When LinkedIn Groups Get out of Hand

For personal and professional reasons, I joined several LinkedIn groups and set up schedules to receive daily or weekly emails alerting me of new posts. Some of these groups are built around PR and marketing, while others are based on geography.

Lately, I’ve been noticing that I’m losing interest in some of these groups because many of the postings are completely self-serving. Many posts are thinly veiled commercials for the poster and add no real value to the group.

Despite the moderators’ pleas to put these types of posts in the Promotions section, many still post self-promoting messages in the general comment section.

Some groups are constantly under attack from bots that spam the group with weight-loss, secret-shopping and “earn money proofreading” scams. Moderators do their best to delete these, but some days it’s a losing battle.

I’ve also noticed that some individuals post the same content to multiple groups. While they think that raises their own professional profile, I think it tends to dilute it if they’re not taking the time to customize a message to each LinkedIn group. These individuals are trying to build up their own personal brand – which is fine as long as they address the specific needs of a group and aren’t just engaging in another form of spam.

So, here is my request. Don’t post anything in a LinkedIn group that is blatantly self-serving. Instead, employ the “pay it forward” philosophy of our client TribeSpring (www.tribespring.com).

Share an interesting article. Post tips on job openings or other opportunities. Customize posts to each individual LinkedIn group. Contribute to the conversation by posting intelligent replies to other posts.

And remember this: It’s okay to promote your services if the original post is asking for recommendations.