I had a reader write to me asking how to join the Forbes.com Entrepreneurs LinkedIn Group (of which I’m a member). So, being the helpful guy I am, I went to go look it up to send it to him. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find it!
It seemed to me like it should be accessible from the little badge you see on people’s profiles:
But it’s not.
If you’re a member of the group, the image isn’t clickable, and if you’re not a member, it takes you to whatever is configured as the group’s “home page”, which in many cases, including this one, is the company’s web site, not the page for the group. And whether you’re a member or not, the text link generates a search of members of the group — again, not the group home page.
OK, I thought, I’ll check the Group Directory. Well, that’s a bit of a challenge to find in and of itself. Tucked away in the bottom right corner of every LinkedIn page, under the Company Info section, you’ll find a link to LinkedIn for Groups (right).
Once there, there’s a more obvious link to the Group Directory. Unfortunately, that name is a little misleading. See, it’s not actually a directory of all the groups — it’s highlights of just a few of the groups that LinkedIn wants to showcase. Oddly, Forbes.com Entrepreneurs is nowhere to be found in that list.
So, I turned to Google and searched for “forbes.com entrepreneurs” “linkedin group”. Amazingly, there were only a handful of results, not counting all the LinkedIn profiles of people who are members. In fact, only one actually had the link — no surprise, from my good friend Vincent Wright!
Have I built up enough anticipation? Are you dying for the link? Guess what… you could’ve just clicked on the image at the top of the post!
But in case you made it this far and are still wanting the link, here it is, along with links to a couple of other Forbes.com groups (hat tip again to Vincent):
- Forbes.com Entrepreneurs
- Forbes.com Personal Technology
- Forbes.com Life
- Forbes.com New York City Group
- Forbes.com San Francisco Group
If anybody at LinkedIn is reading this… really, this should be easier, shouldn’t it???
[...] Forbes.com Entrepreneurs LinkedIn Group [...]
I am a member of severall grous and tryed to expand my network by joining Forbes on Linkedin.
They have one condition which I fulfill is to be in a “C” level position (CEO, CFO or in my case CMO), now from then on my petition became taken from a Kafka strory where at the end I was supposed to proove them that I am who I am.
Truly I understand…it is sort of a private club where no “under”management is supposed to get, but at least a simple “homework” on my website or phone call would solve that condition.
Groucho Marx one said “I would not like to be on a club that accepts me as a member”, the reason I’ve did not keep to insist in join that clubI that after such an unproffessional behaviour make me thinh the only Forbes quality they have is theres name.
Great post! It helped me to
Thx
[...] sort of love/hate relationship that corporations have with social networking site. On the one hand, Forbes has several official LinkedIn groups. And yet, a Forbes article then turns around and lists engaging in social networks such as LinkedIn [...]
Networking is a key quality for any entrepreneur, your post certainly assists in boosting it.
I just tried to join and it said that the group was suspended.
-s
Yup, I get the same:
“We’re sorry, the group is suspended.”