Both Tom Gray and Ellen Naylor have pointed out the use of “Discussion” groups in LinkedIn for sales purposes. Folks who use this approach are not asking a question and they’re not looking for discussion – they are just looking to sell. Tom, Ellen and likely the rest of you who read this blog have noticed that “strategy.”

But, it’s a strategy that doesn’t work – which we pointed out in “Anti-Social Networking Disorder” – http://tinyurl.com/networkingdisorder

What’s amazing is how many people buy the idea of “social networking” as “broadcast networking.” It’s because they’ve bought into a sales pitch that tells them it works. It not only doesn’t – it’s irritating a heck.

The blog was written in Feb when LI was at 30 million, now at over 40 million…but bad habits still proliferate!

Another thing I am noticing is that the people who ask questions in “groups” are often asking questions where they’re the expert and have the answer, another form of blatant self-promotion.

Brian Carroll’s LinkedIn group is one of the few groups that controls its participants – and throws out the bad guys (so join it, if you want good sales tips). As Brian points out, just a small percentage of yahoos can ruin it for the rest of us. But, after you throw them out, you get a pretty good group.

Tom has a great point in also pointing out that Group Discussions in LinkedIn are being captured by the spammers – with sales pitches that are not “discussions” at all. Go about four or five articles back in this blog for “Anti-Social Networking Disorder” to see our take on Tom’s point.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time, so that LinkedIn does not go down the path that MySpace did.

They need a ‘this is spam’ or ‘report abuse’ button that triggers appropriate review when a member gets tagged as a spammer a certain number of times.

As you know the B2B Lead Generation group has “get Brooke.” Brooke manages our policy that “blatant self promotion, job postings, spam or topics not related to B2B lead generation will be removed. If you post off topic again, you will be removed for the group.”

I’ve found that it takes some education of new group members. Brooke orients every new member on how our group works with our “discussion guidelines” and welcome messages so they and both get value and can add value.

Fortunately, we only need to kick out 1 member per week. When you consider we have almost 2500 members in our group (that’s just 7 weeks old) I don’t think that’s too bad. I wish we didn’t have to do it at all. We wouldn’t have to if people would just use good online etiquette as you’ve highlighted in previous posts and we’ve highlighted in our own discussion guidelines.

Thanks for the comment from a big time user of LinkedIn. You must be really challenged by the folks who abuse the system.

Yes, I can block people, but the problem is that these folks aren’t people I’ve linked to. They are accessing me (and you) because of the ability to send a message to anyone in their group. Which is why this yahoo has only 4 friends, but has joined 42 groups. Ugh.

Amen…I have a huge following on LinkedIn and am a LION, so I welcome all connections, and YES I also belong to almost 50 groups…however, I don’t belong to that SPAM! I get so many of those now, and I’ve started to “unsubscribe” if that’s an option offered or say that they’re “junk” in my Outlook.

This is so bad it almost makes me want to quit my LION status, but then again there is the huge upside of meeting people you would never connect to otherwise, and isn’t that the beauty of social networks. It’s all a balancing act, and I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do to prevent spam in its many forms since people shamelessly pursue business and figure it’s a numbers game. BTW, you can block individuals on LI I think.

Happy Weekend!

Ellen

Groups like Brian Carroll’s B2B Lead Generation Roundtable, the Book Publishing Professionals and, for us, the National Speakers Association LinkedIn groups are great aspects of LinkedIn. Whatever your interests and affiliations are – there’s a group that represents them.

But, we’ve now gotten spam from members of all of those groups – and always from people we are NOT linked to on LinkedIn. They are exploiting the group for their own purposes. It’s new and it’s a threat to the worth of the groups.

Thanks for your comment.