Facebook launched its new and upgraded Facebook Groups service last week. The problem with the old Facebook Groups application was that it didn’t offer much more than what you could already get from the Facebook Pages. This new FB Groups application is meant to attend to that problem as well as offer new features so that finally Facebook Groups will be a notable and useful feature for Facebook users.
Facebook Group application is an excellent way to get together with like minded people under the same “roof”. You can create Facebook Groups for your family, chess club, soccer team, chruch group, hobby or anything you can think of that involves more than two people sharing the same interest.
The new Facebook Groups feature their own private Wall and a centralised chat room where everybody can chat to everybody at the same time. The new FB Groups also includes your own Facebook Group email address; yourgroupname@groups.facebook.com. Using the custom email address admins can post direct to the group’s Wall. On the group Wall you can share posts, photos, videos, links as well as documents with your fellow group members. You can also create Facebook Events, which was also present with the old Groups where Groups can act as hosts for Facebook Events.
All and all the new Facebook Groups application seems to offer great features and will certainly attract many new friends and users. The only negative thing is that admins can add anyone (from their friends) to their group without their consent. They just receive a blunt email telling that they have been added to a Facebook Group XYZ. Their only option is to go to the Group’s page and click the ‘Leave Group’ -hotlink if they don’t want to belong. This is an obvious mistake from the Facebook programming dept. and will most certainly get fixed in the next update. Another, somewhat negative feature is that you can’t have a custom Facebook URL for your Group the same way you can have for personal accounts and Facebook Pages. Well, I think we can live with that and use those clever URL shortening services such as bit/ly.
To set up your own Facebook Group go here and and let me know how you find the new features. If you want to customize your Facebook Group have a look at this post: https://socialmediarevolver.com/customize-facebook-group/
Kris Olin, MSc (Econ.) * Editor in Chief at Social Media Revolver * Web Designer * SEO Specialist * Author of the Facebook Advertising Guide. Follow Kris on Twitter and LinkedIn. See his photos at Flickr.
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