Top tips for Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups have been a feature on Facebook for many years. They’re a great way to segment your supporters and engage them on a deeper level around a particular interest. For example, you can create groups for a particular challenge, fundraising event, for your campaigners or volunteers.

If you’ve not created a Facebook Group before, here’s a step-by-step guide to setting one up. Ready to go? Let’s look at some top tips for Facebook Groups.

Define the purpose of the group

It’s really important to know what the purpose of the group is and that the purpose is clear to members. A group shouldn’t be a place where you post about lots of different things to different audiences. It should have one focus. For example, setting up a group for London Marathon runners where the focus is solely on providing support, encouragement and offering tips to runners.

To ensure that the focus and audience is clear, make sure it’s reflected in the group name and description – such as this example from Teenage Cancer Trust. They set up a group for their London Marathon runners and named the group: London Marathon 2021 Team. Their description is also clear who the group is for and what members can expect.

It’s also important to set rules or guidelines for your group so that members understand what is expected of them and what behaviour is unacceptable.

Set member questions

In order to ensure that the right people are joining your group, you may want to set member questions. This will help you to ensure that the group is relevant and also a safe space for volunteers or campaigners, for example, to engage in conversation with each other.

You can set up to three questions but prospective members can respond to only one question or all questions, as responding is not mandatory. If they don’t respond to the questions, Facebook will send them four automatic notifications – the first is after three hours of them requesting to join, then after one, two and three days.

Notifications will stop after three days. If the prospective member doesn’t answer the questions, you can reject their request to join.

If you’re creating a private group for volunteers, one of your questions to join the group could be for them to share their volunteer ID number so that you can check it against your database.

Have more than one Moderator

Regardless of the size of your group, it’s advisable to have more than one Admin or Moderator. Not only will it help with managing the group, in terms of community management, but it helps to have another opinion when there is an issue in the group that may not be covered by the group rules.

Make use of the features

Facebook Groups have lots of features, including some that are unique to them. One of the unique features are polls. Polls are a great way to encourage engagement in your group, as well as getting to know your members better.

The live video option is also a great way to build engagement among your members. You can invite an expert – either within your organisation or external – to do a live video around a topic. Members can ask questions in the chat, which can be answered live by the expert.

‘Host a Q&A’ is where you can encourage members to ask questions about a certain topic, but not in a live video format. For example, ‘ask me what the best pre-marathon meals are.’

Build a community

One of the biggest benefits of Facebook Groups is the ability to build a community. In order to do this, however, it does require commitment and dedicating time throughout the day to monitor the group and engage with members.

It’s important that the group is not a broadcast channel, so actively encourage members to post and share experiences or ask for tips and advice.

If you’re encouraging people to share their experiences, it’s important to create a safe space for them to do so. Ensure that any members who break the rules or go against the group guidelines are dealt with in a timely manner.

Depending on which rule or guideline they have broken, you can either comment reminding them of the rules, message them privately or remove them from the group if necessary.

If a member posts and no one has commented, leave a reaction or comment yourself or tag a member who you think could help. Once you get to know members better, you can help connect members and facilitate discussion by tagging members in comments.

Engage with members

Just as you would reply to comments on your Facebook Page, it’s important to engage with the members in your group. When they post, be sure to comment if it’s relevant or to at least acknowledge their post with an appropriate reaction. This will make members feel valued and part of a community.