10 Ways To Run a Successful Facebook Group #Facebook

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• Christine Bell

  I belong to a “shop and sell” group of about 2000 members. What annoys me is that the Admin makes irrelevant comments on people’s posts. How can this be tamed without risking being removed from the group? Personally I think he’s narcissistic and unemployed — seems to have nothing else to do but draw attention to himself. Way too much!! He has no right, does he, to make a joke about something someone is trying to sell?

  • Cheryl Snelleman

    Start your own? Chances are you’re not the only one annoyed with his behaviour and it won’t take much to persuade others to come join your group.

• Kelly Huckaby

  I would love to hear how other group admins/mods share responsibilities. Do you have specific jobs (one for admitting new members, one for monitoring posts, etc)? Do you rotate jobs (first week: admin A admits new members, admin B monitors post; second week: admin A monitors posts, admin B admits new members)? Or do you keep a running conversation going as to who has done what and everyone pitches in as they’re able? That last option works good for small groups, but as they group it can get complicated. Your thoughts?

  • Susan Miller-Wade

    Are you making it too difficult? I have a group of 60,I am the only admin,and don’t need any help.Maybe your group is very large.Notice that the support groups for Facebook admins are all dead or dysfunctional!

    • Kelly Huckaby

      While I’ve always had a co-admin I’ve always done everything myself until last year when my husband was hospitalized and I couldn’t do anything for about a week. We had about 800 members at the time. Basically, what we do, is contact each person who wishes to join to be sure they are in our area and they are homeschooling. Those are our requirements for getting into the group. Since that time, the co-admin and I have shared the responsibilities of contacting people. With just two of us, it was easy to shoot off a private message and let the other know we had the latest request.

      Then we ran into some issues with one of our members. We asked another mom to join us, to help make decisions about group rules and such. We’re now at almost 1,000 members. We had 10 people ask to join one day! We’ve started a secret group for the three of us to discuss who is contacting which person, and we ‘talk’ about group events and such. It seems to be working okay, but one member often forgets to let us know she’s contacted someone. I suppose it’s just a matter of reminding her to let us know.

      • Susan Miller-Wade

        Very interesting.I’ve never been the admin for such a large group.I was the admin for a fan group with 200 members.I read some about group dynamics,about how people’s behavior changes with the number of members in the group.With that many,you are bound to have constant conversation,great.I can only think you will also have a large amount of lurkers,my pet peeve.I have discovered that my group does not want to be too big,and we add members slowly.I like your separate group for the admins–great idea.What I found with 200 members is that only about 25 formed the core.They were strangers,maybe had been in other groups together,but the fighting that went on every day was like a bloodbath! We had trolls who hated our singer of choice,and they made a mighty mess of everything.I wrote a Mission Statement,with rules for conduct on the group.This was ignored.I warned again,and had to shut it down.Goodbye stress.I imagine your group is more civilized.I wonder if your group,with so many members,might want to make “rooms” for different topics,one for general discussion.I did that once–it was easier for the members to go right to their interest.Good luck–I’d like to hear how it goes for you.

        • Kelly Huckaby

          Do you run a group now? They are now showing insights for Groups, similar to what they do for Pages. It’s so cool! I discovered that of our 950+ people, about 850 were active. That blew my mind, as I know the norm is 10-20%. We do have some guidelines, but I think the key to our large group running so well is that we are all local. We could run into each other in public on any given day, so we need to treat each other respectfully to avoid scenes. Ha! Just goes to show how anonymity can make people act childish.

          One thing I’ve found, when it comes to rules of conduct, is that the delete function is my friend. I will try to post a general warning, not pointing any fingers, and if that doesn’t work I then contact the offender privately (which doesn’t always work because sometimes they ignore your private message). If I need to, I’ll tag them, to let them know I’ve sent a message. When they still ignore me and continue to post trash, I simply remove them from the group.

          In your group for the band, I would have posted that the group was designed for support of the band, not trashing them. Anyone who doesn’t like the lead singer is welcome to either hold their tongue or leave the group. Unless they are footing the bill for travel expenses and cutting the paycheck for the band, they have no right to force their opinions on who should be the singer. They are welcome to have their opinions, but they are not welcome to post them in the group.

          Tough love. It works, Susan!

        • Susan Miller-Wade

          Hi Kelly–Thank you for writing.I’m amazed at the number of active members you have! Unheard of!
          I don’t have anything to do with music groups anymore.No thanks.This group I run is very personal and we bet together in person a lot.We have a four day campout in the summer and live together in a gorgeous place in the country.We just had that annual party,and included a lovely service for a member who died.I did just about everything myself,except I have learned to give out suggestions for food for each member to bring,supplies and chores.Otherwise,I would end up doing no it ALL myself.The group is crazy about this annual gathering,very sentimental,and are talking about next year.I’m not at all sure Inwant to be the Head Camper anymore.
          About four years ago,we decided to open the group to new members from our town who didn’t go to the same school.It was a spevial school–an experimental high school,The Alternative School.We had that strong bond,but we have lots of other friends in common.We had a discussion.
          We posted 17 names of members who never visited,chronically absent,and asked them to let us know if they still wanted to be in the group.No reply from any of them–obviously not there.At midnight,we changed the name of the group,changed the status to secret,deleted the 17,sent out our group to nvitation to six new people.It was hilarious.We call it “The “Purge”. Not one of them ever asked me where the group went.We have added a couple back in for different reasons.
          So my problem as admin. is the lurking.It’s time for another purge,but I’m not going through that again.Some of our members loudly defend the lurkers–it’s not a requirement of the group to join the discussion.But it would be NICE! Good luck to you.