In the Club

Set up a Facebook group for your club

Sending newsletters via email is one of the best ways to keep in touch with members of your club, but it’s not always the most effective. With so many people now using Facebook, it can be a brilliant way to bring your members together in one place to share ideas, organise events and swap photos. Here we’ll explain what you need to know before setting up your club's Facebook group.

Facebook page or group

Facebook provides two main ways to connect with club members. You can create a Facebook page or a group. A page has a wider reach because anyone on Facebook can ‘like’ (follow) it, receive updates and comment on posts. While this is useful if you want to spread public awareness of your club or run a campaign, it can result in non-members taking part.

For the purposes of most clubs, a Facebook group is the best option. You can then choose to restrict involvement to only club members, who will feel more confident expressing their views and uploading photos to a group they're familiar with rather than to the general public at large.

Check your existing groups

You might already be a member of various Facebook groups without even realising it (if a friend or family member has invited you, for example). To see if you are, click Groups in the left-hand panel (below the Explore heading). You’ll see a list of groups you're a member of and any group invites you have pending.

Click the cog icon beside a group (see screenshot) for options to edit notification settings, leave the group and create a shortcut to the group. After creating a group of your own (see Mini Workshop below), you’ll see another option that lets you edit your group settings.

Open any of your groups to see the Discussion page, which lists all group posts. At the top left, you’ll see the group name, status (Public, Closed or Secret – see next section), and four more sections (About, Announcements, Members, Events, Photos). Have a look through these sections in your existing groups or any public groups to get ideas for your own.

Privacy levels

There are three privacy settings to choose from: Public group is open to anyone on Facebook to join. Its open profile means that anyone on Facebook can search for your group by name, view its posts and discussions, and even leave comments of their own. Secret group has more restricted settings. Only those who have previously been members of the group can request to rejoin it. And, only current and former group members will find the group name when they search for it, while only current members can read and reply to the group’s discussions and posts. Closed group is a hybrid of the other two. Anyone on Facebook can search for, find and request to join the group, but its discussions and posts will be hidden from non-members.

We recommend creating a secret group to start with. You can always change this status by editing your group settings. For more info on Facebook groups go to www.snipca.com/29522.