TL;DR: Organisation Writes Glowing Reviews – About Itself!
Recently on Quora.com, over a period of days, a series of incredibly positive posts about Lighthouse International Group appeared… And they were supported by other extremely positive comments – a healthy number of them, in fact! A conversation had been started! Dialogue had finally been opened about Lighthouse! Well done, we thought!
We watched with fascination and – we have to say – a little bit of awe: it had been so long – years, in fact – since LIG had said or done anything in the public sphere at all. We were wowed! We thought: why didn’t you do this ages ago? We think questioning LIG is very important, after all.
But there was something – in our humble opinion – that seemed a little off.
The original posters, the ones who were extremely positive about Lighthouse International Group – how it had changed their life when all else failed – were actual members of LIG itself.
These posters have a clear financial incentive to post positively and effusively about their own business. We thought: isn’t this a conflict of interest?
In the Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) playbook, sellers of products or services make clever use social media and forums to positively review and promote their products. They have a huge incentive to be positive, uncritical, and recruit new customers as they stand to gain financially. In fact, that’s their business model.
But, back to Quora.
We thought: at least all those glowing responses are real, right? Others seemed to be stepping forwards to also post wonderful things – chatting to the original posters, thanking them for their stories, etc! It was one big love-in! Only, all the commenters were Lighthouse members too! They also have the same huge incentive to post positively about their own business.
Through its members – who are affiliates hoping to recruit new members and secure new fees for mentoring sessions and courses, etc – it seemed as though this commercial organisation was writing and posting hugely positive reviews… about itself!
It was disappointing to see something on Quora that seems biased, and we are sad that members felt they had to use their own personal stories (some of them were genuinely heartbreaking) to promote a business in this way. Why does LIG leadership think this is a good strategy? And is it really the best thing for its members?
It felt like a misuse of the forum and we struggled to see the authenticity of posting in this way.
There is a positive, though: in reading the public posts and comments, many families and friends of current Lighthouse International Group members were able to ‘hear’ from their loved ones for the first time in a long time. For that, we are very happy and grateful.
Ultimately we wonder: should we trust the opinion of an organisation that reviews itself?
And if not, shouldn’t the reviews of ex-members who have no financial motivation be heard instead?
Until next time!
P.S. Please please contact your families and friends – they miss you!