Is LinkedIn Trying To Resurrect LinkedIn Groups?

Over the past few years there were two types of LinkedIn Groups, “Listed” which you could find via Search, and “Unlisted,” which were hidden away. I should note that LinkedIn Groups have been a wasteland for six or seven years now, absolutely full of Spam, devoid of conversations and a complete waste of time. And every year, it seemed a new Groups Product Manager would announce that LinkedIn was going to fix Groups. And every year, nothing happens. Rinse, repeat.?

A good example of the way LinkedIn Groups are seen would be a recent conversation I had with an executive who asked me how to send a post to a dozen groups at once in order to maximize the exposure to the type of people the company wanted to reach. But…not have the post show up a dozen times in his Activity feed - because he did not want to appear to be a Spammer. So, in other words, he did want to be a Spammer, just not look like one.?

How many guesses would you like as to how LinkedIn feels about this exec's idea of how to use LinkedIn Groups??

Okay, so all this is background. LinkedIn is bringing in a new class of Group, called a Public Group. The difference here is that you don’t have to be a Group member to see what’s going on. What LinkedIn wants to do is make Groups more accessible. They will do this by treating an author’s Public Group post like it was a regular LinkedIn post, that is it would be put in the feeds of a small percentage of the author’s connections, and a small percentage of anyone in the group who comments on the post. And here’s the sneaky catch: If I see a post in my feed that you made in a Public? Group you belong to. I can react to it, but I can only comment on it by joining the Group.

Here are my four takeaways based on what I have seen so far:

• One, this is good for group exposure. I can see many Group Owners and Managers being interested in this idea, as let’s face it, hardly any Groups are ”working” in the present format.

• I am not so sure that this will drive many people to join a Public Group just because they want to comment on one post, but if you were to see several interesting looking posts from a Group over a few weeks, that might nudge you to join.?

• I find it interesting that LinkedIn makes the point that a percentage of your first degree connections will have your Public Group post put in their feed. No mention of Followers seeing it. This strikes me as strange with LinkedIn emphasizing Following the way they have the past couple years.

• This means potentially a lot more competition in the feed. This is another product that will vie for space along with all of our posts, events, newsletters, polls and collaborative articles. I think this just re-emphasizes the idea that Subscribers are the gold standard on LinkedIn. 100% of your subscribers get notified when you post or publish on LinkedIn.?

What’s your take? Do you think this will help LinkedIn Groups make a comeback?

The obligatory disclaimer: I do not work for or have any association with LinkedIn, other than being a user who pays them for his Sales Navigator subscription every month.?

Today’s newsletter is a shorter version of my email newsletter (this week’s email newsletter also includes an article on the three unusual ways I use LinkedIn groups, and another article on how to decide whether you should get Sales Navigator.) Here’s a link to the sign up page: https://practicalsmm.com/contact/