When Facebook was founded 14 years ago, it was designed to bring communities together – initially based around Harvard, then other Boston colleges, and eventually opening up to other universities. Two years after launching within educational institutions, anyone was able to sign up to Facebook, and, whilst you have to add your city or town and workplace, some may think the platform has lost its original community feel.
It looks like Facebook’s trying to change all that, and a couple of weeks ago we reported on some enhanced Group features announced at F8. Now the corporation has announced enhanced features for Group admins, designed to bring community back to part of the platform and make Groups a safer place. Here’s a look at the changes:
Admin support and online education resources
Facebook is piloting dedicated Group admin support – giving admins a guarantee they’ll get a response from Facebook’s customer service team within one business day. The feature is only available to select admins at the moment but we’re hoping to see it roll out across the board soon.
Alongside the enhanced support, there’s a new dedicated hub full of peer-sourced tutorials, demos and case studies to help admins manage their Groups effectively. The resource can be found at facebook.com/community.
Rule breaking notifications
Now when admins or moderators remove a post, they’re able to select which rule was broken in order to send the offending Group member an explanation notification
Pre-approval of members’ posts
Lots of Groups have dedicated and passionate members who don’t want to wait for their posts to be moderated before it shows – it can really stifle a conversation! Now, Admins will be able to select specific members they trust and allow their posts to be automatically approved without having to go through a moderator.
With these changes, we’re really interested to see how Groups take off – they have so many brilliant applications – from B2B work-related chats to houseplant lover communities, there’s a Group for absolutely everyone!
