However, there is a more important strategy for selecting groups that you might want to consider. The purpose of joining groups is to give you additional accessibility and visibility.

Being in a group increases you accessibility because most groups will allow you to invite other members. This means others can more easily get connected to you.

More importantly however is the fact that participation in the groups makes you visible to many who many not be in your network or are not first level connections.

One way to measure the value a potential group might bring is check the news section of the group site and see if there are a regular flow of posts. Secondly see if the posts are being read.

Most of the news posts will show you how many views the post has received. If the posts aren’t being read, you may be in a group that doesn’t have good participation. If this is true, reduces your ability to use the group to get visibility.

You may also want to watch how many new members each week the group is getting. Again groups that are very active are going to offer you the maximum opportunities.

In order to investigate the news section you will have to first join the group. Once in the group you can make the decision to stay or not.

I have been doing some things with the groups to try and get visibility for this blog and other things. Today I noticed a very simple way to determine how valuable a group might be to your efforts. Though I have been using this in another way it occurred to me that you can quickly evaluate at least some of the potential of a group by simply looking at the discussions and news items to see if people are participating.

Obviously groups provide other values, but it is obvious to me that a group where people are participating offers you a much better forum for exposure. And networking is all about exposure.

From Flyn…

Just and FYI to any of my readers that might be responsible for a sales organization and especially those running or responsible for an inside sales group or groups. I am putting on a great (FREE) telephone sales management conference call next week. For details go to”www.penoyer.com/blog/events/”