Enhanced Facebook Groups – What they mean for your non-profit’s cause

Posted October 20, 2009
6 Comments

facebook group iconYesterday, Facebook quietly announced a few tweaks to Facebook Groups that will make it easier for Group members to connect with each other.

The Facebook Group Wall

Groups will have a Wall summarizing all the activities of people within the group and a Publishing bar similar to profiles and Pages.

united way group

As soon as a Facebook user joins the Group, the wall updates with a Publisher allowing them to share video, links, photos or just a status.

united way share

The Facebook Group News Feed

The other big tweak to Facebook Groups is the News Feed. As with Pages, you will now be able to see your friends activity within specific Groups. For example, if Jon Aston shares a video on the 12for12k Facebook Group, it will show up in my News Feed.

What do these changes mean?

These enhancements to Facebook Groups will make it easier for members to connect with each other and keep up with the latest activity in the group. Group members will be able to connect back to the Group page through links in their News Feed. They’ll also be able like, comment and share posts on the Groups wall.

For non-profits, this means better tools to build community – and a bigger community than just your supporters. It means more opportunities to connect with the members of many Groups on Facebook. In sum, this means a bigger platform for the causes for which you’re fighting.

How will you use the new Facebook Groups?

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  • I think the News Feed change is the most significant of the changes. With this small change, group activity can spread more easily. The impact of this will be, I hope, beneficial to the groups. However, I predict a short-term surge in less committed group members leaving groups because they don't want their walls cluttered with more messages. The difference between Pages and Groups is that the majority of Pages activity that shows up on my wall is from the Page administrator. Right now, I almost forget about the groups I belong to until I receive an inbox message from the administrator.

    Group news feed update activity can be quite frequent, which encourages more awareness but also may discourage fans with the resulting higher amount of "noise" from the group on their walls. Once the changes are accepted as status quo, then I suspect that the upsides will be: those members who are more committed to the groups will be the ones joining, the less committed will think twice about joining, and nonprofit groups will have a much better sense of who is really engaged. What do you think, John?
  • Re: "surge in less committed group members leaving groups": I think that could be a plus for non-profits. As you mention, groups may become tighter communities with higher level of commitment to the cause. On the other hand, folks might opt-out of the group because they prefer another way to engage the cause.

    Pages = Get up-to-date info on a non-profit (latest news, links, events). Groups = Connect with others around a cause (not necessarily an org).
  • Great point to bring it back to the differences. These tweaks are just making groups work best as groups, and the old layout just didn't encourage discussion. The new News Feed system will definitely encourage more discussion and involvement (hopefully) in a cause. That's a real plus.
  • There's a Facebook blog post at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=15603197... with more information about the Group changes. One thing I like is this: "To ensure that you get the most interesting and relevant content from groups you've joined, you only will see stories when one of your friends posts within a group rather than when all members post." That seems a useful way to keep group news feeds from becoming overwhelming. A lot of nonprofits have been moving from Groups to Pages in order to take advantage of the news feed feature. The addition of news feeds for groups will save a lot of effort and also prevent loss of group members in the transition to pages.
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