Facebook is launching a new public Groups experience over the coming months! Facebook’s goals with the new Group experience is to build a more diverse sense of community while giving admins the tools they need in order to keep Groups safe, allowing for better and higher quality conversations.
Here’s What’s New:
Broader Reach
With the new Groups experience, people will be able to discover content in public Groups in more places. For example, when someone shares a link on Facebook or shares a post, you can see posts from public Groups in the related discussion. In your Groups tab on Facebook, you will be able to see popular public Group posts, and people can access public Group content even if they’re not logged into Facebook. Say if you share a post from a public Group to a friend who’s not on Facebook, they’ll still be able to view it.
Larger Membership
Facebook also plans to make it easier for people to join public Groups without needing to get approved for membership. However, Group admins will still have control over posts, and will soon be able to have control over comments in their Groups as well.
More Participation
The new Groups experience will also allow for more participation in public Groups as admins will have the ability to allow non-members to participate in their Groups as well. Admins will also have the option to allow Group members to participate in their Groups through a customized profile made specifically for the Group. This will allow members to feel more comfortable, and be more open when commenting in the Group. Admins will still have the ability to see the authentic profiles of these users with member names.
No More Messenger Rooms and Chats
Facebook is currently testing Chats and Messenger Rooms within Groups, and if you opt into the new experience, these features will no longer be available in your Group as well as Watch Party.
More Admin Control Tools
In the opt in process, admins will have the ability to turn on post approvals for their Group which applies to all potential participants: members and non-members.
Admins will also have the ability to review first-time participants before allowing them to post in the Group. This review process will allow you to ask participant questions much like membership questions now. Once a participant has been approved, their posts will be allowed going forward.
Admin Assist
Admin Assist is a great new tool which is going to be a part of the new Groups experience. Basically this new tool runs admin tasks for you based on criteria you set up. For example, you can set a criteria to automatically decline posts from certain people. Such as those who don’t have a profile photo or haven’t been a member of the Group long, restrict posts based on their quality, turn off comments on posts, etc. This will save time for admins and what they need to manually approve, allowing them to better enjoy their Groups. This tool will also be rolling out to private Groups in the coming months as well.
In addition to better protect the safety of Groups, the new Groups experience will surface your Group rules in more places. For example, when someone goes to post in a Group, they will have the option to view the rules of that Group. Admins will easily be able to tag a Group rule on a post or comment in their Group as well.
Groups Insights Expanded
Lastly, the new Groups experience comes with more insights. Therefore, you will be able to see insights from non-members as well to see how they’re contributing towards your Group’s growth and engagement.
Choose When to Opt In:
When Facebook starts to test the new Groups experience in the coming months, users will have the option to opt in or not. However, Facebook has stated once you opt in, you are unable to go back. So be sure you want test out the new public Groups experience before actually deciding to do so.
Facebook is currently testing the new Groups experience with a small amount of Groups, and will give admins the option to opt in to the new experience in the coming months. We are excited for these new changes, and hope the information above helps you prepare for the new public Groups experience!
Source: “Introducing the new Public Groups experience, with New Admin Tools.” Facebook, 1 October 2020, www.facebook.com/community/whats-new/new-public-groups-experience/.