Almost two weeks ago, I got an email from HIPB2B’s CEO Bret Smith. The gist of it was, “LinkedIn groups have been radically changed. They took away group moderation and more.”
This was huge.
HIPB2B, under Bret’s guidance, successfully runs a LinkedIn group with over 7,600 members, called “Demand Generation and Content Marketing.” Several members of our team are very active in the group, moderating and stimulating discussion on the page.
Both Bret and our team have felt the differences and wanted to share the changes that have occurred with you.
No group moderation queue
LinkedIn has removed the moderation queue tool from the group admin tools.
From what we’ve gathered, this tool will not be back. As a result, many groups have seen an influx of posts, both valid and spam.
What can group owners do to maintain control of the content in their groups? LinkedIn recommends that group admins use both the remove and block features. Either action will remove all of the user’s posts from your group.
No group broadcasts
In the past, there was a feature that allowed group owners to send out one weekly email to group members.
This feature has been removed. It wasn’t the only email-linked feature that was removed.
No automated emails
Automated emails from the groups have been removed overall. Any admin-created email or auto-generated email communications have been eliminated, including:
- Email digests
- Announcements
- Automated templates
LinkedIn claims that these communication tools have been removed to make way for better communication channels on LinkedIn itself. They also said that relevant group conversations will start to appear in user feeds in place of these email communications.
Email domain pre-approvals removed
There was previously a feature which essentially allowed you to whitelist a domain, so a particular brand or company could join your group without waiting to be approved.
This feature has been removed, but any pre-approvals you set will remain in place. You just can’t modify, add, or remove them.
Featured posts appear differently
Featured posts will still exist, but they won’t appear at the top of a group anymore. They will be listed chronologically in the timeline.
If you have important information you want to feature, you can include a link to it in the group description.
The Moderator type of group admin is gone
Prior to the changes, there were three types of group admin roles. They were:
- Group owners
- Group moderators
- Group managers
In the new update, group moderators were removed, and any moderators were demoted to members. If you wish to promote them to group managers, you will have to do so manually.
What’s coming next?
Despite all these changes to the way groups function, LinkedIn says there are some things for us to look forward to.
They include:
- Relevant group posts will now appear in the main LinkedIn feed
- Real-time notifications about group activities for page admins
- The ability to edit posts and comments
- Share native videos, images, and rich embedded links
What is LinkedIn’s vision for the future of groups? It’s hard to say. It appears they are moving to match the more B2C-oriented community platforms like Facebook or Reddit.
The only thing we can say for sure is that these changes are likely only the beginning. We will keep you updated as the shifts continue to be made. In the meantime, start exploring the groups you run or are part of. Notice the increase in conversations because of the shifts or the clutter that is consuming the feed in larger groups.
Let us know what you think.
Have you noticed these changes in the LinkedIn groups? How do they affect your experience? Let us know in the comments section.
I just started a group having run a number of FB groups for the last few years. Have the feed notifications started yet or is that still a ‘coming soon’ feature?
Yeah I Noticed it,
thanks for sharing this amazing post