Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook Groups? Today I’ve just seen another owner of a huge and hugely successful Facebook group announce that they are closing down their Facebook community later this year. Some of the big players in Facebook Groups are calling time on their groups with the aim of moving their communities over onto new platforms, with paid membership subscriptions. So I have to ask if Facebook Groups for business are a dying trend? Especially since some of the entrepreneurs that are closing their groups are the very same ones who encouraged us all to start Facebook Groups in the first place.
In my mind Facebook Groups are still are viable platform for growing our communities and connecting with the people we want to help as a way of attracting our ideal customers to us. They are also a great place to get support and build relationships as a contributor. I still see a lot of courses and programmes offering access to a VIP or private Facebook Group as a perk.
Facebook has provided a free platform for harnessing the power of communities, and as some of these large group owners (I’m talking over 40,000 members) walk away does that create a gap in the market for smaller groups to grow? Or will we see group participants migrate away onto these shiny new community platforms.
Just yesterday I was listening to a Facebook expert Mari Smith live talking about changes coming to the Facebook algorithm to show more group posts in the news feed. This is probably one of the factors contributing to the death of success of groups as post reach is dwindling, the same way that organic page reach did last year. A lot of success that people have had with groups was in the earlier days and now that group posts don’t reach all group members they are looking for a different solution which provides the interaction they need to reach their whole community. But with Zuck’s focus on community and changes to the algorithm could we see an about turn if group post reach and interaction improves?
I am still a member of some awesome Facebook Groups with daily interaction between members and run my own group especially for business owners to talk about marketing – so if you are looking for a new group to join because some of your favourites are closing down then join Your Marketing Lounge.
