This week Scott Public Relations is sharing a blog from fellow PRBI member WordWrite Communications. In this week’s blog Paul Furiga, founder and CEO of WordWrite Communications in Pittsburgh, delves into the world of online social media and how companies can maximize the online experience to produce optimal business results. LinkedIn isn’t just an online watering hole, it’s a platform where you can participate in conversations in order to build and maintain meaningful business relationships.

Creating A Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name – Online
By Paul Furiga

The names Sam Malone or Norm or “Cheers” may mean nothing to you based on your age, or your familiarity with late-night re-runs of 1980s TV shows.

For those of us of a certain age, Sam Malone was the washed-up major league pitcher, owner and bartender of the fictional bar Cheers, which was also the name of the comedy show that ran on the NBC TV network for 11 seasons. The refrain of its theme song was as well known as the cast of Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman, Kelsey Grammer, Kirstie Alley and others: “Where everybody knows your name.”

The show was a cast of regulars drawn to the same watering hole by the opportunity to spend time with each other (which produced comedy).

What if you could have that same experience today in social media but with the goal of producing business results, not comedy? What if you could be Sam Malone to an entire group of professionals interested in the same topics as you? What if, in social media, you could open your own place, where “everybody knows your name”?

That’s exactly what you can do with LinkedIn groups. You won’t need a liquor license, and you won’t need a laugh track either. Just bring your expertise and the willingness to create a professional environment that adheres to the basic 1/3 rule of social media, meaning no more than 1/3 of your content should be promotional; 1/3 should be sharing of news and information pertinent to your topic; and 1/3 should be engagement with those who join your LinkedIn group.

At WordWrite, our clients are finding LinkedIn groups to be among the most powerful tools for generating authentic, fruitful conversation with key stakeholders, from strategic partners to potential clients.

LinkedIn is a social network that receives far less hype than Facebook (though it has been a public company longer and has nearly half as many users while focusing on a narrower, professional range of topics). Increasingly, we find that LinkedIn generates superior results to Facebook or Twitter.

One recent study by Hubspot (for which we are an agency partner) found LinkedIn to be 277 percent more effective in lead generation than Facebook or Twitter. A lot of this fruitful activity comes from the relationships developed in groups.

Like the fictional Cheers, an effective LinkedIn group becomes a professional watering hole in cyberspace, a place where professionals who share a common interest can come to share news, information and make valuable contacts that deliver a return for their careers and business.

To run a good LinkedIn group, you must be like a good bartender: someone who knows everybody’s name, even if they don’t know yours. You must be authentic in communicating the purpose of the group, and in inviting the right professionals to pull up a stool and chew the fat on topics that interest people with related and complementary interests.

While you don’t need a license to open a LinkedIn group, it’s essential to learn the basics before you hang your own shingle in cyberspace. To understand how LinkedIn groups work, you have to participate in them first.

The best way to get started in LinkedIn groups is to search Groups in your LinkedIn search box from your home page, typing in one or two keywords that are directly relevant to what you do. For me, as an example, “public relations” and “social media” were key phrases I searched to find groups that are useful to me professionally and as the new business developer for WordWrite. As with searching for people in LinkedIn, you can use Groups search to find groups based upon size, geography, focus, etc.

Select a few groups that seem relevant and join. Some groups require approval from an administrator; some do not. Once you’re in, monitor the conversation for a bit to get a feel for how the group operates (I prefer a daily digest of group activity and I often shift to weekly or no digest of activity, depending upon how useful I find the group). Once you’re comfortable, join the conversation. Remember the rule of thirds. And start thinking about topics that might make a good group where you can create your own Cheers in cyberspace. Some day soon, you too may have a place where everybody knows your name – and where business relationships are authentic, engaging and fruitful.

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