Are LinkedIn groups making a comeback?

I mean, probably not. The good old days of thriving LinkedIn groups-the vast majority of which have since been overrun by spammers and scam artists seeking to get attention at all costs-have made most groups and their notifications spam.

But maybe, just maybe, LinkedIn can get at least some groups back on track.

Maybe.

Today, LinkedIn published a new overview of the work that it's done building public groups, an option that LinkedIn's still rolling out to all users.

Public groups, as their name suggests, are fully viewable by members and non-members, unlike having to join the group to know what's happening within it. Until recently, LinkedIn members could only establish "listed" or "unlisted" groups. Listed groups appeared in searches based on their relevance, but unlisted groups were out of view unless one is a member. Thus you might find a listed group, but would still have to join it to see the discussions going on within it. With public groups, they are listed and the content is viewable.

Which, says LinkedIn, has gone well:

"Over the last several years, the Groups product has dramatically changed in multiple areas of feed, notifications, creators, group discovery, content moderation, and others of organizer tooling. Continuing with these improvements, we launched public groups to enable non-group members to see relevant conversations happening in groups and to help group organizers and creators create more engagement and a stronger community.". This has led to a 35% increase in daily group contributors and a more than 10% incremental increase in joins in these groups."

Which makes sense. Allowing users to see what's going on within groups, particularly very active, well-moderated ones, is going to attract more members. But it's also intriguing to think whether there is value in switching your group to public, and making it more of a focal point.

According to a new technical overview, public group posts are qualified to be shared in timelines of members, along with expanded networks, as stated by LinkedIn.
For posts created within a public group we set the distribution to MAIN_FEED in order to enable distribution on the home feed to group members, first-degree connections with the author, and first-degree connections of any members who comment/react/repost to the post. This will help your public group posts get more distribution"

That may also provide good distribution for public feed posts as well, and can help to increase engagement with your LinkedIn group.
Another strong reason is that a comment on a post can only be made by members of a public group. While it's possible to like any public group update, you have to enter the community itself-which you can do through the CTA-by joining it.

Together, that could be a very powerful way to really use groups to their fullest and, depending on where that fits in your strategy, a little bit more on LinkedIn groups as a way to expand connections and community.

Though, as mentioned, many soured on LinkedIn groups long ago, once the spammers settled in. Back in 2018, LinkedIn actually tried to initiate a groups refresh, with new regulations around spam and limits on notifications about groups activity, to discourage misuse.

That, apparently had little enough impact but, as LinkedIn observes, it has continued to revise its group policies and procedures, to make it a more attractive product.

Could it be considered a serious contender once again?

There are certainly things to like here, and for those who already have vibrant LinkedIn groups, converting them to "Public" might have some advantage.

I think LinkedIn groups do require pretty strong moderation to maximize their value, and having a core focus statement for your group, as to what it's for, helps guide your direction.

Maybe they are worth a look again.

Maybe.