Competitors infiltrating my community, looking for suggestions

I manage a community group for my startup. It's like a notice board where our existing and potential customers can post queries about various topics and get help from members. I started the community to help people and also help my startup create an engaged audience apart from Instagram. Now the problem is, my competitors as well as clients have also joined the group and are creating issues. Clients instead of reaching out to us for queries are now posting on the group directly. Competitors also post about their products and services and are monetizing our community. Competitors also like to be passive aggressive and are the first to jump and criticise us, while not contributing to the group at all. Since the community is neutral ground, we are forced to put up with it (even though it is run by me and my Co-founders). Wondering how to solve this problem while keeping everyone happy. Any suggestions or feedback from community managers would be welcome.

Karilyn Hyrum

Stealth

6 months ago

Have moderators and ban them like team bhp does

Blair Hyrum

Stealth

6 months ago

Can't afford mods atm, community is still relatively small (1200+). Less than 100 messages in a typical day. Plus banning people might hurt the community sentiment. It is open to join for all, which technically means our clients and competitors both. I was considering making it paid membership, but that's also a tough sell in the age of free communities.

Jordon Lee

Stealth

6 months ago

Good communities have robust gates. You can't not ban people who piggyback off your hardwork like this. When you ban them, be honest about your intentions with the community. India is a land of businessmen - I'm sure they'll understand.

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Kendall Lee

Stealth

6 months ago

It’s not a problem but intended nature of public community. Don’t make this paid, but make it invite only, with standard industry bull like - we would vet and ahit to keep the quality high. Vet and admit folks that you’d want to in the community, ban other competitor folks who are creating nuisance, remember you can’t eat your cake and have it too. Later, if this takes off, bake this feature in as part of your pricing. Not fool proof, but some control is better than none

Jordon Lee

Stealth

6 months ago

Makes sense, thanks!

Karilyn Lee

Stealth

6 months ago

You can hire an intern to moderate the community. It’s not a very complicated job and you can keep it within budget. You have to put a value to your community, if it’s helping you generate leads, you gotta invest some resources for moderation. And you can have strict posting rules for moderation. Like one Channel for discussing issues (have to be clients), one channel for introductions. One channel for industry talk etc

Kalan Lee

Stealth

6 months ago

For reference: we are a b2b2c platform, so we have individual customers as well as organisations as clients.

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Competitors infiltrating my community, looking for suggestions

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