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My agency is pitching a new website. For cost-saving, some in our office want to pitch LinkedIn groups instead of the client building an all-in-one website that includes a discussion area.

My feeling is that we should do the website and urge the members to return to the site to discuss there as well as comment on other content. I feel that splitting the conversation (content commenting and discussion) is going to confuse users.

The opposite viewpoint is that LinkedIn groups are free and that they are mobile-friendly.

How do you stand on the use of LinkedIn groups as opposed to a site-specific discussion feature? Any opinions/suggestions?

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Great thing about Linkedin is that the audience is already there... great access to new users. Bad thing is that the UX sucks... – Lisa Tweedie Aug 1 '12 at 0:50
Is the content side of the site public? – Marcos Ciarrocchi Aug 1 '12 at 11:41
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Asking for opinion is not asking for any solid answer. Everybody has an opinion, question is what it is based on. I'd suggest you re-formulate your question. – André Aug 1 '12 at 11:59
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This is not a user experience design question and as such is off-topic for our site. Consider rephrasing the question to be more about the design decisions involved rather than the specific case of LinkedIn groups. – Rahul♦ Aug 1 '12 at 13:04

closed as off topic by ChrisF, Rahul♦ Aug 1 '12 at 13:03

Questions on User Experience Stack Exchange are expected to relate to user experience within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions here.

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

I loved linkedin, and have had an account there for several years.

I detest the interface for discussions. I do not feel as though I have a good overview of the threads, I don't feel as though I have control over what I am seeing (or not), and I feel discussions get mired quickly (and lose direction even more quickly).

The groups interaction on linkedin could work if your client is not really looking for discussion - if they need somewhere to info dump, announce, etc, then it could work. But if they are actually looking for discussion on topics, where large numbers of individuals have input, I'd recommend against it.

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I also think the UX is poor... – PhillipW Aug 1 '12 at 9:10
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Since Linkedin groups UX is really bad, there are several options apart from that, some businesses have been successful using Facebook Groups, that is the case for Think Vitamin (now Treehouse).

Another option to reduce costs could be using a simple open source platform, like Open Atrium (built on top of Drupal) or BuddyPress (built on top of Wordpress).

With respect to splitting the conversation, try to keep things simple, having the two things (content commenting and discussion) clearly separated. The reason is that usually the content side is public, like the company's blog, and the discussion is entirely private.

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