Episode 84 LinkedIn Groups for Bankers

Intro

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from ledgers to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same banking. So people business and I'll be talking with those people who make banking grade here and Jack Rants with Modern Bankers.

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0:00:29 - (Jack Hubbard): Happy Thursday, everybody. Hi, Brynne.

0:00:32 - (Brynne Tillman): Hey, Jack, how are you?

0:00:34 - (Jack Hubbard): No good. We're getting a lot of rain here. Geez, it's just nuts. I don't know about you out there, but boy, bad storms around. But good day today, a couple of days ago.

0:00:45 - (Brynne Tillman): It's gorgeous today.

0:00:47 - (Jack Hubbard): Oh, good, good, good. Well, it's a gorgeous day to be with you every Thursday. And we're going to talk about an interesting subject, and it's kind of interesting, you know, you and I don't disagree on much at all.

0:01:02 - (Brynne Tillman): It's true.

0:01:03 - (Jack Hubbard): Groups is one of those things where I think you aren't as enamored with them as I am. And we're going to talk about LinkedIn groups today. You know, July 2005 is when they started groups here at LinkedIn. So it's almost 20 years old, and there are about 202.5 million groups on LinkedIn. And you can be in a private group or a public group. But I want to start out and talking about some misnomers. I get a lot of people saying, well, I joined your modern banker group, and we don't have a modern banker group, we have a modern banker company page.

0:01:47 - (Jack Hubbard): So talk about the difference between company pages and groups.

0:01:52 - (Brynne Tillman): So, yeah, it's interesting because they are so very different. But when you join something, right, what are you calling it? So a LinkedIn company page is kind of like a LinkedIn profile, but for the company, not a person. And you can't create a typical profile as a company. LinkedIn will actually set you down, and shut you down, because those people have tried that, right? They put their logo on instead of a name, it's the company name.

0:02:23 - (Brynne Tillman): But the company page is actually a separate entity that you set up as the company profile. There are lots of reasons we do this. One is when you put in your experience and you link your experience, you're linking it to the company profile, then the logo will show up on your profile. It will typically show all the employees there. Many different people can be admins of that page. So more than one person.

0:02:58 - (Brynne Tillman): You don't have to log into someone else to be part of to engage on that page. Anyone. You can issue anyone three different levels of admin. So there's a lot that you can do and that is company-specific. Now some companies will create a group. Mostly though the groups are based like around associations or industries or specific topics. And they have managers of those groups. Typically they're the people that founded it or the people that founded it. An assigned manager of these groups.

0:03:39 - (Brynne Tillman): But this is a place where anyone in that group can engage, and share content. Every group has its own rules, but when you are on a company page, you can't post something if it's not yours, if you're not an admin of that company page, a group is typically relatively closed. Even if there are a million people in that group, their content could be seen publicly. But you have to actually ask to join the group in order to actually engage. And there are lots of different levels. So does that make sense? Was that a clear explanation of the two?

0:04:21 - (Jack Hubbard): Yeah, incredibly helpful. Including the fact that you have a number of admins that you can have on your company page and that if you are not an admin, you can't post on the company page, but you can comment. And right now we have over 1000 people on our modern bank or company page. You're welcome to follow that. So it was great. It was a great definition, a great distinction, Brynne. So I'd love to get your opinion on some of the good and bad and uglies about groups on LinkedIn.

0:05:01 - (Brynne Tillman): Let's the good, let's do the good. Let's start from a positive perspective. It's a networking opportunity, right? You can. Especially if, let's say, your ideal prospects are manufacturers. There's a group where all the manufacturers are hanging out. You can use, your group two message directly. Now it does come in differently than a typical message. It is, it looks different and it tells you that it came in from a group message. But you really can message the people in those groups in a way that if they're not in a group, you may not have the ability to do that.

0:05:50 - (Brynne Tillman): If you have sales navigator, you can search location of people or, I mean, there are lots of things you can search how long they, they've, you know, been in business, how many employees are in their company, and then you can get a list. And then groups are a filter. So you can kind of build out your ideal list of prospects and then add that group and you can see, you know, maybe there's 10,000 people in the group and once you add all of your filters, there's twelve.

0:06:27 - (Brynne Tillman): Right. And so you're able, if you have a sales navigator, to really hone in on the people in that group that you want to start those conversations with, and it makes it easier to do that. And it's something that you have in common. You're both part of that group. It is, you know, a networking opportunity. I will throw out a couple of more pros. It could be a place if it's an active group, where you can learn about trends that are happening in these industries and what matters.

0:07:04 - (Brynne Tillman): It could give your content increased visibility. If you've got content that matters to the network, you might attract people or engage people that may not have otherwise seen that content. And potentially there are lead conversation opportunities there. I have not. I used to love groups, but LinkedIn has not done a fabulous job at creating the interaction piece of them. I really wish they'd take a little lesson from Facebook because Facebook groups are very active and productive, but it doesn't mean that all groups are not good. Some moderators. So they're the people that run the groups. Some of them do a great job of moderating and keeping the conversation going because they're committed to the success of that group, but others don't.

0:08:07 - (Brynne Tillman): And so there ends up to be a lot of spam, in the feed and challenges and even finding content to engage with, and it could get overwhelming and volume of content or quality of the discussion. So, yeah, okay, that was my little rant. I thought I didn't have much to say. Jack.

0:08:29 - (Jack Hubbard): Brynne, you always have something to say because you're so knowledgeable about all things LinkedIn. LinkedIn used to have a mobile app. It used to actually have a separate app for groups. And you could actually go in and you can kind of see what's going on. Well, let's talk about some overview things here. You can be in up to 100 LinkedIn groups. I do not recommend that at all. It does give you access to lots and lots of people, but it's virtually impossible to be active in all of those particular groups.

0:09:01 - (Jack Hubbard): Now, what I recommend to banks, bankers, when I teach, and I was up at Michigan Banker School on Monday, and one of the things we talked about was groups, and are they viable and are they not? Well, the answer is, like anything else, yes. And so I always suggest to bankers, to get into three groups just to get some practice at it. One group is going to be very obvious, and that's a banking group. There are so many great banking groups. The AB, American Bankers Association, RMA. If you're a commercial banker, there are thousands and thousands of members in those groups, and they do provide a lot of value around content and surveys and things that bankers should be aware of. So that's one group.

0:09:45 - (Jack Hubbard): The second group is a vertical group I like. So there are a lot of folks out there that are watching the show that may get involved in medical or not-for-profits or manufacturing, to your point. Get in those kinds of groups and they're easy to find. You go up to the search bar, you click enter, and there's a little tab that says groups. And you can go in and you can type in manufacturing. And there are thousands and thousands of manufacturing groups. Then now you can say, well, I work in robotics, okay, now skinny it down even more.

0:10:19 - (Jack Hubbard): So I recommend that second group because that gives you a lot of sense of what's going on in that industry. The third one is a localish group, the Economic Development Chamber of Commerce, something that's fairly local, where you may have fewer members. There may be 300 members, but the content there is very targeted to the kinds of businesses that you want to do business with. You can come and go as you want. And to your point, there are public groups and private groups. A private group and I have three, and I'll tell you about them in a second.

0:10:54 - (Jack Hubbard): The administrator has to approve you as a member. And I delete a lot of members, potential members, because they're not in banking, and I kind of feel like they're going to spam. So I just deleted them. Then there are public groups where you all, you got to just click the join you're in. And unless you are a spammer, Aba is not going to monitor 33,000 people. Just don't do it. So two different kinds of groups. I have three groups you're very welcome to join.

0:11:26 - (Jack Hubbard): They're all pretty active. One is the social selling for bankers, one is the rant pack, hashtag rant pack. And I'm Jack Rantz. So I put the rant pack in. My daughter-in-law, Amber, kind of titled that group, and there are about 600 members on that one. And then there are about 1300 members in the business banking network. You're welcome to join. Just reach out and click on, you know, find it, find the group, click on it, and you're. And I'll accept you if you're a banker.

0:11:58 - (Jack Hubbard): And so those, those are kind of a couple of parameters. Now, one of the things you said was networking, and I like that idea a lot, and that's where the local group comes in. But also, knowledge is so powerful here. A lot of bankers say to us, I got to find CFOs. I got to get to the CFO's, the CFO. And I'll go click on it over here because I have it up and running. It's the CFO, chief financial officers, parentheses CFO network. Number one, is the executive finance group.

0:12:36 - (Jack Hubbard): They have. Don't have too many members, only 474,000 members. Now, this is an open group, so I'm in the group and I get all kinds of stuff. And one of the newest things I really like about what LinkedIn is doing with the groups. If something is posted in the group that you're in, you're going to get an email about it. And that's another reason why not to join too many groups. So if there's something that I need to see on the CFO network, I do. Here's one that's so cool.

0:13:08 - (Jack Hubbard): It's a post that was done about a week ago about the CFO blazing new trails. And it's actually a documentary about the changing role of the CFO. Now, if you want to connect with CFOs, if you want to provide value to CFOs, my gosh, what great value that is. So I did a post recently, Bryn, on finding groups. It was done about a week ago. If anybody wants a copy, I'm happy to send it to you. If we're first-degree connected, but I just think, you know, I'm in 82 groups and I'm probably obsessed with it and I go over the top with it.

0:13:47 - (Jack Hubbard): But I love your idea around networking and providing value and finding new people. The other thing I like. And then I'll let you. Cause I've got on this.

0:13:59 - (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I don't have much more to say, so that's okay. Keep going.

0:14:03 - (Jack Hubbard): I, you know, I get in and out of groups all the time. And if there are groups where there is no benefit to me or the group, I'm out. Now, there are some groups where they. Where I'm the only one posting. But what's really good about it is your point about messaging. I'm in a couple of groups that have about 1000 bankers in it, and I'm the only one that posts. And so obviously a lot of people don't see it because it's not a very active group. But I do get the chance to message people and I can go in and I can connect with them as well. So I really like the idea of groups.

0:14:44 - (Jack Hubbard): I think it's like anything else. I'm really big on this. Three by five by 15. Three things a day that you do on LinkedIn five days a week. That takes 15 minutes and one of those things might be, I get in a couple of groups and I'm, and I'm a little bit active. So there you go. Today's a short show and we knew it would be kind of a short program. And if anybody's got questions or comments out there, love to have you talk about that, but I don't. Are you in, by the way?

0:15:19 - (Jack Hubbard): You have a group, a social selling network. Is that, is that a. Do you have a group around?

0:15:25 - (Brynne Tillman): I have a group and we have over 4000 people in it and I don't even look at it anymore.

0:15:30 - (Jack Hubbard): There you go. But somebody on the team probably does. And I do post from time to time in there.

0:15:37 - (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. Now I will tell you as a group member, a group owner, you can send once a week a promoted piece of content. You can promote it to the entire group. So as a group owner, there's some real value in that promotion of, and hopefully, you're not promoting bank services, you're promoting value to the members. Right. Content and value. So, you know, there are some benefits. I have turned it over to the team because it was a time suck for me that wasn't converting.

0:16:19 - (Brynne Tillman): That said, I do use it in the sales navigator. I will search for people using groups as a filter. So it's not that I don't use it at all. I'm just not really engaging in those groups.

0:16:33 - (Jack Hubbard): Well, I think you bring up a really good point. We think of groups as more global. What can I do globally with groups? It's not just posting and etcetera. There are a lot of things you can do now. It's interesting. There are some groups, and don't get frustrated by this because it just happens. There are some groups where I'll post something and it'll say the administrator is going to review your content.

0:16:59 - (Jack Hubbard): And what they're trying to do is to filter out spam, which I like, and then it'll post and it may post up to like two weeks later. But you bring up something really good. And here's one thing I really love that LinkedIn has done. If I'm a group owner now, what I can do is I can actually share with my group members content up to three days a week. And I was really frustrated that it was only one day a week.

0:17:25 - (Jack Hubbard): So if you, let's, let's say, for example, that you have an event that you're going to do at the bank and it could be a face-to-face event or it could be a virtual event, you can actually share that with your group. And you can do it up to three days a week. Now, don't say share the same content. And Bryn brings up a really good point here. Don't. Just don't post bank services. I mean, you're going to get blacklisted on that if you do that. But if you've got events or if you've got a poll that you want to do, I use it in polls a lot. And it really is effective.

0:17:59 - (Jack Hubbard): So there are a lot of things you can do in groups that you can't do individually. I mean, think about this. I'd like to get to 1200 people who work in manufacturing and robotics in the Albany, New York area. Now, you could do 1200 individual connections. And send them messages, or you could be in that. In that potential group. So, again, it's like anything else. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it is one part of LinkedIn that I think is really misunderstood and not as well used as it.

0:18:37 - (Brynne Tillman): Could be, including by me. So it is. It's just. It is. I know there are. There's a lot of potential there and I think because it used to be so good it's not as good. I've kind of, you know, stuck my heels in the sand or in the, you know, like. But, yeah, you bring up a lot of good points and there's a lot of. And the three groups that. That you recommend for people to join, I think that's a brilliant strategy.

0:19:06 - (Brynne Tillman): Cause you can really focus and be active in three groups versus the hundred. So I love that.

0:19:12 - (Jack Hubbard): That's right. And if you join one of those three groups, you can know that you're not gonna get spam or you're not gonna get products from me. It's all about events and hopefully things of value. Well, this was great. This was a great conversation, Bryn, thank you for doing this and for being very transparent and being very objective. I think that one of the benefits of this show is that we show the good, the bad, and the not-so-good.

0:19:39 - (Jack Hubbard): And so that's really good. Next week on Jack Rance. About yesterday on Jack Rants with Modern Bankers, we had Richard Bliss. And boy, I'm getting a lot of comments from. It was phenomenal. He's so brilliant. And so if you want a replay of that, let me know. I'll send it to you. Next week we have Kirk Knudsen, who is. Has written a book about selling your bank, the art of selling your bank. He's on next week as we go into the summer. I think after June 26, we're going to do the best and we got some pretty interesting ideas there.

0:20:14 - (Jack Hubbard): It's all brought to you by our friends. We could not do this without our friends at RelPro and Vertical IQ, and they're coming out with a lot of really good stuff, too, in the fall, so you'll be hearing more about that as we go forward. Always great to see you, Brynne.

0:20:29 - (Brynne Tillman): Always my favorite time of the week, Jack. Really fun. Thanks, everyone.

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Outro

Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne, brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time, helping bankers turn connections into conversations. Don't miss an episode. Visit https://www.themodernbanker.com/tmbpodcast. Leave us a review, if you would. You can also listen to this program and the new Jack Rants with Modern Bankers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and iHeartRadio. We're on YouTube as well. Subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@TheModernBanker. Finally, don't forget to make today and every day a great client day.