LinkedIn Groups could be a lot more valuable to their members if there weren’t so many jerks – or genuinely clueless people – showing up who only drop links to their own blog posts, or promote their own webinars.

Call me crazy, but….

There should be discussions in the Discussions.

What is the answer to this problem?

Clear rules and self-policing, before your Group members leave in disgust.

Make Rules Crystal-Clear

I recently gained Manager access to a Group for a professional organization – the Association for Women in Communications – and these are the Rules (or guidelines or whatever you wish to call them) that I’ve created and posted.  I also sent out a Group Announcement email with them, as well.

They’re in plain English; feel free to tailor them to your own Group as needed.

“This is a professional development and discussion group for the AWC (Association for Women in Communications.) You do not have to be an AWC member, or a woman, to participate.

The rules are: be nice. Bring value to the discussions. Be helpful. Encourage one another. Highlight trends. Share case studies and resources.

If all you do is show up and drop links to your own webinars, blog posts or job info, expect to have your items flagged “Promotion” or “Jobs.” ANY Group member can flag items, and should feel free to do so. Self-policing is the most effective way to keep spammers at bay.

Keep self-promoting, and you’ll get a private warning from the Group Manager (currently the AWC HQ staff in Alexandria, VA and Sheila Scarborough, member of the AWC National Board of Directors.)

Keep doing it after a warning, and we’ll block you from the Group.

Obviously, if you roll in here with abusive, sexist, racist or otherwise obnoxious language, you’ll get blocked as well.

We’re professional communicators from around the world. Let’s make this Group worthy of our abilities. Questions? Email members@womcom.org or Sheila at sheila@sheilascarborough.com   Thanks.”

Hat tip to Liz Strauss for the “be nice” rule – it’s worked well for years on her Successful Blog.

Anyone can “Flag as Promotion” or “Flag as Job”

In most Groups, anyone – not just the Group Manager – can flag a post as “Promotion,” “Job” (either looking for one or announcing one) or “Inappropriate.”

Make sure you enlist the support of all Group members in moving the above items out of Discussions and to the sections where they belong.

Promotion is fine….in the Promotions section.

Job-hunting is fine….in the Jobs section.

Reaction to the Guidelines

Within 30 minutes of posting clear rules and emailing all Group members about them, this arrived:

“THANK YOU!  I  quickly stopped reading the group and stopped notifications because of all the spam. I did not leave because I hoped it would be redeeming itself in the future.  THANK YOU for putting up guidelines.”

Also, this question:

“What about posting notices of purely social networking events? I’m the president of [redacted professional org, not AWC] and from March to October, we hold “Dutch treat” casual get-togethers for people in the Chicago area. No speakers, no recruitment, no business pitches, just an excuse to go out for drinks and appetizers with others in the profession.”

My response was that such announcements still need to go into Promotions, particularly for a non-AWC organization in a city where we don’t have a chapter (yet.) I told the sender that my number one priority right now is fostering discussions, not announcements, however “nice to know” they might be.

Sometimes, you’ve gotta be the hardass. It’s usually worth it.

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My Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray and I decided last month to make our monthly newsletter fully available for anyone to view on our website, without a login (although we still take signups for you to get it first, via email.)

We’re pretty proud of our work and thought you’d like a quick update on the last two issues:

• April 2010 – LinkedIn for tourism – Most everyone is on it, but many wonder how to really use it….we talked about the LinkedIn social networking site and how it can help you for tourism and destination marketing. Includes some Twitter hashtag tips, travel writer/blogger info and our recent Tech in Twenty interview about Tourism Currents.

• May 2010 – Social media and tech conferences for tourism pros - What is one of the best ways to figure out tech and social media? Go OFFline to attend a tech or social media conference.  We give concrete, detailed suggestions for the most useful events to attend in order to learn plenty of things that can help with destination marketing (to say nothing of some pretty amazing networking and brand-building for your town, region, city or attraction.)  We also included some tips to amp up your LinkedIn profile, as a follow-up to April’s newsletter.

We are reopening our online classes later this month (multi-part lessons, videos, a forum, live Q&A with us – all about social media and tech for tourism.)

I’ll put up a post here the minute we’re open, or you can get on our Early Bird list. Thanks!

There’s a lot of action going on right now in my Travel 2.0 LinkedIn Group.

One of the members (Mike Huber, working with a commercial Arizona travel company not affiliated with the Arizona Office of Tourism ) asked this question titled Revamping a Website to include Web 2.0 features:

“We are in the process of totally overhauling http://www.arizonatourism.com.  Before we get too far down the road, I’d love some advice on what you think we need to include in the initial overhaul. Are there any travel sites you’d recommend we should emulate or any ‘must have’ features you’d recommend? Here is a preliminary ‘spec’ of our new home page http://www.arizonatourism.com/newindex.html…any feedback would be greatly appreciated.”

Here’s how I answered:

“I’d ensure that your social media buttons are on every page of the site, and that they’re reasonably visible. Twitter, Facebook Fan Page at a minimum, a blog would be very smart, and the ever-underrated but awesome Flickr Group Pool [for travel photos from your customers.]

Itineraries based on travel interests are always helpful: families, outdoor adventure, history, culture, foodie, Native American sites for starters.

Make up some custom Google Maps focused on trails (food, history, etc. as above.)

Mobile, mobile, mobile.  You need to be all over mobile-friendly.

Incorporate music somehow – an easy but powerful way to bring atmosphere. By that I mean maybe suggested playlists (make them on amazon and iTunes and link to them from your site) NOT obnoxious music that auto-starts and makes people want to stab their computer.  :) ”

A follow-up question from another Group member asked:

“I am intrigued by adding recommended playlists and would like to add one to [our CVB] http://www.minneapolis.org. Can someone direct me to an example of linking to this from Amazon or iTunes?”

I just love music tailored to a destination, so I told her:

“I’m thinking of something similar to the lists on National Geographic Traveler, though I haven’t done such a list myself in iTunes, only burning my own CD mixtape-type playlists for road trips. (Rats: the words “CD” and “mixtape” both date me!)

***  Wonderful National Geographic music section.

***  The UK’s Guardian, one of my favorite newspaper travel sections, has 50 songs for 50 states.

***  From Heritage Ohio (they coordinate the Main Street program for the state) a playlist called Back Home to Ohio.”

Take a look at the original discussion thread on LinkedIn for a lot more ideas (you may need to join the Group to see it.)

To find LinkedIn Groups that interest you, simply used the Search box in the upper right corner of the site and specify that you’re looking for Groups, not People/Jobs/Companies, etc.

(If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is on the right sidebar near the Search box. Thanks!)