Do you know the difference between a social media manager and an online community manager*?
If you’re thinking this is a trick question, you aren’t alone.
It’s not uncommon for our community management agency to receive queries like this:
“So … since you’re managing our group, you’ll do Facebook and Instagram for us too, right?”
Or…
“Oh, we don’t have a community. We’re looking for someone to manage our social media accounts. It’s the same thing, right?”
Short answer: Nope, we don’t do that, too and nope…it’s definitely NOT the same thing.
Community management IS NOT the same social media management, but the two are often mistaken as interchangeable. And that means the professionals who specialize in each function often get mistaken as well.
The confusion comes from the fact that social media is critical to the success of each business function even though a social media manager has an entirely different focus and set of priorities than a community manager. And if you don’t understand the differences, you will never be happy with the social media managers or community managers you hire because your expectations won’t match the reality of what they deliver.
This article defines each function, explains its purpose and describes how social media managers and online community managers are different-though-complementary roles in an organization.
At a surface level, a social media manager runs a brand’s public-facing social media channels. They do this by analyzing social media audiences and creating a strategy to strengthen the brand’s digital reputation across social media platforms, which may include professional accounts on:
Facebook (Business Page)
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
TikTok
Snapchat
Pinterest
Excellent examples of social media management include the Lake Superior Twitter account, TSA Instagram account, and The Pioneer Woman on Facebook.
A social media manager takes on the persona of the brand, creating content in the brand’s voice while listening and responding to engaged followers. To be successful, they must know the ins and outs of each platform they manage, the tools used to manage those platforms, and advise you appropriately.
Social media managers are the ones who are monitoring analytics and letting you know what type of content performs best, when to post, how often to post and whether you should consider adopting a new platform or ignore it altogether.
Depending on the size of your brand or scope of active social media platforms, you might have a single social media manager or a social media management team with different people fulfilling your strategic and creative needs.
What is Online Community Management?
Community management focuses on developing a community surrounding the brand and prioritizes people over policy.
Where a social media manager focuses on the effective use of various platforms to promote a brand, a community manager is platform-neutral. They focus on the principles that foster safety and connection in an online space.
Most professional community managers don’t care whether they are working in Circle, Slack, Facebook, Mighty Networks or a proprietary community platform. How they do their work might need to adapt according to the community platform, but what they do and how they approach the work is the same.
A successful community manager is equal parts strategist, concierge, mediator, cheerleader, event planner and welcome wagon. They are paid by the brand to represent the community and its interests. In addition to handling the proper online care and feeding of their groups, community managers might host virtual events, in-person meetups, and staff booths at conferences.
When community managers create content, it’s rarely branded or polished. It’s responsive to the community’s needs and relevant to the culture of the group.
The Key Difference Between These Roles
The easiest way to describe the difference between social media management and community management is how they function online.
A social media manager’s job is to BE the brand on social media. They develop your brand persona on each social media channel in alignment with your values and goals, creating, curating and scheduling content that best reflects the brand’s voice and interacting with the audience as the brand. Whether a brand has one social media manager or several, there should be no discernible difference in the content produced and posted by each. It should all look and feel cohesive and unified.
A community manager’s job is to be the spokesperson for your brand, using their own voice to build a loyal community around your brand. They typically participate in the community under their own identity and are known by name among members of your community.
Their main purpose is to make your community members feel seen, heard and valued. They will often tell brand decision-makers things they need to hear based on the perspectives of community members, even if they don’t want to hear it.
When a social media manager leaves a company, nobody but others on staff notice. When a community manager leaves a company, it can be like a death in the family, and requires a transition plan because many group members will feel as emotionally connected to them as they are to the brand.
Community Management is Relatively New as a Defined Role
Though online communities have existed as long as the internet, community management as a specialty wasn’t given the respect it deserved until 2020 when global lockdowns forced everyone to confront the importance of well-managed online communities.
You used to see full-time community managers treated and paid like entry-level customer service representatives or call-center workers. Usually, though, community management fell under “duties as assigned” for an employee with other — often unrelated — job responsibilities.
Now, you see organizations developing entire community management teams within operations or marketing departments and community manager positions ranging in pay from $40,000 to over $100,000 per year. Formal training programs are emerging to certify community managers as well. Meta, which was among the first to have a certified community manager program, also hosts the annual Facebook Communities Summit. Though we’re seeing more community management events and training programs emerge, the Facebook Communities Summit is still favored among leaders of Facebook groups of all sizes.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
In the world of online business, social media marketing has become synonymous with “pay to play” tactics. But even now, in 2023, you CAN successfully grow your online community (and business) through organic means on Facebook and other channels. For realz. Every visible Facebook Group has three prime pieces of real estate — I call them “billboards” — that, when leveraged appropriately, will provide Facebook the information it needs to promote your group. Those billboards are your group description, your group name and your cover image. I see these group features as “billboards” because anyone on Facebook can view them. They even show up in Google search results! And since we both know that social media is rented land, we have to do our part as responsible business owners and community managers to make the most of our rental properties on Facebook. In this post, I’m going to cover everything you need to know to leverage your group billboards to help Facebook advertise your group for free. By the end, you’ll know more than most community managers about increasing the organic growth of your group. Let’s get started.
Understand the Power of Your Group’s About Section
Also known as your group’s description, the About section of your group is critical in helping potential members understand the purpose and promise of your group. When I work on community strategy with a client, this is the first area I evaluate. Working on your group description is an easy way to figure out if there is anything out of sync between your community, your brand, and your business.
Four Things Every Facebook Group Description Should Accomplish
1. Clearly state the topic of the group
By explicitly stating the topic of your group in the About section, you’re increasing the chances of it showing up to the right people searching keywords on Facebook, Google or other search engines. A clearly defined group purpose also minimizes the chances of the wrong people joining your group by mistake.
2. Define who the group is designed to serve best
Every online community should be designed and developed around an ideal group member. Whether you are targeting parents, coaches, consultants, business owners, or people living in a specific location or with a specific health condition, making that clear in your group description helps Facebook decide who should know about your community. The platform’s algorithm will promote it to users accordingly.
3. Tell prospective members what they can expect when joining the group
Few people wake up at 2 a.m. thinking they need another Facebook Group in their life. Telling them what to expect in your group can make the difference between who clicks to join and who doesn’t.
4. Provide a way to find out more information or contact you OFF of Facebook
Not everyone wants to join a new Facebook Group. Sometimes, they just want more information or to connect with you in a different way. It’s important for your group description to provide an alternative way — off of Facebook — for users to experience your work. This is as easy as offering an email address, sharing a link to a free resource or lead magnet, or sending them to your website or podcast.
Does Length Matter?
As a former journalist, I recommend a group description that says what you need it to say in as few words as required to say it. My private Facebook Group, The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, has a 74-word group description. Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy, a group I started for a client in 2016, uses 255 words in its description. In both cases, every word is needed. In my group, people need to know that our community is for both professional community managers AND people looking for support and best practices in managing their own groups. It doesn’t take many words to explain that. In Clutter Free Academy, overwhelmed people need to know there are various free and paid resources available to them depending on how fast they want to declutter. Making sure members know Kathi is a published author and active podcaster helps to establish her as a decluttering expert. Because cluttery types get overwhelmed easily, we also want them to know the group focuses on one specific method of decluttering. Not only is the group NOT the place to talk about the latest decluttering trend on TikTok, it’s also a safe haven for those who want to escape decision fatigue and receive focused resources. It’s not easy to distill all that information in a couple of sentences.
Evaluate Your Group Name
At its most basic level, a Facebook Group name needs to tell people who the group is for and what it’s about. This is a place where it’s better to be clear than clever. Sheila’s Stupendous Sewers might sound cute to you, especially if you love alliteration, but it can also be confusing. Are we talking about a group for people who sew or to showcase amazing conduits for wastewater? My opinion of your group name isn’t nearly as relevant as the reaction of your ideal member. Ask yourself whether your name is one that will attract the right people to your group or not:
Is it a name people are going to want to associate with themselves?
How will they feel about others knowing they are in a group with that name?
Will they feel uncomfortable if their kids see the group pop up on their phone?
In my experience, people tend to be more attracted to aspirational group names that paint a picture of their desired future state or outcome instead of ones that focus on the problem they are trying to solve. This is why the full name of my Facebook Group is The Secret to Thriving Online Communities: Grow Your Groups; Get Results and not Kill the Crickets. Kill the Crickets would make for a cool band name, though. Sure, most people who join our group do so because they want more engagement in their communities and they’ll usually describe their group engagement using the word “crickets” to indicate a lack of posts or comments by members. But they don’t usually want to kill or cull their lurking members; they want to draw them out of their shells and get them to actively participate in the community. Group name comparisons to consider (real and fictitious):
Facebook doesn’t place a lot of limitations on group names so long as they don’t violate the platform’s terms and conditions. Though you aren’t married to your group name and can tweak it as needed over time, you can’t change the group’s name more than once every 28 days. All members receive a notification when a group name changes, which naturally boosts your engagement by reminding them your group exists.
Create a Scroll-Stopping Cover Image
Saving the best for last here… it’s time to talk about your group cover image. Realistically, your cover image is what stops a user from scrolling through Facebook mindlessly and investigating your group further. But you can’t create an effective cover image without first deciding on your group description and name. And that is why, when I work with community strategy clients, we focus on their cover images last. Personally and professionally, I like cover images that are engaging and evoke the emotion conveyed by the group name and description. If a group offers simple solutions, I want to see a minimalistic design. If the group says it’s high-energy, I want to see that energy in the design of the image as well.
Which Elements Should a Facebook Group Cover Image Contain?
Name of the Group
Considering that the prime function of a Facebook Group Cover Image is to catch a user’s eye and stop them from scrolling so they will tap or click to find out more information, your group name should always be part of your cover image.
Picture of the Group Owner
People connect with other people (i.e. real, live humans) faster and more deeply than brands or logos. Instead of making your logo or corporate seal the focal point of this prime piece of real estate, highlight a picture of you, your team or your community. This is critical for founder-forward brands (e.g. Team EGB’s Party Pad or Working Homeschool Mom Club) and negotiable for customer support communities (e.g. GroupTrackCRM or Canva Design Circle).
Group Value Proposition
Putting your value proposition, or the purpose and promise of your community, on the cover image allows a Facebook scroller to instantly know whether they should investigate your group further. Is your group the “best place for entrepreneurs to learn about creating courses” or is it for “empowering women to regain control of their health”? Whatever you promise to deliver should be part of your cover image. By the way, those phrases can be found in the cover image of the Online Coaches and Course Creators Community and Courology Fitness groups.
Additional Tips for Creating an Effective Cover Image
Depending on the group and its content, other elements can add value to the cover image of your Facebook Group. The cover image for The Secret to Thriving Online Communities showcases our most engaged members and the schedule of live workshops for the month. Some group cover images will list the company’s website or promote a free resource or subscriber link. You might also want to use the cover image to promote a sale or special. The important thing is to think about the purpose of your cover image in capturing someone’s attention and helping them to understand what your group is about.
Using Canva to Design Your Cover Image
These days, many people will design their cover images in Canva or similar web-based design app. Applications like Canva are great at helping non-designers, myself included, create professional-looking images. Unfortunately, these web-based design applications can make users lazy as well. Canva is known for its robust library of design presets and “Magic Resize” tool, which allows you to resize an image for a variety of purposes with just a few clicks. The problem is that the presets are rarely accurate, especially with Facebook Group cover images and event cover images. It’s not Canva’s fault — Facebook frequently changes how it displays cover images based on a user’s device and operating system. In some cases, your Facebook cover image will be cropped tightly from the sides into a square. In other cases, a big chunk is cropped from the top and bottom to make a very horizontal image. I always defer to Hootsuite’s image-size guide for the latest measurements. I like how Hootsuite specifies minimum vs. optimal vs. display sizes for just about every social media platform imaginable. I’ll typically use the measurements from Hootsuite’s guide as a starting point and then I try to concentrate as much of the action of the image to the center so that even if it’s cut off at the ends, it won’t look too terrible. Alternatively, you can buy Canva templates from a designer who stays current with changes to image sizes. Finally, when I replace the image, I spend time positioning it so that words or elements aren’t awkwardly cropped. It’s not a perfect science, and I don’t always get it right but I make the effort and I think you should, too.
Caption Your Cover Image
Given how long I’ve been managing online communities, nothing should surprise me. But I am always shocked when I click on a Facebook Group cover image and find…nothing. Not including a caption or image description with your group cover image presents both an accessibility issue and a missed opportunity to further your relationship with the person who clicks on the image. As of right now, there is no way to search the text included in an image and screen readers only pick up the alt text embedded in the image, which many of us either forget to do or don’t understand how to do correctly. By adding a description to your cover image, you are allowing the text to come up in search, be picked up by assistive technology software AND you have another highly visible place where you can include an important link or two.
Follow These Tips to Increase Your Group Engagement
One of the biggest challenges every group owner and community manager faces is getting group members to see the content you post. When someone joins your Facebook Group, their notifications are set to “highlights only” by default. This means they only see about 15% of the content posted in the group and because out of sight is out of mind, they often don’t even remember they joined your group in the first place. Facebook sends a notification to every group member when the name, cover image or description is changed. Though I don’t recommend abusing it, replacing the cover image regularly and updating the name and description as needed are great ways to remind folks your group exists. If member participation is a challenge in your group, check out this article for recommendations on posts that drive engagement.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Are you looking to increase interaction in your Facebook Group? This article offers 30 posts designed to increase engagement in your group WITHOUT useless clickbait tactics. No posts about brussels sprouts or cilantro— promise!
Whether you have a free group or a paid group, the fun of being a community leader is in the conversations that take place. But you can’t lead if nobody is following. And if you’re the only one posting or commenting in your group, it’s like trying to play catch all by yourself.
The very definition of a community is connection. Connection between members and their leader (you). Connection between members and the content (what you talk about). And connection between members and EACH OTHER. Yeah, we’re yelling … because member-to-member connection is most important.
What Makes a Good Facebook Engagement Post?
Before we get into the list, let’s talk about what actually makes a good engagement post — because not every post that gets comments is doing your group any favors.
Anyone can toss a question into their Facebook group. But a good engagement post does more than rack up likes and replies. It creates connection. It gets people talking to each other, not just reacting to you. It turns a scroll-by moment into a meaningful exchange — the kind that makes people want to check back tomorrow to see what else is happening.
Here’s what separates posts that build real community from those that just fill your feed:
1. They’re Easy to Answer
Most people scroll Facebook while doing something else. If they have to stop and think too hard, they’ll move on.
That doesn’t mean your questions should be shallow — they just need to be quick to process. Ask one clear thing, not three. And make sure it’s something most members can relate to without a lot of context.
✅ Ask one simple question. ❌ Avoid stacking prompts like, “What’s your favorite app and how do you use it?”
Example: “What’s one small win you’re celebrating this week?”
Short, clear, and positive. That combo almost always gets a response.
2. They Invite Stories, Not Just Opinions
You don’t want a bunch of “yes” or “no” answers — you want stories. Stories create empathy, laughter, and connection in the comments.
Instead of “Do you like working from home?” (which ends the conversation), try: “What’s one thing you love — and one thing you struggle with — about working from home?”
See the difference? One invites a list of answers. The other invites a conversation.
3. They Connect to Your Group’s Purpose
Every group has a reason for existing. Your engagement posts should remind people what that reason is.
If your group is about decluttering, ask about progress, habits, or challenges.
If it’s about business, ask about goals, wins, or lessons learned.
If it’s about personal growth, ask about identity, motivation, or mindset.
When every post ties back to the heart of your community, members stay grounded in why they’re here — and that’s what keeps them coming back.
4. They Reflect Your Group’s Voice and Values
Your engagement posts set the tone for your community. If your vibe is funny and real, be funny and real. If your space is more reflective, lean into that.
If your brand loves humor: “Confession time — what’s your latest DIY fail?”
If your brand values reflection: “What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself this month?”
Your voice is part of your culture. Every post reinforces who you are and what you stand for.
5. They Encourage Member-to-Member Interaction
The real magic happens when members start talking to each other.
Facebook’s algorithm loves it, sure — but so will your people. It shifts the energy from “me talking at you” to “us talking together.”
Example: “Share a win below — and reply to one other person to cheer them on!”
That single sentence can double your comment count and deepen your community’s sense of belonging.
6. They End with a Clear Call to Action
Even the best prompt can fizzle without direction. Always tell people what to do next.
Simple CTAs work best:
“Drop your answer below 👇”
“Tag a fellow member who’d have a great response.”
“Tell us your take in the comments.”
By being directive, you’re making it easy for people to engage.
7. They Respect People’s Time and Energy
The best engagement posts are low effort, high relevance.
You don’t need elaborate graphics or clever wordplay. You just need a question that feels worth answering.
If it takes more than a few seconds to understand the prompt, it’s probably too complicated. Ask questions your members already have an opinion about — things that are familiar, personal, or slightly aspirational.
Let’s just say it: “Name a fruit without the letter E” might spike engagement, but it’s junk food for your community.
Those kinds of posts train members to expect fluff — and once that happens, your thoughtful prompts start getting ignored. Real connection takes a little more effort but pays off tenfold.
A good engagement post builds trust. Every time you ask a real question that leads to a real conversation, you’re investing in your group’s long-term health.
In Short
A great Facebook engagement post is simple, meaningful, true to your group’s purpose, and designed to spark conversation — not just reaction.
When you focus on connection over clicks, engagement becomes easy.
Because the truth is, people don’t want to perform for you — they want to belong with you.
The Difference Between Engagement and Connection
When it comes to Facebook groups and online communities, you hear a lot of talk about engagement: engagement strategies, engagement posts, engagement rates, engagement tactics … argh! You get the idea.
Tracking, measuring, and analyzing engagement is important. When our online community management agency, Team Kubo, works with clients on strategy or management, we collect and report engagement data each month. But engagement rate reports don’t tell the whole story in a Facebook Group.
Your group engagement rate is the measurement of active group members divided by the number of total group members. If you have a group with 1,000 members, 300 of whom are active each month, your group engagement rate is 30 percent.
Experts talk a lot about engagement rate because it’s a concrete metric that you can track over time, but not all engagement is good engagement. An engagement spike might come as a result of several new members joining your group in a single day, or it might come as a result of conflict in your group. Because data is neutral, it can’t tell the difference between what’s good and what’s bad. It only measures what is.
Connection, on the other hand, is always positive. Connection is what makes communities thrive. Where engagement is all about action, connection is a combination of thoughts, feelings, experiences, and actions. It’s nuanced, which is why it’s harder to track and measure.
It’s worth figuring out how to measure connection in your group, so you can track it over time. An easy way to measure connection is by surveying your members. Depending on the focus of your group, asking questions about how many friends they’ve made in the group or how many group members they consider to be offline friends might help you to tell how connected members feel to each other.
30 FB Engagement Post Ideas for Groups That Actually Work
Now you know connection means more than engagement for engagement’s sake. So what can you do to increase connection among members while also keeping those engagement rates in the ideal range of 40 percent or higher?
We’ve gathered 30 Facebook Group engagement post ideas designed to increase connection among your members while also driving action that can be tracked, measured, and analyzed.
The posts are organized into five major categories known to drive engagement and interaction in online communities:
With six posts in each category, you can mix and match them to suit your industry or niche, and the unique needs of your group. They are general enough to apply to your group’s focus while being specific enough to trigger action among your members. As with any post template or prompt, keep in mind that these are guidelines, not laws. You know your community best. Tweak these post ideas to fit your group, its purpose, and your members.
Category 1: Conversation Starters
The easiest type of engagement post in a Facebook Group is the conversation starter. Like the name implies, the purpose of this type of post is to get members talking — talking to each other and talking to you.
When thinking up conversation starters, it’s important to keep in mind that the intention here is for members to participate in the conversation by leaving a comment. Open-ended questions foster higher quality conversations compared to yes-or-no questions, but they also take more time and energy to answer. You might find fewer responses to some of your questions if they are deeper, but that’s not a bad thing if the comments you do get come from your ideal members or provide valuable perspective.
As the community leader, your job is to facilitate the conversation happening in the comments by responding to them in a meaningful way. You can leave the conversation at the surface level or bring it deeper with those participating. It’s all up to you.
Reliable conversation starters to get members talking
1. What are you working on this week?
2. What are you reading?
3. What’s for dinner tonight/this week?
4. What podcasts are your favorites?
5. Show us a picture of the best part of your day.
6. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received about [group topic]?
Category 2: Polls
Polls are a great way to drive up engagement numbers because the barrier to participation is low. All members have to do is click or tap the option they like best. Some will comment, but most will vote on the poll and keep scrolling.
You can make group polls as serious or lighthearted as you wish. You can create fun question games for your Facebook groups, conduct market research, or use polls to help members get to know each other better.
Facebook’s polling feature makes creating polls in your groups easy. You don’t need to pick a photo or create a graphic.
Create a poll in your Facebook Group in 4 easy steps
1. Select the “Poll” content type when you create your post.
2. Choose your response options.
3. Customize your settings to indicate whether you want to allow respondents to select multiple options or add their own.
4. Click “Post” and you’re all set.
By the way, you don’t have to stick to boring ol’ text polls. Facebook lets you spice things up and stop mindless scrolling in its tracks by adding images and GIFs to your polls. Use these options to get creative, show off your brand personality, and encourage engagement.
Poll ideas to engage members of your groups
1. Where do you spend time online?
2. What is your favorite way to consume online content?
3. A great morning starts with ________________.
4. Do you regret your decision to [insert topic]?
5. How did you discover this group?
6. What do you love/like most about [insert topic]?
Oh, and a word of warning… The success of Facebook polls depends entirely on two things: 1) asking the right questions and 2) not overwhelming members with too many answer options. Your questions should be specific enough to be easy for members to understand and answer quickly. More than five answer options will reduce your response rate. Choose both your questions and answers wisely.
Category 3: Icebreakers
Icebreakers aren’t for everyone. At a live, in-person event, icebreaker time is when you see me running to the restroom or out to the parking lot to retrieve something I fake forgot in my car.
Small talk, surface-level conversation, and trading elevator pitches grate on the nerves of introverts and analytical personalities.
But when it comes to online community dynamics — especially in Facebook groups — they are critical to establish the emotional safety and security required for members to connect with each other. Seth Godin famously describes culture as the manifestation of “people like us do things like this.” Icebreakers serve to illustrate that definition of culture by helping your members see how they fit into the group and confirm they belong there.
Icebreakers to increase engagement
1. Who are the pet parents here? Show us a picture of your furbabies.
2. What part of the world do you call home?
3. What TV shows are you binge-watching right now?
4. What podcasts are you loving?
5. What books have you read recently?
6. Favorite movie of all time?
By their very nature, icebreakers are surface-level conversation starters. They allow people to tiptoe into the group by answering a question without revealing too much about themselves or feeling too vulnerable. Don’t discount their value in your group content strategy. Consider icebreakers to be the first step to building lasting trust among members of your group.
Category 4: Meet-and-Greet
Facebook groups allow people to connect over shared interests, experiences, or desires. Drawing from in-person examples for comparison, they are the online equivalent of a large-scale conference’s breakout sessions, a megachurch’s small groups, or a large organization’s affinity groups.
Even groups as large as Instant Pot® Community with more than 3 million members feel small compared to the billions of people who are active on Facebook every day. And yet, no matter the size of your group, it takes intentional effort to get and keep members engaged.
One way to increase activity in your group is by taking responsibility for facilitating connection between members. Remember, true community comes from members connecting with each other as much as they connect with you and the content you produce.
The most successful way to facilitate these connections is by offering networking or meet-and-greet opportunities for members and yet. However, we rarely see group leaders use this tactic to drive engagement. That means you can set your group AND yourself apart by making meet and greet posts a regular part of your content strategy.
Like any engagement tactic, a little goes a long way. Offering meet-and-greet opportunities weekly is the max frequency in most groups to motivate members to connect with each other in ways that make sense. More often than that and you run the risk of the posts being ignored or viewed as noise in the group.
1. Hiring? Looking for work? Post #hiring opportunities below. If you’re open to work, comment on the opportunities that interest you.
2. Where are my [insert tool or service] experts?
3. Calling all [insert topic] veterans. What one piece of advice would you give beginners?
4. What has been your costliest mistake in [insert topic] so far?
5. When it comes to [insert goal or objective], what tool or service can you NOT live without?
6. Meet your neighbors! Post your location to see whether you have any [insert community name] friends nearby.
Category 5: Trends
One way to make a Facebook Group indispensable to your members is to become known as the go-to source of current and credible information related to trends in your topic or industry.
You don’t have to be the first to break the news. It’s often better if you aren’t the first to share about a trend. You can afford to wait until you have a sense of the trend’s potential and effects on your industry or niche. What members will value most is your take on a trend that’s relevant and customized to their specific needs.
In our free Facebook Group for community leaders and professional community managers, for instance, I am rarely the first to announce a new community platform or change to the Facebook platform. I am, however, the first to provide context to Facebook updates or emerging platforms under the lens of what matters most to people who manage online communities. Our members know that, when the Internet is up in arms over a glitch in the Metaverse, they can count on me to tell them whether the sky is actually falling and what to do about it.
Trend posts to drive engagement
1. Three [insert industry] trends to avoid and why.
2. Do you hate [insert trend]? Here’s what to do instead!
3. What do you think about [insert trend]? Love it or hate it?
4. Want results like [insert celebrity or influencer]? Try this hack!
5. Trend alert: [insert trend] How are you applying it to what you do?
6. Have you noticed [insert trend]? Here’s what we’re doing about it.
How to Use These Facebook Group Engagement Posts
If you want to increase engagement in your Facebook Group, these posts will give you the boost you need. However, you need to use them wisely.
The key to driving true connection and bolstering interaction in your group is what you do with reactions and comments. Use the comments for conversations by asking deeper questions, connecting members to each other, and facilitating the development of real relationships within the group.
Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Your data on the Facebook Group engagement posts you publish is more reliable than what anyone reports as an industry standard. When you track your group’s metrics and your members’ engagement, you have working knowledge of what resonates best with your community. You can use that knowledge to inform what you post in the group moving forward. Your group members might love polls but not icebreakers. It might take trial and error to figure out which conversation starters are more interactive than others. You’ll learn a lot about your community in the process if you’re open to learning and applying the knowledge you gain to your content strategy.
Which interactive post ideas will you use to grow engagement in your online community?
Need Help with Your Community or Facebook Group Engagement?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. Contact us to schedule a free consultation.
Facebook’s Communities Summit 2022, held online last week, was filled with feature announcements, case studies and community manager spotlights. If you’re unfamiliar with the Facebook Communities Summit, it’s an annual event hosted by Meta to inspire community builders, hear from Facebook leaders, and learn about new products and features to help users build, grow, and support their groups.
The first hour of the event was accessible to the public with an additional two hours of content reserved for members of Facebook’s Power Admins Group and Community Learning Labs. After spending all three hours at the event, I’m certain of one thing: This is the Year of the Community Manager.
At prior summits, Facebook has revealed features and shared best practices focused on member experience over community manager experience. This has grated on the nerves of some admin teams who felt skewing features to what members want made admin responsibilities hard on community managers. From my perspective, the pendulum is swinging more to the center this year.
Most of the groups and group leaders featured at this year’s summit either started during the pandemic in 2020 or had exponential growth during the pandemic, which highlighted both the blessing and curse of managing large, active communities.
I took some notes on a few things I learned that I think you’ll find helpful in making intentional plans for starting, managing and leading your community or community management business in 2023.
Here they are:
Leadership Drives Community Culture
Whether a community thrives or languishes comes down to management and governance, which can be a challenge for group leaders who lack training and experience related to online user behavior and group dynamics.
In 2023, Facebook will be testing new tools to support admins in managing and promoting group culture. Expect to see new ways for admins to highlight top contributing members, such as awarding points for engagement-driving actions and having those points lead to special badges. One upcoming example is the Socializer role, which will allow admins to recognize the members that are most hospitable to new members.
Smart community managers pay attention to when new features are added to their groups and think through how to leverage those features to improve the effectiveness of the communities they host. Stay open-minded when considering these new features and flexible, knowing that it’s not unusual for Facebook to cancel features that don’t perform as well as expected.
Admin Assist Gets a Human Touch
Admin Assist is a feature that debuted in 2020 with the goal of automating some aspects of group governance. You could set up rules in your group to automatically flag or reject posts with links, videos, certain words and more. For some groups, Admin Assist is like having a full-time community manager on staff. It saves that much time. But it’s not perfect and can be hard to manage, especially when there is nuance to your group policies.
Daily Digest will now give group admins a daily summary of actions taken in their group so they can see whether the feature is doing what they expect. Flagged by Facebook is my personal favorite update here. It will give admins of eligible groups to allow content that might otherwise be flagged for removal as bullying or harassment. In testing this feature, Facebook found a comment calling a fish “fatty” was flagged in a group of fish tank enthusiasts. With this new feature, admins of that group could override the automated rejection and allow the comment in their group.
Smart community managers will set up Admin Assist and other automation tools with the purpose and practice of their groups in mind. If your group is busy, flagging posts according to some criteria can make more work for you instead of less.
Content Connects Communities
A new engagement-driving content type is coming to groups. Not fully rolled out yet, Reels in groups will allow admins and members the ability to create highly customized short videos to connect with each other. Facebook is also testing the ability to share a public Facebook event for your community to your stories on Instagram, which will bring greater visibility to your community.
Smart community managers know that you can’t blast your group with push-type notification posts and expect it to thrive. Content that inspires and rewards two-way, direct communication fosters connection faster and more effectively than when admins act as gatekeepers.
Chat Links Admins to Their Members
Remember the days when you could send direct messages to group members, bypassing their group notification settings and ensuring they are aware of important community updates? Though well-loved by admins for its efficiency, this feature didn’t sit well with community members who felt spammed by over-eager group leaders who messaged all the time about all sorts of random things
Facebook has been testing a variety of options with chat tools to strike a balance between meeting the needs of group leaders and group members. Community Chats allow group leaders to create chat channels, audio channels and event chats to facilitate real-time conversations around shared interests for group members. View-only chats are being tested as a way for community managers to push out information without having to manage responses and admin-only chats give leadership teams a way to collaborate in real time.
Smart community managers know there is a fine line between caring for your group and ensuring members are aware of important information affecting them and spamming them with overly promotional messages. Think of your group interactions as a courtship and don’t go proposing marriage on the first date, or like a casting call in 90-Day Fiancé.
Self-Care is Total Care for Community Managers
Well-run communities can become deeply personal for members and their leaders, even when the group focus isn’t sensitive in nature. A panel featuring founders of communities focused on mental health and domestic violence highlighted the importance of ensuring admin teams have the training necessary to appropriately support group members and an understanding of how to care for themselves in the process.
Smart community managers know that just because social media never sleeps doesn’t mean they can’t. Have a plan in place to prevent admin burnout, support the emotional needs of your leadership team, and establish systems to support harmony between group management tasks and personal health and well-being. You might need to schedule shifts for your team so there are clear boundaries between work time and personal time.
Communities Foster Brand Loyalty and Business Results
When effectively managed, corporate communities can be gathering places to support new customers, foster brand loyalty and put decision-makers in direct contact with their ideal clients.
Marriott discovered several Facebook groups run by Bonvoy members wanting to maximize their loyalty points and recognized they should be the ones helping their members make the most of their program benefits. By creating the Marriott Bonvoy Insiders group, the hotel and resort company has created space for more than 146,000 Bonvoy members to gather to share their tips and tricks while helping the company understand what members like and dislike about the program to improve the experience for everyone involved.
Canva’s community manager shared how their design group has changed over the years and how how the members have informed product changes as well.
Smart community managers know the business case for community is increased revenue, customer/client retention and fewer customer service issues. Your role is a frontline position requiring equal parts customer service, hospitality, product development and tech support. Know your product inside and out, address member concerns directly, embrace ideas for improvement, and make sure you understand your role as community advocate when talking with company leadership. It’s your job to help organizational leaders understand the dangers of neglecting your communities. If shifting priorities or staffing changes prevent you from effectively managing your organization’s groups, you’re better off archiving them than allowing neglect to turn it into a cesspool of humans behaving badly.
Community Management is Growing as a Profession
You don’t have to spend long browsing the job listings on LinkedIn to see community management as an emerging professional focus. Companies are finally moving away from dumping community management responsibilities on the nearest or youngest staff member under “other duties as assigned” and seeking out professionals with skills and experience in online user behavior, group dynamics and people management.
Community management roles are still varied in design. They might sit in marketing, operations or product fulfillment departments. They might be highly administrative, working mostly behind the scenes, or be positioned as the “face” of the organization online. Pay is varied, too. If the role is focused in customer service, pay ranges between $40,000 to $60,000 per year. If the role focuses on strategy, growth and effective management, you’ll see salaries range from $60,000 to $100,000-plus. Though community management is an online role, many companies require employees work on-site and attend or host in-person events.
Smart community managers know how to apply their skills to a variety of products and services. Take a look at your skills and experience and position yourself accurately according to what you know your super-powers to be. Are you a growth strategist? A membership retention specialist? Can you tie thousands of dollars in revenue to your group management practices? No matter what your skills are, don’t be afraid to package and promote them accordingly. If you’d like to manage communities full-time for a brand or organization, pay attention to job listing details you know whether the role is remote or on-site and how much travel is required.
Need help with your community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Do you want more online visibility but feel like you don’t know where to begin?
In this episode of Awesome Talk with Tonya, visibility expert Csilla Muscan shares her top tips and tricks when it comes to getting seen online even when you’re not well known.
Csilla is someone who knows how to connect with her followers on a deep level AND she makes it count. As an author, speaker, podcaster and speaker coach, Csilla has carved out a nice chunk of online real estate for herself even without a huge online audience.
Whenever the topic of online visibility, I hear three top complaints from the message-driven writers, entrepreneurs and experts I serve:
I can’t get seen. My audience is too small! I’m too new!
I don’t have enough time. It takes too long get my name out there.
I don’t have the right credentials. I’m nobody special.
Of those three, which resonates most with you?
If you’re like our live video viewers, it comes down to time. You feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. That may or may not be true, but let’s unpack these challenges in order.
How to Get Seen When You’re Just Starting Out
Everyone starts somewhere. Neither Csilla nor I landed on the scene with a ready-made audience throwing credit cards at our faces. We set goals, made plans and took action. You can, too. If you’re just starting out, Csilla recommends taking a narrow focus to your message and your audience. If you try to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one.
We know this to be true. We’ve seen it and we’ve lived it.
Here’s what Csilla recommends:
Pick ONE person as your target.
Pick ONE message to attract your ONE PERSON.
Build relationships focused on your message and your person.
Build one-to-one relationships, knowing that the impact amplifies over time. You might not get results overnight, but they will come. And those results come in the form of referrals, speaking gig, podcast interviews and more. The consistent effort pays off in big ways.
How to Grow Your Online Visibility When You Don’t Have Much Time
If you’re a busy working homeschool mom like me, or a busy working mompreneur like Csilla, you don’t have time to waste. Here’s the deal: NOBODY has time to waste. We all have the same 24 useable hours in every given day, and we all have to maximize them so we can do both what we need to do AND what we want to do.
If you can carve out 15 to 30 minutes a day, you can grow your online audience and authority. Csilla teaches a framework and I coach my private clients on audience growth strategies focused on working smarter instead of harder (or longer).
The key, though, is strategic. If you’re using social media to build relationships and visibility, you can’t get lost in cat videos or go down a rabbit hole of posts from crazy relatives on your newsfeed. You have to show up, make your connections and move on with your day. If you need help with that, check out this cheat sheet.
How to Build Your Authority When You Lack Credentials
Whenever I hear someone say they feel they lack credentials to grow their online visibility, I hear insecurity. And, for most people, the issue of time or being new is a smokescreen for feeling unqualified.
If you have a message placed upon your heart to share, you’ve been called to do so. Unless your calling requires an advanced degree, such as being a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, people aren’t nearly as concerned with what you know as much as they are concerned with the results you can get for them.
It’s not that credentials aren’t important. They are. But frequently, experience and skill can stand in for some credentials. The thing with letters after your name is they offer the perception of credibility and skill, but what your audience really cares about is what you can help them to achieve.
Other ways to develop perceived credibility are to blog, publish a book, start a podcast, work directly with your target audience as a coach or consultant, step on a stage and speak at a public event. Some methods gain you credibility faster than others, but everything combines to grow the authority you have and need to be a recognized expert in your chosen field.
Is your Facebook Group dying? Is your online community on life support, barely hanging on by a thread?
Maybe you’ve neglected your group or lost motivation because you got tired of being your own best member.
Either way, the Community CPR Method can bring your group from the brink of death back to the land of the living—and it will only take 30 days.
The Community CPR Method is a three-step system: Check In, Polarize and Resource.
Community CPR Step 1 – Check in With Your Members
The fastest way to get your group out of a coma is to perform mouth-to-mouth. Or, in this case, public check-ins.
🎯 Goal: Make your group members feel seen and valued.
🛑 Limitations: Tagged check-ins are not practical for groups with more than 500 members. Two posts a day, 12 hours apart, tend to work best. And most groups will enjoy these check-in posts for up to five days in a row. More than that feels tedious.
💡 Tactic: Create a series of posts (no more than two per day) with up to 50 members tagged in each that asks members to offer an update. Use a GIF that fits your group personality. The idea here is to be personal, not polished. You want your members to see that you genuinely care about them and their lives or businesses. Watch me debrief this tactic for my private group, The Secret to Thriving Online Communities. The debrief starts at about [9:00] in.
Examples of Check-In Posts:
First post: I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling a little disconnected recently. I miss you! What have you been up to? I’ll be checking in all week to find out what’s new with you. If you’re tagged here, share your latest project. Feel free to drop a link in the comments so I can check it out. I really want to see what you’ve been doing!
Second post:I’m having so much fun reading everyone’s updates! If you’ve already shared your update, thank you! If you’re tagged in this post, I’m ready to hear from you. 😊 What have you been up to? Let me know in the comments. Add a link or screenshot so everyone here can see it, too!
Community CPR Step 2 – Post Polarizing Questions
Like chest compressions keep a person’s blood moving, polarizing questions strike at the hearts of your members.
🎯 Goal: Give your members the opportunity to express strong opinions or passionate feelings.
🛑 Limitations: The goal here isn’t to tick off your members. Remember, people seek out social media to escape or be entertained. They don’t want their blood boiling. This is also a tactic that you want to use carefully. Too many polarizing posts can backfire.
💡 Tactic: Post a question you know your audience has strong feelings about but won’t put them in direct conflict with one another. For best results, you want a question that is easy to answer. Use either a colored background for the post to draw attention to the question or a photo that’s a natural complement.
Have fun with it!
Example Questions to Consider:
If you could only use one social media channel for the next year, which would you choose: Instagram or Facebook?
Cilantro – Love it or hate it?
Recommendations wanted: Best planner you’ve ever used?
Coffee or tea?
eBooks or Print?
When taking notes, do you prefer pencil or pen?
Community CPR Step 3 – Resource Your Members
Once you have your members talking, you need to give them a reason to keep coming back to the group. Resources are something that bring value to your group and help your members build a closer connection to you as their guide.
🎯 Goal: Give members a reason to visit and establish goodwill by creating a valuable group experience.
🛑 Limitations: The resources need to be low effort on your part and have a high impact on your members.
💡 Tactic: The easiest way to resource your members is by going live in your group every day for a week. Live video tends to be easy to produce and consume. Facebook will notify your members that you’re live in the group, and members will feel comfortable interacting with you through the video. If live video isn’t your thing, or if you live somewhere that lacks the signal strength to support live video, you can upload recorded videos or downloadable resources.
Types of Resource Videos to Add Value to Your Group:
Live coaching
Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions
Group town halls
Tutorials/how-tos
Types of Resource Downloads to Add Value to Your Group:
Journal pages
Activity calendars
Motivational quotes
Templates
[socialrocket-tweet quote=”Is your online community on the brink of death? This method can bring it back to life in just 30 days. ” tweet=”Is your online community on the brink of death? This method can bring it back to life in just 30 days. ” style_id=”default”]
Nurture Your Group to Keep it Going
Now that your group is surviving, it’s time to help it thrive by maintaining the momentum you’ve created for your members. When you’ve brought a group back from the brink of death, it’s going to take a bit of rehab to get it to full strength.
Have an engagement plan in place that will keep your members coming back and connecting with both you and one another. If you need a strategy to get your group to thriving status without leaving you DOA, I’m here to help. Schedule Your Borrow My Brain Session to find out what kind of plan makes sense for your group.
Want to take your Facebook Groups from crickets to connected?
Not sure how to increase engagement on Facebook?
Did you create your online group with hopes of vibrant interaction only to find it’s one more place online where it’s just you and the sound of your own voice?
You wouldn’t be the first, and you’re probably not going to be the last. It takes art AND science to create a real community online.
Some people get lucky. They thrust the right message to the right audience at the perfect time, and people jump on it. But most of us have to work to build a thriving online community.
I do. So do my clients.
How to Increase Facebook Group Engagement
But there are some tactics you can use right now to give your group engagement a boost. Do them consistently and you’ll find your group thriving right in front of your eyes.
Step 1 – Verify your Facebook group engagement is as low as you think it is.
Facts and feelings are two different things. If you think your group lacks engagement, the first thing you need to do is check your data to see if it’s true.
If your group is more than 30 days old and has more than 50 members, Facebook makes it easy for you to check your engagement data. Visit your Group Insights and look for the number of Active Members. This is the number of people who, according to Facebook, have visited your group and interacted in some way in the past month.
Once you have the number of Active Members, divide it by the number of total group members. The resulting number is your group engagement rate.
Example: 328 active members / 422 total members = 78 % engagement.
If you’re at 25 percent, consider yourself average. The ideal is above 40 perfect.
Though your group could always have greater engagement, you definitely want to improve your group engagement if it’s below 40 perfect.
Is your engagement rate higher than you expect?
Take a quick look through the posts in your group. If your group is average, you’ll find posts have a higher number of reactions than comments. Even though comments are more meaningful in terms of making a group feel like a community, reactions count as engagement according to Facebook. Take that into consideration when evaluating your engagement rate.
Another consideration is the age of your group. If your group is still young, you might be in the growth phase — which can be a slow process at the beginning while members feel their way around. This article focuses on the group that is at least three months old and either has weak engagement or has experienced a recent reduction in engagement. If your group is new, you’ll want to start with the Suit Up, Show Up, Speak Up method found here.
Step 2 – Confirm that you’re fulfilling your commitment to your group members.
Once you get a data-driven assessment of your group’s true engagement rate, it’s time to evaluate your delivery. Are you living up to the promise you made to your group members as their leader?
People look to Facebook to fulfill two desires, escape and entertainment. Are you delivering either or both to your members? Is your group a place where they can get away from what troubles them to connect with like-minded individuals who understand their plight? Is it a fun place to unload the pressures and expectations of people who don’t get it?
Even groups focused on serious matters can provide escape and entertainment to their members. The key is to tell members what you’ll do for them and follow through in the group.
Step 3 – Send personal messages to members who have reacted to posts.
You might want to grab a paper bag for this one. It’s OK…I can wait.
If you know your engagement is low and you’ve confirmed you’re fulfilling your group promise, the next step is personal outreach. But don’t reach out randomly. Be strategic in your efforts. Reach out to the members who have reacted to posts in the group. If they’ve reacted (likes, loves, cares, wows, etc.), you know the content has connected.
What I want you to do is reach out to them individually via Messenger with a quick note of gratitude.
Example:
Hey there, Suzy! I’m the leader over at [insert group name here] and wanted to drop by to say thank you for being a member of our community. My goal is to provide [group promise] to [ideal members]. Please let me know if there’s anything I could be doing to make your group experience better. Looking forward to connecting in the group! [Your Name]
If you’re not Facebook friends, your message will end up in their Message Requests folder and not in their Messenger inbox. Even though they might not see it immediately, do it anyway. The goal here is to help your members feel seen and heard. How would you feel if you received a note of thanks from the leader of a group you were in? You are spreading goodwill. The side effect is that it might give you insight into how you can better serve your group members.
Step 4 – Show members how to manage their notifications.
When a group’s engagement drops, it’s safe to assume members aren’t getting notifications from the group.
One tactic to help members see posts and updates in the group is to teach them how to manage their notifications.
Create a tutorial showing members how to manage their notifications at the group and post levels. Loom is a tool that can help you create screenshare tutorials for free or a low price, depending on your needs. You can download the videos and upload them to your Facebook group so everyone can view them conveniently.
Step 5 – Welcome new members by name and tag them in the posts.
If you don’t already, tag new members in welcome posts at least once a week. Facebook makes it easy to do this and you can welcome 100 members per post. This is a great opportunity to make a great first impression and let your new members know how to get the most from their group experience.
Tagged welcome posts are the best opportunity you have to teach members your group’s rules of engagement and help them instantly feel connected to you and the group. If you manage a larger group, tagging members in welcome posts gives them the opportunity to know who you are and how you can help them.
To Build an Online Community: Show Up Consistently
When it comes to re-engaging a quiet or disconnected group, consistency is important. Whichever engagement tactics you choose to use, make sure you can do them consistently. Online communities need to be nurtured to thrive.
If you need help figuring out how to consistently care for your group so you can keep your members active and engaged, let me help. You can borrow my brain for 20 minutes. Schedule your session today to find out what makes sense for you and your group.
Read more about Social Media Community Engagement Strategy
That’s what everyone seems to say about Facebook Groups.
But is it true?
If the group you built is far from your field of dreams, you’re not alone.
It’s the No. 1 complaint that leads writers and business owners to seek out my services.
“I have a Facebook Group – Now what?”
The answer to “now what?” is my three-step framework: Suit Up, Show Up and Speak Up. Read on to find out what that looks like for you as a new group owner or aspiring group owner.
Suit Up — Set the Stage for Group Success
Setting the stage for a Facebook Group’s success requires that you prepare the way for the people you hope to welcome into your community.
Thriving online communities start with solid group structure. There are foundational elements that are critical to a group’s early and ongoing success.
You’ll want to carefully consider the following elements:
Your Facebook Group’s cover image
Your group description
Your group rules
Your group’s screening questions
These elements are your group’s calling card to your ideal group members. Make each one count by being intentional about how you use them.
Cover Image
The cover image is like a bumper sticker, calling out to people all over Facebook. You want a cover image that grabs attention and clearly communicates what your group is about.
Group Description
Whether your group is “public visible” or “public invisible” (levels of group privacy on Facebook), everyone on Facebook will be able to see the description. This space is valuable real estate when it comes to helping people appreciate what your group is about and who it serves.
Group Rules
Community culture is made up of the collective rules of engagement for a group. This is how you help people understand what is and is not appropriate for your group, and how you create a structure to protect the members of your group.
Screening Questions
Facebook allows you to ask prospective members up to three questions when they request to join your group. Questions can be open-ended or multiple choice. How you use these questions is up to you and depends on what you think matters most.
Show Up — Make Time to Help Your Group Thrive
Showing up for your group is one of the most important activities you can do to ensure the success of your community. To show up consistently, though, you have to make time to be in your group.
Starting a Facebook group — or any online community — takes a significant investment of time. If you invest the time well in the beginning, however, you will find that the amount of time needed to maintain your group diminishes over time as the group becomes self-sufficient. Self-sustaining groups are healthy groups.
Speak Up — Make Yourself Known
As a Facebook Group leader, your greatest power is your voice and you need to use your voice to help your group stand out. The first thing you need to do is decide what sets your group apart from all others, and help others to appreciate your differentiating factor.
Understanding what makes you and your community unique is the only way you’ll be able to clearly communicate who should join you and why. Once you do that, you’ll be able to promote your group in a meaningful and effective way.
Find Great Examples to Follow
If you have a group and aren’t yet sure the best way to carry out the advice above, seek out examples of groups run well. If you need help — or a community of fellow online group owners — check out The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, my free Facebook Group that blends the practical with the ideal so you can grow your group without losing your mind. It’s one of the nicest communities on Facebook filled with leaders strive to serve their groups well.
My group, dedicated to online community managers, hit the 300-member mark early this year.
(cue the confetti)
It was the perfect occasion to check in with everyone — so I did…
…By posting messages and tagging members.
Since Facebook limits posts to 50 tags each, that meant several posts over the course of a few days.
Looking back, it was A LOT.
There is no easy way to tag that many users, but the results were worth it.
Members who haven’t posted in ages, and some who had never posted at all, responded and shared updates with everyone.
One member just finished chemo and is getting ready to start radiation. Several members are finishing up book proposals and manuscripts; a couple are launching books in the next month or two. We’ve heard stories of starting groups, starting memberships and finally committing to taking social media seriously.
Personal updates, professional updates, high points, low points and midpoints — all of them were truly a joy to read. It connected all of us in a way that I don’t think any other tactic could have.
It’s an impulsive decision I’m glad I made, but it’s not one I’ll likely be able to make again.
This kind of attention can’t be sustained as the group grows. In fact, 300 is probably the cap. Sure…I could get assistance in creating the posts — or do what other group managers do and write one post with 50 tags and then add comments with 50 tags each until the whole group is covered. But that feels contrary to my hyper-personal style.
So, this is a stunt that’s most likely one-and-done. But I have no regrets. I have loved reading and re-reading every comment and response.
If you manage a group with fewer members, it’s a stunt to consider.
And though you can’t get around all the typing required to insert those tags, I do have a hack to make it a little easier.
If you decide to follow in my footsteps and try this type of activity in your group, let me know. I’d love to hear the response you get and how you felt about the experience for yourself.
Tonya Kubo believes in people over process and uses a personalized approach to help writers leverage the power of social media to launch books, online communities, membership programs and brands. She is the founder of the Clutter Free Academy Facebook group, Secret to Thriving Online Communities Facebook group and Clutter Free for Life membership program. She is a frequent guest on the Clutter Free Academy and Communicator Academy podcasts, has been featured on the Biz Mavens podcast, and has taught at Leverage: The Speaker Conference.
Online communities are my passion, and Facebook is where I spend a lot of my time with those communities.
Facebook Group etiquette, as a result, matters A LOT to me.
I consider online communities so important that I host a Facebook Group devoted to sharing the best of my knowledge on the subject and mentoring others who seek to have successful online communities. This is because I know how overwhelming it can feel to build an online community. But the people who manage online communities aren’t actually my top priority.
I consider the collective community and its members to be my No. 1 priority. And if you’ve been in any group I’ve managed, you know I’m fiercely protective of group members.
I’m also a compassionate group leader who is mindful of the learning curve new members go through. It takes time to acclimate to a group’s cultural norms. My compassion — and patience — wear thin fast, though, when I discover someone is in the group with darker intentions.
There are two tactics that I find to be most egregious when it comes to online etiquette, and I call them baiting and fishing.
Baiting in Facebook Groups
You may not be familiar with the term, or call it by a different name, but baiting is the practice of creating a vague post that somewhat connects with the group topic. It’s vague enough to prompt curiosity from others, who might leave a reaction (thumb’s up, heart, etc.) or a comment. That’s when the offender pounces. Typically, the next step is to privately message everyone who interacted with the post with a soft-sell sales pitch.
Real-life example from a group on clutter: A member posted a selfie, stating she’d been on a mission to declutter her body and shared how much weight she’d lost and how great she felt as a result. Members who interacted with the post soon received private messages saying, “I noticed you liked my post in [group name] and wanted to say thank you and to let you know it’s all because of [product name]. I’d love to send you a free sample. Are you interested?”
It took about 24 hours before my notifications went crazy with members reporting the activity to me. They took the bait, but they avoided the hook.
Fishing is sneakier and maybe even slimier than baiting. Someone joins a group and instantly starts assessing the list of members, looking for the best catches. What follows is a methodical and intentional process. The angler might start by sending friend requests to their targets. If the friend request is accepted, a message comes next with a pitch:
Real-life example from a lifestyle group: Within just a few hours of joining a group, the angler started sending friend requests. Upon accepting the requests, people started receiving messages inviting them to join a different group.
It only took 12 hours for the activity to rub folks the wrong way and trigger reports to the admin team.
Why is Facebook Group Etiquette Such a Big Deal?
To be clear, the issue in these examples is not that someone is trying to sell something or trying to grow their groups. We can’t blame people for wanting to earn a living or expand their own platform. The issue here — and the reason these individuals were evicted from the groups — is a matter of trust. Trust in the online space is hard to earn and way too easy to lose.
Activity like baiting and fishing destroy trust and affect the feeling of safety and security thriving online communities have cultivated. If you lead a community, you have to protect your people from predators.
Facebook Group etiquette isn’t snobbery, it’s part of the proper care and feeding of groups you manage and groups you join.
The best practice is zero-tolerance.
Remove the group member.
Message them if you want but consider whether the outcome will be worth it. I’ve never seen an angler accept responsibility for their actions and often see them trying to project the blame on their targets in the following ways: “I was only trying to help because members seemed interested in how I lost my weight” or “I was careful only to approach people who were friends with me outside of the group (ignoring the fact the friend request came moments before the pitch).”
How to Handle Baiting and Fishing in Your Group
It’s almost impossible to prevent predators from joining your group. Paid memberships and private groups offer some protections, but if people have bad intentions, they’ll find a way to act on them. That doesn’t mean you’re defenseless. You can make preemptive strikes by setting clear standards for your community, enforcing those standards consistently with care, and explicitly telling the group what to do if they think others are violating those standards.
It takes time and effort to protect your community from predators, and your people are worth it.
But a word of caution: Don’t go through life, or community management, assuming the worst of people in your groups. If anything, assume the best. More people are out to do good than to do harm. Be one of those people and work to attract those people — and your community (whether it’s on Facebook or not) will be better for it.
What Do You Think?
Have you had these types of experiences in the groups you lead? What have you done? How has it affected you and the group as whole?
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Tonya Kubo believes in people over process and uses a personalized approach to help writers leverage the power of social media to launch books, online communities, membership programs and brands. She is the founder of the Clutter Free Academy Facebook group, Secret to Thriving Online Communities Facebook group and Clutter Free for Life membership program. She is a frequent guest on the Clutter Free Academy and Communicator Academy podcasts, has been featured on the Biz Mavens podcast, and has taught at Leverage: The Speaker Conference.
There can be a fine line between too much and not enough. Too far in either direction, and the group suffers. But how do you find your happy medium?
That’s what we’re talking about in this episode of Communicator Connection.
Transformative Leadership Coach James Leonard, author of Positive Intent, joins me for a discussion on how assuming the best can help to cultivate healthy group culture — even in not-so-healthy times.
Find out…
How James uses generosity and curiosity to approach even the stickiest of online situation,
How control and fear play into our personal discomfort in these scenarios, and
How we can all take a lesson from the sun in how we approach conflict.
These 30 minutes go quickly and are packed with practical ways to apply strategy to the groups you lead.
Watch till the end for the special offer James has JUST FOR OUR VIEWERS!
More About This Episode
Communicator Connection is a live conversation on the topics that every communicator wants to know or needs to know to move forward in amplifying their messages.
In Episode 1, James and I talk about handling sticky situations with grace and generosity. As founder of the Positive Intent Bootcamp, James has seen the limits of positive intent stretched in both real life and online spaces.
He applies curiosity and generosity in all aspects of life: life, career, relationships and personal growth.
All of these areas collide in online communities. We have groups around our circumstances, our lifestyles and our aspirations. What’s fascinating about James and his perspective on positive intent is that it’s not a passive process. If anything, it requires active listen and generous application of a genuine desire to know more about others.
When you watch the episode, pay attention to:
How fear and control play into what makes us uncomfortable as leaders,
What our own emotions say about the challenges we face in our groups, and
What questions we can ask in our groups to redirect or to go deeper with the people we perceive to be problematic.
Special Offer for Communicator Connection Viewers
Speaking of generosity, James is offering a free 30-minute session with viewers who are interested in further exploring how to apply positive intent to the challenging situations in their lives. To take advantage of this offer, visit James’ website and fill out the contact form. Tell him Tonya sent you 😊
Tonya Kubo helps Christian communicators leverage the power of social media to build community around the messages of their hearts. She is the founder of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and a frequent guest on the Clutter Free Academy and Communicator Academy podcasts. If you’re interested in building digital communities, join her FREE Facebook Group, The Secret to Thriving Online Communities.
Know everything there is to know about thriving online communities? Then keep walking.
The information I’m about to share is for those who want to learn more about developing authentic online relationships. You know, actually get to know the people you serve in a real way.
When Jeni B. invited me to discuss Facebook Groups and other online communities on the Biz Mavens podcast, my own Facebook Group didn’t exist. It was the perfect nudge I needed to get the ball rolling. My passion for online communities is hard to contain. As a result, I evangelize the power of online communities to every blogger, speaker, writer, podcaster and author I encounter. They are a great way to build a team around your message AND to help you truly connect with the people you aim to serve. BUT they have to be done well. Done poorly and you end up hating life in one way or another. Worse, some community leaders find themselves resenting their audience.
You deserve better.
I want you to LOVE your people as much as they love you. I want serving them to bring you the same level of joy you bring to them.
Jeni B. is a superlative interviewer, helping me to deliver what really is a masterclass on the topic of thriving online communities. It’s worth an hour of your time to hear the answers to questions like:
What’s the difference between free and paid groups?
What is “good” group culture?
Is creating a group right for you?
How do you come up with consistent content for your group?
How do you stand out?
But that’s not all you’ll hear. Because I’m me and, like Jeni, I believe in suiting up and showing up with my very best, I also share insights for communicators at all stages of community building and why guru culture is the worst. My hope is that you’ll listen to the podcast for yourself AND share it with someone you know who could benefit.
And at the end, if you decide you’re ready to take the plunge by creating your own online community, make sure to get the support you need by joining The Secret to Thriving Online Communities with me over on Facebook.
Group name comparisons to consider (real and fictitious):
