LinkedIn: Groups & Subgroups vs Custom Groups

By: Sarah Shehata | January 29, 2010

Are you utilizing your LinkedIn to its fullest potential and using Groups?

To start off with, there are three different types of Groups within LinkedIn that you can create. The traditional Group, a Subgroup within the Group and Custom Groups.

LinkedIn defines a Group as your destination to find and join communities of professionals based on common interest, experience, affiliation, and goals.  It is an excellent way to stay in touch with organizations, schools, and companies that you are and were a part of, network with professionals with similar interests and goals, and collaborate in a professional community online. LinkedIn does restrict your ownership to 10 Groups at any one time.

A subgroup is a group within an existing LinkedIn main group. The subgroup, or child group, provides you with more tightly focused arenas for professional discussion and interaction among members within the existing main group, also known as the ‘Parent’ Group. Subgroups are smaller than the parent group and have a focus that is more defined. For example you may find a parent group named Social Media Group’ and then subgroups named ‘Email Marketing’, ‘Stumble upon your Facebook ‘ and ‘Forever Twitter’. These subgroups are more exclusive in their membership and have news and discussions that are of specific interest to them. Parent groups can contain up to 20 subgroups.  Keep in mind that members must sign up to participate within the child groups discussion forums.

Custom Groups is a new feature on the website that allows users to build subsidized collectives. This type of Group is now available for a monthly fee and enables companies to turn their discussions into elaborate marketing sites.

It has been said that businesses that create this type of Group can import content such as RSS feeds and videos within the group. This is also a great new feature since it allows you to better target your audience.

The growth rate of Groups has been increasing tremendously and not only does it allow you to take your online networking to a professional level but it also allows you to further promote your products and services!

  • Dina

    Is there any benefit to creating a subgroup instead of a separate group? Do you have less visibility or functionality with a subgroup?

  • Ben

    Hi, Dina.

    The main benefit to creating subgroups is to create a tighter focus than that of the main group. They allow you to organize the conversation, and to bring more specific types of users who may only be interested in one particular topic. For example, if you created a “Social Media” group that had subgroups for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest, somebody who is only interested in Twitter can join the Twitter group and engage in conversation that is relevant to their particular interest. This is more beneficial than creating a separate main group because it helps to build a stronger community within one group, as opposed to splitting the community between two separate groups.

    In regards to functionality and visibility, subgroups can be searched for using the search bar, just as main groups can. They can also be found within main groups by clicking “More” underneath the group name. Some subgroups can have heightened privacy settings, which require the manager or owner of the group to send out specific invitations, but subgroups can also be open to the public. You can submit topics for discussion, leave comments and interact with members in the same way that you can with main groups.

    In sum, subgroups are essentially more dialed-in, smaller versions of main groups. They are an excellent way to further utilize LinkedIn both as a professional, and as part of your personal life. Let us know if there is anything else that we can help you with!