity because it affects member confidence in your group and in the LinkedIn Groups product. You can only make a total of 5 group identity changes, including any group name and logo updates. Changes to the group Hero image are not counted in this limit.

To modify your manager’s choice discussions that you want prominently displayed:

1. Go to LinkedIn and log in.
   
2. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Groups.
   
3. Click the group you want to edit.
   
4. Click Search and then select Set Manager’s Choice Order on the left.
   
5. You will see the lists of any discussions that have been selected and you can modify the order by clicking the arrow buttons to move them or by changing the number to the left of the post.
   
6. Click Save Changes.
   

LinkedIn is one of the oldest social networking sites, having launched on May 5, 2003. It is geared towards business professionals and boasts the largest professional network with over 238 million members in over 200 countries and territories. Businesses, marketers and users leverage the professional community as part of an overall social media marketing strategy.