Speakers discuss the popularity and utility of Facebook groups, giving examples (neighborhood groups, a yoga studio group's community, and "Pantsuit Nation") and explaining why groups surface more in feeds and present opportunities for brands. Emphasis is on community-building, niche interests, moderation, and advice that businesses should use groups to foster community rather than broadcast promotions.
Chapters
I love Facebook groups. I think I might love them so much, it's almost a problem.
Facebook groups have exploded in popularity over the past few years, with the new communities forming around every kind of interest imaginable. So I asked a couple of my colleagues their take on Facebook groups.
My favorite Facebook group that I currently use is the Facebook group that I attend my yoga studio at.
So my absolute favorite type of Facebook group is a neighborhood Facebook group.
My favorite Facebook group is called Pantsuit nation, and the way I would describe it is probably a resource for women and or marginalized populations.
In neighborhood Facebook groups, there's a lot of silly drama that helps you just laugh about yourself. It's also, honestly, pretty helpful with certain things.
I can connect with anyone that goes and attends that yoga studio. I find it really cool that we can kind of come together as a community, and I can learn about the practices that people are doing, or I can actually learn about the instructors as well.
What I really value about the community in that group is that there isn't really a lot of negative nonsense that's tolerated there.
My Facebook feed is full of Facebook group content. I actually hardly see anything where someone posted an updated station status. Most of the time. If there is an update to any of the groups that I'm a part of, it's at the top of my feed, and I'll see all sorts of information about it.
So because we're seeing group content be surfaced more and more in people's feeds, it's highly likely we're only going to see more and more group content evolve. So I think we'll start to see more brands creating groups. I think this is because social has always been an inherently personal space, and groups are able to amplify that and take that to the next level.
But Facebook groups are really important because they're niche topics of people's interests, and that can kind of like reel people in more and make them feel a bit safer to have those types of conversations.
So I think groups are presenting a huge opportunity to businesses that not a lot have tapped into yet. We're only seeing group content be served up more and more in feed, and that provides a huge opportunity for brands to get into their audience's feed feeds more and more, too.
When I'm seeing a lot more of Facebook feeds being taken over by Facebook groups and Facebook in itself prioritizing that, I see that as becoming like the next thing that Facebook is essentially shifting to.
There is certainly an opportunity for businesses to leverage and take advantage of something like Facebook groups. Because if you can find a way to position it and to build a community like that, that's a huge opportunity for businesses.
Businesses shouldn't be using Facebook groups as an outlet to internally promote their content and blast it to multiple people that have been joining that group, because they're not coming there to see promotional content. They're there to build a community, connect with others, and learn from others.
So it looks like Facebook groups are here to stay, and it might just be the next big business tool. What do you think?
