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A Look at the Growing Popularity Of Closed and Secret Groups on Facebook and How Some Media Outlets Have Built an Engaging Audience There (medium.com)
Ryan Holmes, writing on Medium: Back in March of last year, Conde Nast Traveler did something a little unusual in the social media universe. They played hard to get. Instead of courting new followers with clickbait and promo codes, the company required that interested people apply to get into their closed Facebook Group, focused on female travelers. To be considered for membership, applicants had to explain why the Group was important to them, and show an understanding of the community guidelines. Today, the Women Who Travel Facebook Group counts more than 50,000 members. And it boasts a level of activity many brands could only dream of -- three-quarters of users are active on a daily basis. The initiative has been so successful, in fact, that Conde Nast has since extended Facebook Groups across eight of its brands, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Allure, BRIDES, Golf Digest, SELF and Teen Vogue.
The Facebook Group is nothing new. Spaces for like-minded people to congregate and discuss specific subjects -- from hobbies to pets and celebrities -- date in one form or another to the platform's earliest days. These Groups have long been segmented into three classes: open (or general admission), closed (requiring admin approval for new members) and secret (invisible to outside search and accessible only with a direct link). But for a combination of technical and cultural reasons, Groups are suddenly having their moment. (Apart from Facebook, LinkedIn revamped its own Groups offering this fall for its 500-plus million users, adding the ability to share pics and videos, as well as receive comment notifications.) In the past year alone, Facebook Group membership is up 40 percent, with 1.4 billion people -- more than half of Facebook's massive user base -- now using Groups every month. Of those, 200 million people belong to so-called "meaningful Groups," considered a vital part of users' daily lives.
The Facebook Group is nothing new. Spaces for like-minded people to congregate and discuss specific subjects -- from hobbies to pets and celebrities -- date in one form or another to the platform's earliest days. These Groups have long been segmented into three classes: open (or general admission), closed (requiring admin approval for new members) and secret (invisible to outside search and accessible only with a direct link). But for a combination of technical and cultural reasons, Groups are suddenly having their moment. (Apart from Facebook, LinkedIn revamped its own Groups offering this fall for its 500-plus million users, adding the ability to share pics and videos, as well as receive comment notifications.) In the past year alone, Facebook Group membership is up 40 percent, with 1.4 billion people -- more than half of Facebook's massive user base -- now using Groups every month. Of those, 200 million people belong to so-called "meaningful Groups," considered a vital part of users' daily lives.
As I understand it, the only demographic on Facebook that isn’t shrinking (in terms of hours spent on the platform) is middle-age-and-older women. So the success of a private Facebook group which panders to that particular audience may have less to do with the group strategy than with the particular audience they’re targeting.
#DeleteChrome
It's called online forums and predates Facebook itself by decades.
#DeleteFacebook
I'm a member of two closed facebook groups that are just for specific models of 3d printers. One has 48,000 memebers and the other 18,000.
Neither of these groups is promoted or operated by the manufacturer. They have just grown, in essence, as a support group. I would have thought if your business relied on a group it should have even more members....
discover the idea of an internet forum.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
People are not on their best behavior online unless there is good supervision and perceived value of remaining in the community rather than getting kicked out for trolling. Closed group are the only way to have meaningful discussions on topics people can reasonably disagree on without degenerating into spam and profanity.