Facebook Groups Scheduled to Get New Format

Facebook never wants us to get too complacent with its features. Now that we're getting used to the new Facebook Pages (formerly fan pages), we are once again faced (pun intended) with major formatting changes.

Facebook groups have probably been losing favor as Facebook has made Pages much more robust. Although I understand the probable need to shake up groups, I'm not sure I understand the new groups format.

Here is the message from Facebook on my group page for my novel "Mrs. Lieutenant":

This group is scheduled to be archived

Over the next few months, Facebook will be archiving all groups created using the old groups format. When this group is archived, its wall posts, photos and discussion threads will move to the new groups format, but group members will need to be re-added.

Not very clear, I admit.

I checked out the "Learn More" option. (If you're interested, check out the information titled "Old to New Group Migration.")

It's the usual confusing Facebook language. The one thing I got from it is that my group would not get to be updated to the new format. (I'm guessing my group doesn't get the upgrade because there is not a great deal of activity on the group.)

In answer to my group being put into mothballs, I just created a Facebook Page for my novel. (I'd appreciate if it you would "like" the page in order to reach the 25 "likes" that will enable my Page to have a customized URL.)

And as I've been getting notices from Facebook groups to which I belong that the specific group has been updated to the new format, I checked out one such newly updated group.

Instead of the group having its own page the way it used to, it fills the center of my own Facebook profile page.

This means that the left-hand real estate of a group page is no longer there, which I think is less than ideal.

If you created a Facebook group and haven't paid attention to your notice from Facebook about the new format, now would be a good time to check on what's going to happen to your group.

And if you decide to create a Facebook Page instead, and your group is still in the old format, you can message all the group members to ask them to come on over to the new Page.

Twitter format changes: I wanted to send a DM to someone who I knew was following me and I couldn't figure out what had happened to the MESSAGE button.

Finally I realized that the tiny icon of an envelope is the new direct message option. (If the icon were any smaller it would be invisible.)

Plus, when doing a search, I looked for the People option next to the word "Tweets" in the search results. It is no longer there. It is now in the right-hand panel next to the search results and labeled as "People results for …."

In conclusion, if you have any opinions on the new Facebook group format, do leave your opinions in the comments section below.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic LLC.



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