Did your Facebook Group just lose a bunch of members? Get to the bottom of why your membership numbers dropped.
What causes my Facebook Group to lose members suddenly?
If you’re here, you have probably experienced a noticeable drop in your Facebook group members. There are a few reasons why this could happen, but one very new and very important Facebook update that is likely the reason.
Facebook Groups are gaining significant traction as a more intimate way to connect with customers, prospective clients, and fellow creative entrepreneurs. As Facebook Biz Pages are becoming increasingly more dependent on boosted posts and ad campaigns to reach customer Newsfeeds, Facebook Groups are becoming the go-to route for marketing one’s business on Facebook and expanding your network.
Setting up a Facebook Group still means that your group is beholden to the usual algorithm shake-ups and updates to its platform.
And one of the latest Facebook Updates for 2019 was to change how members are added to a Facebook Group.
How do I add new members to my Facebook Group?
Before today, you could add new members all willy-nilly from your personal Facebook friend list.
Many Facebook Group admins will get their first batch of members from finding people within their friend network to add, be it their Mom, sister-in-law, or people they once worked withat that ill-fated temp job.
You know how it goes: “I need members for this group! I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I added her….oh, and he’ll probably be cool with it…If they don’t like it, they can just leave the group.”
Effective immediately, you can’t add your Facebook friends to your group and have them count as a member. You will need to send an invitation, and upon their acceptance, they will become a member.
You also know how it goes when you get added to a group: “Why the heck am I getting a group post notification for ‘Latex Loving Crafters of Birmingham’?…..oh, my friend added me to this group. ” You then dismiss the notification and forget whatever group that you got added to until you proactively go into your Facebook Groups page and go on a LEAVE GROUP blitz.
Effective immediately, your well-meaning friends can invite you to a group, but you will need to ACCEPT or DECLINE the invitation before becoming a member that counts towards the group’s membership numbers.
What happens to the Facebook groups members that I just lost since the Facebook update?
In the coming weeks, folks that you’ve added to your group but who have never engaged with the group will appear in a new Invited Facebook Group Members section. They will not count towards your membership numbers until they Accept your invitation to join.
This is the main reason why you may have seen an abrupt drop in your number of members.
I “lost” around 200 members this morning for this very reason. But if they never really joined, they’re not really “lost”, right?
How do I re-invite the Facebook group members that I lost?
In the coming weeks, folks that you’ve added to your group but who have never engaged with the group will appear in a new Invited Facebook Group Members section. They will not count towards your membership numbers until they Accept your invitation to join.
Desktop Instructions:
- Access your Facebook Group and navigate to “Members” link – www.facebook.com/groups/YOUR GROUP ID NUMBER HERE/invited/
- Select “Invited” on the right-hand side of the screen in the second box
- Upon clicking link below prospective member name to “Send Reminder”, select “Send Reminder” a second time in pop-up box
Mobile Instructions:
- Access your Facebook Group and navigate to “Admin Tools and Insights”
- Select “Members” underneath “Tools” Section
- Navigate to “Invited” at top of menu and then select three little dots menu
- A pop-up at bottom of screen will appear, and you may select “Send Reminder”
- Confirm “Send Reminder” in pop-up menu
Why would I lose Facebook Group members?
There are a number of reasons why you may see dips in your membership numbers, but here are the most common reasons your group numbers may be struggling:
- Your Facebook Group is not what members thought it would be when they first joined. Or maybe the group evolved over time and took a different direction. My group, Creativepreneur Happy Hour, started in 2014 as a Jersey City artist group where I shared upcoming events, calls-for-art, and marketing ideas. Since then, it has evolved into a resource for creative entrepreneurs all over the world to share what they’re working on and get marketing and promotional strategy. I definitely lost members in that transition who no longer got the hyper-local information that they once did.
- Your Facebook Group has tumbleweeds. Perhaps you started your group with steady, reoccurring content and your own participation has dwindled since. Facebook Groups require time, attention, and work to be most effective for its members. If you can’t keep up the pace of regular engagement in your group, consider making your active members moderators, or outsource the work to someone who can post in your brand voice on your behalf. I offer Facebook Group strategy and management, btw. Just saying.
- Your Facebook Group has devolved into a wall of “limited time offers”, stories of tragedy and triumph that lead to a sales funnel, and howling requests for Instagram followers. If your Facebook Group is now comprised of people shamelessly promoting themselves and actual content is at an all-time low, you run the risk of losing members who want to be in a group, not an infomercial. You can reign this in by setting your member post privileges to “Admin Approval Required”, asking pertinent questions of your members, and scheduling valuable content to go up regularly.
