What’s new in LinkedIn Groups? Learn more
We are very pleased to announce the upgrade of LinkedIn Groups. Today, we’re releasing a brand new, streamlined group creation process along with a few enhancements to the group management tool. I will delve into the details below, but first let’s step back and take a look at the benefits of being a member of a LinkedIn Group.
Membership in a group affords users the following three benefits:
- Search: You have access to the profiles of all of the other members of your group.
- Communication: You have the ability to directly contact other members of your group for free.
- Badge: You have the option to display your group as a digital bumper sticker.
What’s new?
I. Groups Creation
Let’s take a look at some of the new features. Creating a group on LinkedIn has become easier than ever before! There is only one form to complete, and this is what it looks like:
Creating a new LinkedIn Group
When you click “Submit Group for Review,” our customer service team will process this group request and approve it within 1-2 business days. Groups on LinkedIn should be professional in nature, and we encourage the following types of groups:
- Alumni
- Corporate
- Conference
- Networking
- Non-Profit
- Professional
II. Groups Access
LinkedIn Groups is accessible through the link in the footer of your LinkedIn homepage. If you are already a member of a group, then you can click “See all my groups” on the lower, right side of your home page. Either of these links will allow you easy access to your “My Groups” page. The My Groups page is a consolidated view of all of your groups for which you are either a manager or a member.
The New My Groups page
III. Groups Management
We have made several enhancements to the group management interface. All of the links are clearly listed in the box on the left side of the page. Some of the functions you can do as a manager are (i) view the group members, (ii) invite and accept new members, and (iii) edit the group info.
Managing a new LinkedIn Group
I encourage you to try out the new group functionality by creating a group today! If you have any questions that are not answered in the FAQ, please feel free to contact us: groups@linkedin.com.
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(The team behind LinkedIn Groups | from l – r: Ben Guthrie, Brian Guan, Omar Lee, Yassine Hinnach, and Scott Schlegel) trackback
http://blog.linkedin.com/2007/09/21/linkedin-groups-2/trackback/
Janette Toral September 22nd, 2007
Great to see that there is this system now that make things easier. I have a group here in LinkedIn and here are some suggestions to share:
- my group is a membership type. Perhaps adding a setting that a member is part of the group for a period of time (like one year). The reason for this is I find it kinda awkward to delete inactive members from the list worrying that they might get offended.
- have an option whether people can apply to join the group or it is by-invitation only. In my case, my club is by-invitation only and had to email those here who applied to explain that.
- send message to the group. (if it is possible)
Hope these suggestions will help. Cheers and more power to LinkedIn!
Arjan Eising September 22nd, 2007
I was waiting for this, but I am stunned how it looks like. Great job guys!
Tom Van Vleck September 22nd, 2007
Great improvements, thanks.
One little thing.. it is now hard for a group manager to find out the number of group members. The total used to be at the top of the members list; now one has to search to get the total.
When I manage a group, I check for pending requests and then check if the number of members has changed (due to pre-approved signups). If these two items were on the first management page it would save me a few seconds. Just a thought.
Mark Griffin September 22nd, 2007
Well done for getting this going again – BUT – I can’t seem to upload any images for the logos. It just times out after many attempts and fiddling with anti-spyware and other settings. Needless to say I can perform the same function on other sites. Any ideas?
Ashwin September 22nd, 2007
You guys rock!
Keep up the good work
Ashwin
Vincent Wright September 22nd, 2007
As a passionate Linkedin groups owner, I must say that, without a doubt, this is singularly THE BEST present Linkedin has provided in 2007! Nothing has had a greater positive impact on me than this new change for Groups. We’ve needed this for a long time!
Kudos to the Groups Team for a job well done!!!
Now, the second “Kudos” will come when Management realizes how emotionally important it is for those of us evangelizing our groups to easily be able to see how many members we have in our groups. It is a source of pride for some of us. And pride matters to those of us working so hard to build these groups for our networks.
Again, GREAT JOB!
Thanks!
gareth wong September 22nd, 2007
Great new upgrades.
what we have all been waiting for and glad that we are now in control and no need to ‘hassle’ you guys..
look forward to more upgrades but for now, it should have what we need going forward.
communication and ability to email the group really helps, not tried it yet, but hope to soon.
BR
Gareth
Alejandro Pisanty September 22nd, 2007
Excellent news! I had just asked about LinkedIn groups a few days ago and you have delivered on your promise of “coming real soon.”
For the organization I want to create a group for, a university, it would be desirable to have both alumni and present academic staff and students to belong to the group. I will define it as “alumni” now but wish you could consider the double/triple labels as a way to identify ourselves.
Srinath September 22nd, 2007
Great,adding this feature.
it will help us to have members linked and interact with them.
Srinath Birur
Amit September 23rd, 2007
Nice to see this added. I craeted a group but had to borrow the URL and email id from another site. Could these be offered within Linked in.
Is a preview of the group homepage available.. or have I missed it in a hurry.
thanks
Amit
Basheir September 23rd, 2007
Invited users need to be able to preview a group before joining
Theron Nolen September 23rd, 2007
Cool features, but how do you “directly contact other members of your group for free”?
Thanks,
Theron
Jaroslav Pros September 24th, 2007
Theron,
you can find the answer in Group managers FAQ
Can I send messages to all our group members?
We do not provide any mass-mailing capabilities at this point because LinkedIn Groups is not designed for this purpose. LinkedIn is a tool that facilitates relationships and enables communication on a one-to-one basis. In the future, we or our partners may offer additional group communication options to group administrators.
Keyrun September 24th, 2007
Great place to discover
Sachin September 24th, 2007
Is it possible to give only access to limited number of your contacts. now we have to give access of all our connections to everyone, i would love to choose whom all i can give the access.
Matthew Liptak September 24th, 2007
How about posting a list of all the active groups within Linkedin so people can quickly choose which group they would like to sign up for? These changes are great and add to quick accessability, but without knowing which ones are even out there is a bit premature to even suggest changes at this point don’t you think? Why not create a group directory of some sort. I have my own group for military veterans and this question is asked all the time.
Piyush September 24th, 2007
Looks like yet another creative way to network!
LodewijkB September 24th, 2007
What’s the point in making it easy to create groups, when nobody can find them?!
See this statement:
“The groups directory is not currently available for new groups. If you have questions about LinkedIn Groups that are not answered in the FAQ, please contact us here.”
This will lead to a massive pollution of all kinds of new groups which are more or less the same, which undermines the possible added benefits of becoming a group member.
I missed opportunity if you ask me, and a very unwise decision.
You should better take the whole group functionality off line until the search part works as well!
Kind regards,
LodewijkB
Omesh Adiani September 24th, 2007
I am truly thankful to the LinkedIn team, for coming up with something as useful as this. I am sure the world will be indebted to you as time passes.
Elias Kai September 25th, 2007
Are you competing with what guys are trying to build at Facebook?
How easy would it be to check each member groups status?
Mark Griffin September 25th, 2007
> This will lead to a massive pollution of all kinds of new groups which are more or less the same, which undermines the possible added benefits of becoming a group member.
I absolutely agree. Groups on Facebook have become meaningless because any idiot (and I’m sure there are none here) can create a group for anything. Many of them even have exactly the same name.
While I’m posting, I haven’t seen any answer to my problem of not being able to upload a logo for a group I’m trying to create, it just says the upload timed out. Looking here, I can’t see that anyone has posted that they’ve actually been able to upload an image, so am I the only one? Of-list answers would be fine by me mark.griffin@cyberpoint.co.uk
Paulo Pereira September 25th, 2007
This is great! I also think the ability for the manager to send a message to all the group would be great, and maybe being able to post a message or news on the group home page too.
Thanks, guys!
Christophe Poizat September 27th, 2007
Fantastic! I have created the International Network of Social Entrepreneurs and my group was approved very quickly (within 2 hours); I am highly impressed!
The International Network of Social Entrepreneurs is a group for Entrepreneurs to connect and promote Social Entrepreneurship worldwide; Social Entrepreneurs recognize a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.
Linkedin members interested in joining can click on:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/31412/17C49C0D64D1
Thanks again for a wonderful new feature a job well done!
All the best,
Christophe Poizat
Ben Guthrie September 28th, 2007
Thanks for all of the valuable feedback! We restored the total count of group members so managers can see how many members are in their groups. We’ve also added support for progressive JPEGs, which were previously timing out when you tried to upload them. LinkedIn Groups is a work in progress so we will take your suggestions seriously. The most direct way to reach us is to contact groups@linkedin.com.
Jeff Martens October 1st, 2007
I am happy to have LinkedIn groups back up and running. Here are a couple suggestions to make it even better:
1. Allow pre-approving by LinkedIn profile rather than email. Some people use a different email addresses and unless I know which one they use for LinkedIn I can’t accuratly pre-approve them.
2. As the group manager, I would appreciate an email letting me know that people have requested to be part of the group. For hte last few days I was bummed that not more people joined till I stumbled upon a list of people waiting for approval. Good thing I checked…
3. Create an automated way for me to invite people right from the LinkedIn site.
Ronald Wopereis October 11th, 2007
hi team, thanks much for creating this new group feature.
best regards, Ron
( LinkedIN groupID 2738 )
Sajjadul Hakim October 17th, 2007
The new “Export current members” feature in LinkedIn Groups is not exporting Company name and Job Title. But when I use the “Export Connections” feature under “My Connections” the exported CSV has these information. Can you please fix this. Thanks.
Btw, great work with the new updates in LinkedIn Groups.
Ted Graham October 17th, 2007
Is it possible to browse all of your colleagues at a company or at least discover how many are on LinkedIn? (like I can on Facebook)
Michael Rasmussen Valiantin November 14th, 2007
Yes it helps to be member of one or many groups. I have joined as a consul for many groups, and it is one of the forces of LINKEDIN, that you can create and be a member of groups.
C Royce November 16th, 2007
Hi;
I submitted a new group request over a week ago and never heard a response, much less an acknowledgement that it was received. What gives?
Mike Gill December 13th, 2007
It would be good if you could integrate the Q&As more closely with the groups. In particular, there is a strong need to limit questions to a single group – very difficult to do right now. It would be great if you could ask your group a question and they received an individual email about it. Guess you would need opt out options for the group members in the group profile.
Mike
Marez January 26th, 2008
I am a co-author of a blog that is trying to make a comprehesive list of the groups available on LinkedIn. You can find us at http://www.linkedingroupsdirectory.com If you know of a group that we don’t have listed, please leave us a comment!
Jeroen J Roelants March 7th, 2008
Since 2 days I – as group manager – get the error notice “The group is not open to new members at this time.” when I try to add new members. Is this a known bug or is there another problem?
Daniel Kennedy March 26th, 2008
Please open up the groups directory again, or put in a reasonable replacement in the near future. I have created an alumni group, and I’m hit with requests from folks who have heard about it, but can’t figure out how to request membership. It becomes a Usability issue with the web site, because people can’t figure out how to execute this task.
Keep up the good work.
Mario Sundar April 2nd, 2008
Thanks to all for your kind comments. I’ve forwarded all your open questions/feedback to Ben. He will be responding shortly.
Don Tinney April 24th, 2008
As already stated, please open the group directory so new members can find our group. Thanks.
Steve Arnold May 2nd, 2008
Groups access is now broken. When I request the members of one of my groups, I get the first 500 people in my network, regardless of group. There is no longer a search checkbox to restrict searches to my groups, either. Please return this it its former state!
German May 8th, 2008
You can’t search for groups. I can’t find groups I want to join. cuek…
Josh Norris June 4th, 2008
it seems the “export current members” feature has been removed? i no longer see it at the bottom of my group members list. is there a reason for this? thanks. -josh
Christopher Noble June 23rd, 2008
As a relatively new linkedin owner, groups could be extremely useful. But they are not. Why? Because I have no way to find out what groups are out there.
If you can’t search for groups or browse for them properly you can’t join them, which entirely negates their use, unless they are meant to be private, by-invitation affairs.
Pramod July 7th, 2008
Ability to ask a question to a Group and ability to receive answers which are visible to all the members of the group. I am not sure if I would be able to do it.
This would be a great tool for the groups to be more functional.
Pramod July 7th, 2008
Ability to ask a question to a Group and ability to receive answers which are visible to all the members of the group. I am not sure if I would be able to do it.
This would be a great tool for the groups to be more functional.
Chris Brown July 8th, 2008
My group “Corporate recruiters” have problems with accepting new members “The group is not open to new members at this time.” How to fix it? The problem appeared after group members reached 2998.
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/87887/3967D305994F
Mario Sundar July 30th, 2008
@Christopher and others similar questions,
Search is now integrated into LinkedIn Groups, which is both accessible on LinkedIn Groups Directory as well as from the Search drop-down on the homepage.
Check it out here – http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory
Since most of these questions have been answered and some of them repetitive, we’re closing this thread. However, stay tuned to the blog for upcoming feature updates on Groups.
Thanks for your feedback.