Need to create a Discussion but not quite sure what type of Discussion it should be? Or who should be included? Here are some tips and recommendations to get you going in the right direction.
Table of contents
- Choose the right type of Discussion
- Only add necessary members
- Use Org-wide appropriately
- Promote your Discoverable Discussion
- Know when to use the Reply feature
Choose the right type of Discussion
There are three types of Discussions that have slight but significant differences.
Private
- Only visible to invited members
- Appears in the All Category
- Suitable for: team chats, group projects, department issues/updates
Discoverable
- Visible to everyone, but to receive notifications and participate they must Join
- If you do invite an individual or group, it will behave as a regular discussion for them
- Appears in the Discover Category for individuals that are not yet Members
- Suitable for: special interest chats, current events, project teams that want to broadly share their progress, Q & A topics
Org-wide
- Everyone on your platform is a Member
- Individuals cannot remove themselves. For this reason you should only use Org-wide Discussions for content that is relevant for everyone.
- Appears in the Org-wide Category
- Suitable for: company-related issues (updates for an upcoming company event or campaign, a discussion to provide info/answer questions about recent organizational changes, etc.)
Only add necessary members
When creating your Discussion, be sure you only add people who are either required or have requested to be a part of it. This will help avoid any of the following frustrating issues for your colleagues:
Notification clutter
Depending on their notification preferences, those added to a Discussion will receive browser, email, and/or mobile alerts with every new post. That's not helpful.
Tip: When you Mute a Discussion via its Action Menu, it will no longer send you notifications or show you Red Dots.
Blocked removal
If you add a whole team or department to a Discussion (for example “Marketing”), then no one in that group will be able to remove themselves from that Discussion. So, if you add the 12-member Marketing team when your Discussion only involves 3 of them, now you have 9 other people unwillingly along for the ride who now have to deal with the persistent presence problem noted above.
Tip: If you would like people to be able to opt out, when you add them in as a dynamic group, use the Convert to Individuals action in the List Selector to invite them as individuals. The downside of this, is that when a new person joins the group, you will need to manually add them to the Discussion.
Use Org-wide appropriately
If you're creating a Discussion that needs to include everyone in your office or HQ (for example, a Discussion for location/building-related issues like upcoming fire drills, employee parking, day care services, etc), then do NOT make it an Org-wide Discussion.
An Org-wide Discussion automatically adds everyone on your platform to a Discussion, which means it could include individuals in other cities and/or those who only serve your org in an advisory capacity. These people don’t need to be bothered with notifications about such Discussions.
Instead, create a Private Discussion and add people by any of the following:
- Location
- Department
- Teams
This way you can be sure you're not adding unnecessary board members, investors, or any other off-site individuals.
Promote your Discoverable Discussion
So you've got a helpful/interesting/meaningful Discoverable Discussion that most people are not aware of. Here's how to promote it:
- Post an update in Activity, an in-the-moment place that everyone sees. While viewing the Discussion, copy the URL from your browser and link to this in your Activity Update.
- Use an @mention to amplify this Activity Update to groups you think will be interested.
- Promote it in an active group Discussion.
- Publish a regular "Round-up" article in News If your organization has a healthy, growing Discover Category, why not consider doing a weekly or monthly "Discoverable Discussions Round-Up" article for your News? Highlight new and/or popular Discussions, complete with descriptions, mini-interviews with their creators, and links so anyone who's interested can check them out.
Know when to use the Reply feature
The arrow icon in the top right corner of a posted comment lets you directly reply to it by copying it into your own post. This is extremely useful when you want to respond to something that was posted earlier but has since moved up the timeline and out of view due to subsequent posts.
However, using the Reply feature is not needed if you're replying to the most recent comment of an active conversation. Use Reply when the earlier post provides important context to your new post.
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