It’s no secret that LinkedIn Groups as a whole have a well-earned reputation for too often being poorly managed and filled with low quality posts. There are hundreds of magazine articles and blog posts about it, just google it if you want to see for yourself. My own experience with around a dozen marketing-related LinkedIn Groups I’ve joined over the years validates that reputation.
When I visit these groups, including ones created by top marketing associations, they’re virtual ghost towns filled with blatantly self-promotional, spammy posts hawking the services of the small consulting firm, recruiter or whatever company the poster represents and links to low quality articles from questionable sites. The result is that experienced marketers (wisely) don’t waste their time with posting and most posts have zero likes. I’ve chalked it up to it being very easy to create a group and much more challenging to have a plan for a group and to manage a group effectively.
Frankly, I don’t fault LinkedIn for the problem. On the contrary. LinkedIn Groups provide a great opportunity to create very valuable knowledge exchanges for professionals — IF the Group owner: (1) has a clear mission for a group; (2) ensures the appropriate member standards; (3) ensures that people who are the right fit for the group join and ones who aren’t the right fit do not join; (3) commits the appropriate effort to posting and encouraging high quality posting; and (4) actively engages in monitoring and participating in the group to ensure it stays on track and delivers on its mission and member expectations.
Consequently, I’ve decided to start a LinkedIn Group that will be a knowledge exchange community for marketing professionals. A place where you can share information about an article, book or training video you found of great value, a conference you attended that you thought was worthwhile or a waste of time, a job opening at your company or the fact that you’re looking for your next opportunity, a vendor you found did a great job or a vendor you found did a poor job, about how a certain strategy or technology really positively impacted a marketing campaign or program at your company, or learn from others who post their experiences and ask for fellow members’ advice. A great knowledge sharing community is an incredibly valuable resource and that’s what I’m committing to developing with ConnectedMarketers LinkedIn Group.
The criteria to be a member of ConnectedMarketers is:
– At least 5 years of experience in marketing or a marketing-related role at a verifiable company. (To those of you starting out in your career with less than 5 years of experience, please stay tuned, we having something in the works for you too.)
– At least 20 verifiable professional contacts from places of employment. (We’re not going to contact anyone, just look to confirm.)
I’ve started the Group by inviting more than 200 of my own contacts, including long-time friends and colleagues in marketing, advertising, social media, PR, CRM and academia — senior-level professionals with a wealth of experience to share. To be a part of the Group all you need to do is meet the previously mentioned criteria, visit the ConnectedMarketers Group page on LinkedIn and click the button requesting to join the group. If you need a little more convincing, we created this ConnectedMarketers landing page.
Sincerely,
Peter DeLegge
MarketingHire Founder/CEO
