Community Strategy Insights

The latest insights on community strategy, technology, and value by FeverBee’s founder, Richard Millington

Private Messages – The Dark Underbelly of Communities

Richard Millington
Richard Millington

Founder of FeverBee

I get around 20+ messages on LinkedIn every day.

Most of it is spam.

Private messages often become the dark underbelly of a community. It’s a place where members get spammed, receive unwanted sexual advances, and personal attacks.

By nature, you won’t know what’s happening in private messages unless:

a) You track the volume of messages members are sending to other members. You can zero in on any high-volume messenger.

b) Members report abuse of private messages. This requires a clear policy and (ideally) a one-click button from members to report abuse.

Most people don’t need another inbox. If you can turn off private messages you probably should (or at least restrict it as a privilege to more senior members).

If you can’t, you need to frequently be clear about the rules of private messages and encourage members to report violations of those rules.

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