Building Better Networks With LinkedIn Groups

EI’s Social Media Vision and Goals
Paper presented to Senior Management Jan ‘10
Help grow our clients’ exports
Create a more transparent organisation for clients
Build increased credibility with clients and the wider community
Make existing industry networks more effective using social tools
by encouraging clients to contribute content, in line with their own and our objectives. Promote a dialogue with clients and community on EI managed sites and foster the development of online groups around niche industry and sector issues where it is appropriate to do so
In essence, better management of offline networks, and make it easier to do business with EI

Why LinkedIn?
Close to 500K Irish profiles, 2nd highest penetration globally
Strong chance that our target audience (clients/partners/academia) are active on the site
We don’t have to do the heavy lifting to build a community
145M+ users globally, marketing benefit to clients by being active on the platform
Jan 2010 we had c. 600+ EI staff profiles
plenty of enthusiasm & awareness of capability - pushing an open door

As things stand…
14 Groups > c. 5,500 members (definitely duplication between Groups, both clients and EI staff)
2 distinct types of group
industry/sector cluster (e.g. Space Industry Ireland)
region (e.g. Irish Professionals Nordic Network)
Using Groups for
disseminating EI information (manual and automated)
client self-service
peer-to-peer support

Varying degrees of success
“ It would have been great if we got a buyer who browsed the [MedInIreland] group, found an interesting [client] company and then contacted them and bought a pallet of stents or catheters from them - but I don't think that was ever a realistic goal”
for events, opportunity for pre-networking
certainly easier than maintaining an email list!
IPNN: crowd-sourcing market validation from targeted community members
Reaching out and gaining support from diaspora, has led to deals! (IBN)
Anecdotal story of the two companies who identified a potential collaboration on a LinkedIn Group to discover that they were next door to each other
When tracking success, important to remember that members aren’t obliged to inform you through the community itself – you may never know!

Lessons learned
Groups are great for building new relationships
crystalising “informal” networks, gives them an identity
platform for promoting successes (both EI and clients’) and (hopefully) inspiring other companies
The hard part is actually making a community work
Too easy to join (and create!) a Group…
Group can't be all things to all people: will not replace your CRM, email, phone and offline events
Think about resources…
Members slow to share content (content mix also important, IPNN/IBN)
Managing the membership to maintain the original focus
need moderator(s) who actually finds the Group useful themselves!
otherwise, they won't really invest...don't leave it to an admin!

Lessons learned (cont.)
Segment membership using subgroups to refine conversations, reduces irrelevant content
May be an education piece to get members involved, some sectors may be not be among early adopters...
Lack of monitoring/alerting feature

@TheCR

Irish People in the Public Sector Group http:// www.linkedin.com/groups?gid =717317

Thank You
[email_address]
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davescanlon
@ei_dscanlon
Groups mentioned during presentation
Space Industry Ireland
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2455720
Irish Professionals Nordic Network
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2002118
Irish Business Network in Germany, Switzerland and Austria
http:// www.linkedin.com/groups?gid =1689007

Building Better Networks With LinkedIn Groups

by David Scanlon

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