How I Got 1265 Visitors from a Channel that Most Marketers Ignore

Getting the word out about your content is one of the biggest challenges that bloggers face. Last year, I talked about how SEO sent way more traffic to my site than social media.

This year, however, social media was the big winner. Social media can allow you to reach lots of real people quickly. Which mean that even if your website is new, you can get a lot of people to your site quick.

Take a look at the image below. It’s a screenshot of the social shares on my post entitled – 70+ Keyword Research Tool Alternatives to Google Planner:

Which channel do you think sent the most traffic to this post? For social media, Twitter usually has the most shares and far exceeds the number of social shares by double or triple on any given post.

However, in this case, most of the social media traffic to this post came from LinkedIn. Twitter users are very eager to share content, but LinkedIn’s population is more representative of the general population as LinkedIn wasn’t built as a content sharing platform. But there are millions of business and career-minded people on LinkedIn and it is still a great way to reach a lot of people.

In this post, I’m going to talk about how you can use LinkedIn groups to get more traffic to your website, content or business. You may also want to read my post on LinkedIn Publishing for even more information on marketing on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Groups

Are you using LinkedIn Groups? A lot of people I know are on LinkedIn, but most of them aren’t using LinkedIn Groups. Some of these groups have thousands of niche targeted members.

LinkedIn members can form their own group about whatever topic they want and choose their own rules. Some LinkedIn groups are for discussion only and other groups allow content promotion.

LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups maximum. Here are a few reasons you should start joining LinkedIn groups:

1) Increase your visibility when people are searching for you

Joining groups connects you to thousands of other LinkedIn users and is one of the easiest ways to increase your visibility, even if you never post anything on the group page.

Here’s a screenshot of what shows up when I search for “digital marketing”. Notice how some of the people that LinkedIn shows me are connected to me simply because we are in the same group:

2) Showcase your expertise

LinkedIn groups are a great way to showcase your expertise. In fact, some active members have said that participating in groups has even gotten them new clients and projects.

People ask questions often on LinkedIn and providing a well thought out answer is a good way to show off your expertise and gain visibility, not only to the person asking the question, but also to everyone else who might be visiting the group.

3) Promote your business or yourself

Some groups allow you to post your content, but be sure to read the group rules before you post anything. Check first to see if other people are posting their articles in the group.

To make sure, click on the “i” icon on the group to read their rules regarding promoting content or posting links in groups. Some group moderators designed their groups specifically to promote discussion about the group topic and have banned content promotion or linking altogether.

How to Promote Content in Groups

Once you have found a few groups that allow content promotion, sign up for the group and observe the activity in each group. Some groups aren’t actively moderated and although they have many members, the people aren’t highly engaged and may not even visit the group that often.

Here are a few tips for successful content promotion on LinkedIn:

1. Only post to groups that allow content sharing in the first place

Although this may sound obvious, there are a lot of people posting links in groups that don’t allow content promotion. Don’t be a spammer. Be sure to check the group to make sure that other people are promoting their content first and then double check by reading the group rules.

Another tip is to check the “Promotions” tab. Sometimes articles will get moved into this tab by the group moderator where almost no one will see it. Compare the content in this tab to what you are currently about to post and make an honest evaluation as to whether or not the moderator is going to allow your link to show in the regular feed.

Warning: Be sure to follow this step so that you don’t get blocked by the group moderator. This could also negatively affect your ability to post in other groups.

2. Pay attention to common questions and problems

If you participate in groups enough, you may start to see common questions that come up a lot or problems that people face. These questions that people are asking can make a great topics for blog posts that you can later promote in these LinkedIn groups.

3. Look for groups with a high level of participation and engagement

The number of members in the group is one factor to look at when deciding to join a group, but you will also want to see if the members are actively participating in the group.

Are people asking and answering questions? Or are people just posting their content and not getting any comments or likes?

If content promotion is allowed, then it doesn’t hurt to try posting your article to the group at least once to see if you get good results. Sometimes you will get more leverage from posting to a smaller group with more active members than a large group that people have forgotten about.

4. Get active in groups by answer and asking questions

Before you post your own content, it can help to connect with other group members by answering and asking questions. If you interact regularly with people in the group, they are more likely to be active on your post when you share your article.

Post popularity seems to be determined by either click through rates or views. So making friends within your group can definitely help you when you post something new.

5. Instead of just dumping the link to your article, ask a question or make an interesting statement

Remember that groups are designed to encourage conversation and that many group members are there to network and gain visibility on LinkedIn. Generally, posts where people ask questions tend to be more popular than posts where people are sharing articles.

In fact, I’ve seen posts with simple questions remain popular for many months. So be sure to encourage discussion when you are presenting your post to the group.

6. Reply to comments

Whenever someone comments on your LinkedIn post, you will get a notification on LinkedIn. Be sure to reply to comments and questions.

Not only is this the polite thing to do, but it can also encourage people to keep the conversation going, which can keep your post popular for awhile.

7. Create an amazing article

Groups that allow content promotion are filled with noise from other people promoting their content. So to stand out, be sure to create an amazing article. Make sure it is noticeably better than other articles that other people are posting.

This can help you get noticed and stand out from all the other people that are sharing content to the LinkedIn group.

Have you tried LinkedIn groups yet?

My keyword tools article was at the top of the LinkedIn group for over 2 months and sent a nice steady stream of targeted traffic for awhile. What’s even better is that the group members helped me expand my blog post by suggesting new resources that I missed originally.

Twitter has also been a favorite social media channel among digital marketers, but for Small Business Ideas Blog, LinkedIn is a close second and I expect with a little more work, it could become my top social media referrer.

So what about you? Have you tried LinkedIn groups to promote yourself yet?