Linkedin groups that have been opened will let members know of the change with a pop-up message updating everyone that a previously “closed” Linkedin group they have been posting in has now been “opened.” That’s right, Linkedin has now given Linkedin group administrators/owners the ability to open their “groups” to the public.
Before, when you joined a group, your posts went no further than the boundaries of that particular group, unless of course a group member copied and pasted your message to Twitter, a blog, etc. Now with the “open” groups, Linkedin wants you to know that any information posted here will potentially be indexed by search engines like Google, Bing etc. This may be an issue of concern among those group members who perceive this new move to be a breach of privacy, but to many, it is a long awaited feature.
How are LinkedIn’s New “Open Groups” A Good Thing?
Besides being a catalyst for a further splitting of traditional informational silos, Linkedin’s new “open” groups also help members post with a world audience in mind–this makes the subject of SEO something new for Linkedin. While posts are not only great for marketing, social validation, and drawing in more interested participants into a discussion, one must remember that discussions within an open group should no longer be made merely within the discussion’s context.
For example, in prior posts on one of Linkedin’s many “ecommerce groups,” FastPivot’s Yahoo! Store developers might have posted a question as such: “How many people use java rotating banners on their homepage?” But now, at least on the “open groups,”¬† it’s better to use specific keywords, which will make it easier for internet searchers to find your discussion. So, with that in mind, we might pose the same basic question as above to our new “open groups” as such: How many other Yahoo! Store developers are using java rotating banners on their Yahoo! Store homepage design?
Hi Jonathan,
thank you for the information. If I post a link to my blog on a linked in discussion in a open group (for example this here: http://linkd.in/e0EeDD), is this link visible to search engines as a link to my site? Are this links relevants to google?
thank you.
via FastPivot’s Director of Marketing, Kurt Illian : From what I can see, no. Any links that you put on a group page seem to have a redirect link added to them – essentially nullifying any link value from a LinkedIn group. Profile pages on the other hand do seem to provide some benefit.