A short transcript excerpt from a YouTube video (May 29, 2020) featuring Ricardo Molina discussing LinkedIn Groups. The speakers frame LinkedIn groups as commonly full of spammers and broadcasters and raise the question of how moderators can convert those problematic members into community advocates.
Everyone said, okay, LinkedIn groups, they are a place for spammers, they're a place for broadcasters, they're a place for everyone. And LinkedIn groups are packed and full of them. So. But I think, so what I'm hearing is those are the guys that you can convert from, call it a spammer, an annoying person into an advocate.
Right?
How do you go about that?
Yes. So I mean, the community manager, I go around saying we moderate with an iron fist, but it's not really the case. I mean, obviously if you're practically community managing, if someone posts something that is self promoting or spammy, if you like, the community manager deletes, it obviously communicates with that individual and go, hey, this is self promotion. Here's the community guidelines. It's a don't do it, please. But you know, instead of just like kind of, you know, cutting them off at the knees, they then say, hey, look, if you want to get engagement in this particular community, change tact, you know, instead of posting something that's self promoting, you know, post a question, you know, a question which would cover the challenges your product overcome. So what we'll try and do, you know, we'll give someone three warnings and if they keep on doing it, boom, they're out and they're blocked and they won't come back. But quite often, look, one out of three, you take some time, community manager communicates with an individual and say, hey, look, self promotion doesn't work in LinkedIn groups. It's a waste of time, just don't do it. But I tell you what, if you post something, a few questions, paraphrase something, we'll get engagement for you. So we try and we moderate fairly, get rid of the spammers, self promotion, try and turn them into active members.
