Power up your online networking by joining LinkedIn Groups



You’ve joined LinkedIn and already have a number of professional and personal contacts to whom you have linked up with, but all of these people are your friends and current or former co-workers. How do you go about expanding your professional network?



One way is to join a LinkedIn group or several groups. It’s a great way to meet new people, join in topical discussions that may be of interest to you, and expand your network for future professional advancement.



There are two ways to join a LinkedIn group—you can find a group you’re interested in and request to join that group, or you can be invited to join a group. Either way you must be approved by the group’s manager before you can become a member.



To get started, you can look at other members’ profiles and see which groups they belong to by simply clicking on a group logo in their profile. Otherwise, you can just search for a group in the Groups Directory. To use this method, just:

· Click on User Groups or Groups on the home page’s left navigation bar

· Click on the Groups Directory tab

· Find Search Groups box

· Select a category from drop down window

· Click on Search



Once you have a found a group that interests you, you may request to join the group. After this process is completed, you will be able to click on the group’s link and explore its overview page, which will describe current discussions. Through the members tab, you also will be able to see who the members of the group are, read their profile information, and send messages to them.



The other way to join a LinkedIn group is via invitation. If you are invited to join a group, your membership already might be preapproved. To find out if you’re preapproved, make sure the e-mail address where you received the invitation is one of your confirmed e-mail addresses on your LinkedIn account. You can check by going to the home page, and under Account & Settings click on E-mail Addresses.



Whether you have sought out a group or have been invited to join one, the new discussions you will be involved in and the new group members you will be affiliated with will help you expand your network and may well prove to be important factors in fulfilling your job search or career reinvention goals.