Leveraging Facebook Groups

Some people will say that Facebook Groups are "dead" but sometimes they really are the right tool for the job. Here are some reasons to use a Facebook Group:

You want to facilitate communication with a group of people on Facebook, but you don't want to require that they friend each other (or you).
You want a way to ensure that every member of the community sees all updates in the group.
You want to have private conversations within the community not seen by friends or family of any of the participants.

Here are some examples of Facebook Groups that might be successful:

Closed Private FB Group for a course (students don't have to friend each other or their teacher)
Closed FB Group for family reunion planning
Closed and Private FB Group for planning a surprise party
Open FB Group for friends of a dog part (to discuss policies, plan events, etc)

I've created a Facebook Group for our Canvas Network Social Media course. Visit the page and then click on "Join Group" in the upper right-hand corner. For the next week, this will be an "Open Group" but then I will close it so that membership has to be approved. I will designate a couple of you to be admins on the group so that you can moderate new members over time.

View the slideshow in the Mashable article below to learn how to set up a group of your own. Then read the Facebook Group Basics to learn all the nitty gritty details of FB Groups.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Facebook Groups, Mashable, Jan 28, 2013
Facebook Help: Group Basics

Now might be a good time to find some Facebook Groups to join. Here's a little tutorial.

How to Find Facebook Groups with a Facebook Groups

NOTE: We will talk about Facebook Fan Pages next week. Patience grasshoppers.