I love Facebook Groups. I participate in a few, and I have started a few of my own. The benefits of using Facebook Groups for a whole bunch of reasons can be found here, as I have posted about my enthusiasm for groups before. Today I want to share with you two tools that are there for you to use within Facebook Groups but you may not know about them!
Ok, so you may have heard of these tools, or you may not have, but in my experience, many clients, colleagues and small business owners have not accessed or used these tricky little functions yet. And they will make your life a whole lot easier – especially if you are a group “admin”. One of the tools is brand new, one has been around for a while and you may have missed it. Both are easy to access and use.
Tool #1 – The Search Button
Ever been in a group and seen a great post, link or comment and you think “I must come back to that” but then you lose the comment in the group posts when you come back to it? Or perhaps you have been looking for your own comment in the group but can’t find it in all the posts? Now you can!
This great little tip was shared by social media consultant, Natalie Alaimo in a group that I was in, so I must give her credit for highlighting this. Fortunately, later, when looking for her comment, all I had to do was use the very tool I am about to show you in order to find it! Here it is: the Search Button!
Go to your favourite group. Let’s use one of my favourite groups as an example:
Take a look at the image above. See the little red circle? That’s it. The search function. Here is what this great little tool can do:
- You can search on the name of a Group member. All of their posts will come up. Brilliant! Especially if, like me, you often see a post and want to return to it but then forget what it was or you can’t find it. I often see a post in my blogging group that I want to come back to and comment on the blog….I find this really helps, as well as the following:
- You can search on any word. So, if you want to find all the posts that mention a particular topic, you can just type it in! Here is an example of a search on LinkedIn from the group above. We have been discussing LinkedIn Strategy lately, and a whole bunch of comments containing the word LinkedIn comes up on search. Like?
A simple search on a word or short phrase will bring up all of the posts and comments containing the target word/s in date order.
Tool #2 – The Pinned Post
This tool I love! And it is a new one, just released by Facebook on to Group Pages. It is especially great for group admins like me. The reason? We can now “pin” a specific post to the top of the feed, so it is the first thing that shows up. I get seasick from all the jumping around of posts. so I just love it! This is why:
- In a group, the last “post” that has had any activity sits at the top of the group “newsfeed”. This means that if someone posts a post it will go to the top.
- If someone comments on a separate post, that post will jump to the top. And so on. In a larger group this means that the posts move thick and fast, and new posts are intertwined with old posts.
- Simply choose the drop down (right hand side at the top of the post) and click on Pin Post.
- The pinned post will pin to the top of the group page – fixed in position regardless of who posts afterwards. Here is one from my Socially Sorted Group:
Pin news, important updates, group guidelines, tasks/activities or anything that is important for your group members to see – at the top of the group newsfeed!
- You can pin more than one post! Just bear in mind that the most recent pinned post will go to the top. You can change them around by unpinning and repinning. I would recommend only having two at the most (preferably just one) so that you have one post that is highlighted for the group, and the rest is based on the most recent activity as per usual.
- Pinned posts show up as a link on your mobile, not an image. Not a huge problem, as you can see that there is a pinned post there, so just get into the habit of checking them at the top of the feed as follows:
On my iPhone I can see that there is a Pinned Post at the top of the group feed. Get into the habit of checking for these as they are likely to be important. You just need to click on the link to view it!
Donna Moritz is a Social Media Strategist and Visual Marketing Specialist – and founder of Socially Sorted, in Queensland, Australia. Donna loves to help small businesses and companies use visual social media strategies to get more reach, referrals and results for their business. She has been a contributing author for Entrepreneur.com, Social Fresh and Amy Porterfield and has been featured on Forbes and Yahoo Small Business. Connect with Donna on Google+ and other social media networks below.
