Comet Branding - Branding | PR | Social Media

Once you thought Facebook groups were a thing of the past, they announce their new feature. Yes, Facebook groups.

It can be tough to keep up with Facebook features. Should I create a fan page, “like” page, or a member-only group? Which page is the most useful space for my brand to build a community? These are all valid questions as we determine which space is the most useful and spam-free channel.

I recently created a Facebook group for “Social Media Leaders” as a way to connect with other professionals in the social media space, and to test out the new feature. I also had some fun with the logo design for the group, which@GapLogo criticizers may find intriguing. Gotta have some fun with a new feature, right?

With any new platform, there are many glitches as Facebook rolled out this feature. Some of these glitches include: if you want to leave a comment on the group page  you must hit “enter/return” for your comment to be posted, it is difficult to choose your friends you want included in the group because you must type the names from memory instead of browsing through a list of friends, and you are unable to remove unnecessary status updates in the wall feed.

Here are my five (5) quick thoughts on how Facebook groups can be used:

1. Privately connect with a specific club or industry network to share thoughts and ideas. Note: If you want to make it specifically private for members only, it must be a “closed” group or members can add their friends. Which will then open up the option for your friends, friends to add their friends. This is how groups can easily turn into spam groups, since what was once sharing discussions with your first connections now turned into third, fourth and fifth connections.

2. Create a group to have a social space to discuss an upcoming/past event, share photos from the event, followup reviews and questions, etc.

3. Family members can create private groups to share family photos of the little ones.

4. Create a group to post reviews on a specific product or service. Should brands be afraid of customer service response issues within public groups?

5. Additional channel to promote your blog and share insights and ideas with your friends.

What type of group would you create on Facebook? How would you utilize the group?

Laura Gainor