探花精选

Keeping up with industry trends and reading content from the best and brightest industry experts are two tasks many marketers struggle to find time for. This is certainly understandable, given all of the projects on their plates on a daily basis -- from , to , to .

What these marketing pros may not realize, though, is they can easily access the latest marketing news and insights from well-known names in the field -- and even join in on interesting marketing conversations -- through .

To get a glimpse of just what kinds of popular marketing groups -- and even niche communities within marketing, like blogging and social -- there are on the social media site, check out our list below.

Who knows? Maybe you'll just by taking a little time out of your day-to-day and checking out some thought-provoking posts and discussions.

(Note: Some of these groups are public, meaning any LinkedIn member is free to join, while others are private, meaning you can click to join them but will have to wait to be approved to join by the group's owner or moderator.)

Marketing

1)

• Created: March 3, 2008
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 427,420
• Owner: John Horsley

Why This Group Is Awesome

As one of the largest groups on LinkedIn, this community is chock-full of inspiration, intriguing discussions, and detailed tips and best practices for improving your online marketing, including mobile, SEO, email, and a heckuva lot more.

2)

• Created: September 21, 2007
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 99,095
• Owner: Dharmesh Shah

Why This Group Is Awesome

Created by ’s own Dharmesh Shah, the Inbound Marketers group provides tips, tricks, templates, and tutorials for planning and executing on successful inbound marketing strategies. Chances are, you’ll run into tons of 探花精选ters and 探花精选 customers in this group too!

3)

• Created: November 12, 2007
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 552,753
• Owner: Robert Fleming

Why This Group Is Awesome

This community, managed by the eMarketing Association, is intended for anyone who's interested in marketing, as it focuses on topics related to social media, search, email, mobile, and general inbound marketing. You’re likely to run into fellow marketing friends and coworkers in this group.

4)

• Created: February 2, 2008
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 243,469
• Owner: Gerald "Solutionman" Haman

Why This Group Is Awesome

Want to talk strategy? Looking for a little inspiration for your next campaign? This group is for you. You’ll hear from all sorts of marketing, PR, and sales professionals about their innovations and strategies so you can perfect your own.

5)

• Created: November 28, 2007
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 56,879
• Owner: Holger Schulze

Why This Group Is Awesome

The B2B Technology Marketing Community is a highly engaged group of tech-focused marketers who love Q&A and actively participate in group discussions. If you’re looking for a great group to talk shop with, this one’s for you!

6)

• Created: November 4, 2008
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 36,184
• Owner: Joel Harrison

Why This Group Is Awesome

If you’re a marketer who focuses primarily on B2B, this is an excellent group to join. You’ll learn all about the trials and tribulations associated with the B2B sector and how you can go about conquering your biggest challenges with marketing to these companies.

7)

• Created: August 6, 2008
• Type: Nonprofit Group
• Members: 30,914
• Owner: Carrie Montagna

Why This Group Is Awesome

If you’re a nonprofit marketer, this is the largest and most active nonprofit marketing group on LinkedIn! This community is the primary place to meet and network with other nonprofit marketers on the social platform as well as learn how to use inbound marketing successfully for your NPO.

Sales

8)

• Created: October 1, 2007
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 155,636
• Owner: Laurent J.V. Dubois

Why This Group Is Awesome

If you’re a marketer with an interest in sales, but have very little time to educate yourself further about the field, you'd be wise to join this group. It's an optimal place to scan the most popular discussions and get a glimpse of what sales best practices really look like.

9)

• Created: March 27, 2008
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 134,206
• Owner: Eric Blumthal

Why This Group Is Awesome

What better way to learn more about sales and marketing than from the great minds of sales and marketing executives on LinkedIn? This group is a prime one to join if you want to get inspired by super-smart thought leaders (and maybe watch a TED talk or two).

Social Media

10)

• Created: March 6, 2008
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 734,068
• Owner: Michael Crosson

Why This Group Is Awesome

The Social Media Marketing community is a large community led and moderated by an excellent group of managers. This is ideal for you if you crave new insights on social media. You’ll receive weekly announcements in your inbox with great resources and webinars, in addition to the lively discussion from the general social media community.

11)

• Created: March 6, 2008
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 118,400
• Owner: Robin Fray Carey

Why This Group Is Awesome

Want to learn more about social currency, brand advocacy, or the importance of purpose in social media? These are all topics you'll find in the Social Media Today group. Here, you’ll learn about social media from an interesting angle, all brought to you by the folks who write content on the Social Media Today blog.

SEO

12)

• Created: January 29, 2008
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 52,077
• Owner: Danny Sullivan

Why This Group Is Awesome

Need SEO help? You’ll learn everything from penalty fixes to the latest and greatest best practices in this group. By just quickly scanning the most popular discussions in this group, you’ll get the quick fix you need to better your search strategies.

13)

• Created: April 20, 2010
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 19,113
• Owner: Jennifer Sable Lopez

Why This Group Is Awesome

Not only will you get a chance to experience the Moz culture when perusing this group, but you’ll learn exactly what types of best practices and challenges top SEOs are experiencing. A main feature of this group is the ability to post questions and get pretty quick answers from marketing pros far and wide.

14)

• Created: March 14, 2008
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 77,801
• Owner: Pravin Shivarkar

Why This Group Is Awesome

How is an SMO different from an SMM? Do you think Google is killing SEO? Should you include keywords in your blog titles? These are all types of discussions you'll find in the SEO SEM group on LinkedIn. Join this group if you’re interested in participating or listening to some of the most controversial optimization topics on the web.

Content

15)

• Created: April 1, 2009
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 14,611
• Owner: Hilary Marsh

Why This Group Is Awesome

Why do you create content? Are you aligning that content with certain goals or creating it just to stay current? This group will get you thinking more strategically about every blog post, ebook, or webinar you produce, which could very well come in handy when trying to bolster your lead generation.

16)

• Created: June 20, 2009
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 16,797
• Owner: Susan Fronk

Why This Group Is Awesome

Are you a blogger? This is the most popular blog-specific community on LinkedIn. If you want to focus more on mission, vision, focus, and general blog strategy, join this community and start chatting with like-minded marketers.

17)

• Created: June 13, 2008
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 152,059
• Owner: Calvin Cox

Why This Group Is Awesome

Although this group is geared toward professional designers, I suggest any inbound marketer hops into this group for the sake of observation and education. This group is brimming with experienced designers sharing graphic design tips and best practices. From this community, you’ll also learn more about the day in the life of a designer and how to approach a good relationship with your agency or in-house design team.

Business

18)

• Created: May 13, 2010
• Type: Nonprofit Group
• Members: 579,560
• Owner: Ania Wieckowski

Why This Group Is Awesome

The HBR community is another one of the biggest groups on LinkedIn, featuring insightful discussions about passion, values, innovation, leadership, and management in the workplace. In short, HBR is a premier community to be a part of if you enjoy learning from thought leaders and want to go beyond insights solely focused on marketing.

19)

• Created: September 19, 2007
• Type: Networking Group
• Members: 386,806
• Owner: Dharmesh Shah

Why This Group Is Awesome

This hefty-sized group caters to entrepreneurs who seek to learn from and establish significant thought leadership in their careers. A couple examples of posts featured in the group, another created by 探花精选's own Dharmesh Shah, include "" and "."

20)

• Created: September 25, 2007
• Type: Professional Group
• Members: 148,815
• Owner: Hari Raghunathan

Why This Group Is Awesome

In this group, you’ll find like-minded professionals in sales, business development, marketing, demand generation, and inside sales functions who are all primarily in technology companies. All in all, a great spot to learn how to successfully turn those contacts into customers.

What's your favorite marketing-related LinkedIn group? Tell us in the comments below!