How I Use
Facebook Groups
I think about groups all day long, every day. I work on the Facebook Groups team as a Product Designer. It’s not what I’ve learned being on the team that I want to tell you about though, it’s about what I learned before joining the team.
Before joining Facebook, I had a somewhat tentative relationship with posting. It always felt ‘more public’ than I’d like for the types of things I wanted to share. I understood the privacy controls for posting, but they didn’t feel like a natural solution.
When you start working at Facebook, you get added to a crazy amount of groups. Groups for your team, groups to keep everyone updated about the progress of projects, groups for social fun, etc. I quickly found this dynamic to be the type of directed sharing I was looking for. I knew who I wanted to see my posts and there was usually a relevant group for it.
One thing I like about groups is everyone who is part of a group knows who is in the group, so everyone is aware of who will see the comments as well as the posts. This creates a comfortable environment for conversations. You can also leave a group at any time if you’re not enjoying the content.
I decided to try to create a similar experience of selective sharing with my real life friends. I’d like to show you a few of these groups and tell you how we use them.
PMU Tech Talk
Secret Group | 7 members
Before moving to California, I lived in Chicago, where I had an incredible group of friends. We would often go to a late night diner called ‘Pick Me Up Cafe’ and have heated conversations about new apps or debates about what would be announced at the next Apple event.
It was awesome fun and I missed it, so I created a group to keep the conversations going. Facebook Groups does not have a ‘Buffalo Fried Tofu’ appetizer, but other than that it feels remarkably similar to the dynamic we had going in real life.
One of the highlights was when we posted screenshots of our Apple Watch faces. It was easy to imagine us all sitting around the table discussing and comparing the decisions we made.
Deets Family
Secret Group | 4 members
The group I created for my family has probably become my most useful group. It allows us to freely share moments with the ones we love in a safe space. This space inadvertently ends up becoming a scrapbook of memories and milestones.
It’s always really great when my parents get dressed up to go somewhere and share a photo beforehand. I really value the content in this group and it feels like the perfect medium for it.
FTW
Secret Group | 9 members
When I lived in Chicago, my friends and I had a weekly poker night called FTW. Every Wednesday we would get together and scream ‘all-in’ for a few hours, it was a great way to break up the normal workweek.
We aren’t close enough geographically to accommodate a poker night anymore and although we love poker, it turns out it was actually the conversation and camaraderie that was holding us together.
We started a group with the same name in Facebook Groups and use it to share life updates, articles about astrophysics, and the occasional candid photo of someone who may have drank too much.
ToTaLlYfUnClUb
Secret Group | 3 members
This group is just about the dumbest stuff my closest friends and I can find. Maybe it’s a Britney Spears gif or the new Incubus song. It could also be a bizarre cat Vine or a new remix of Riker straddling chairs. This group is my relief from thinking and I love it.
Midwest Bay Riders
Secret Group | 6 members
Some of my wife’s friends from college, who are also from the midwest, live in California now and we’ve formed a nice social group. We usually use our Facebook Group to make casual plans for upcoming weekends. It’s less pressure than a message thread, since it doesn’t require an immediate response.
Most of the groups I’ve mentioned have been about bringing people together from afar, but this one is about bringing people together in real life who are near.
Conclusion
One thing you might have noticed is all these groups are set to the Secret privacy setting. When you create a Secret group, only the members of the group can see the content or that the group exists. I think that’s key to making these experiences feel private and awesome.
You may have also noticed that all these groups have a very small number of members. Groups with less members might not have anything to say for a while and can go quiet. That doesn’t negatively affect these types groups, because they are based on lasting bonds and people use the groups when they need to. I find it’s helpful to reassure people at first that it’s ok to post only when they really have something they want to post, the group isn’t going anywhere. Keeping these groups low pressure is the key to what makes them great.
Finally, if you are interested in getting some groups like this started in your life, I think encouraging people to use the Facebook Groups app is also extremely advantageous for these groups. The Facebook Groups app allows you to set what kind of notifications you would like to receive for each group. That kind of control goes a long way in weeding out the groups that are really important to you vs the ones that are not as important, but that you would still like to remain a part of.
I hope that was insightful. I probably wouldn’t have thought to use groups in this way unless I had been exposed to way we use groups internally at Facebook, but I really think it’s a great way to use the product and I hope you do too.
