Facebook Group Settings: Every Single Thing Explained (Updated 2024)

Do you manage a community on Facebook and want to know everything about all the Facebook group settings that exist?

Well, you are definitely on the right page then!

In this article, I’ve deep dived into all the group settings on Facebook.

Besides, I’ve also addressed some of the frequently asked questions like how to change Facebook group settings, what to do when you can’t edit your group settings, and more.

So, let’s get started!

SET UP GROUP

The first part of group settings in Facebook constitutes setting up your group and completing all the basic details, all of which are explained below.

• Name and Description

Facebook group name is the first thing people see when they come across your community.

Hence, it must be simple, easy to understand, and most importantly be relatable for the one who reads it.

People resonate with a Facebook group name when it either addresses their pain points or revolves around their area of interest.

It’s after that they decide whether or not they’d like to be a part of your group.

Yes, your group name is thaaaaat important!

Which is why I suggest you check out this blog👇🏻

How to choose a Facebook group name that helps grow your group organically?

where I have explained every single thing about it, including a foolproof formula to name your group (that has worked wonders), 3 things to keep in mind when naming your Facebook group, 5 best Facebook group names to inspire you, and so much more.

After you’ve successfully managed to choose a Facebook group name, go ahead and write a description for your Facebook group.

A good Facebook group description is the one that:

• Tells members and potential members about your group’s intent
• Tells them how you plan to achieve what you want to achieve with your group
• Tells them what makes your group unique and the things existing members identify with
• Tells them how they can contribute in the group, start discussions, and engage
• Tells them the dos and don’ts (especially if it’s a buy and sell group)

If you’re still confused and would like to understand each of the above points in detail, refer to this blog👇🏻

Writing the best Facebook group description: Everything you need to know

You will not only learn about some amazing group description examples but will also get your hands on 5 awesome Facebook group description templates.

• Privacy

Depending upon what your FB group is about, you should decide whether you’d like to keep it PUBLIC or PRIVATE.

A Public Facebook group is the one where anyone can see and engage with the content that members are posting in the group.

On the other hand, a private Facebook group is a restricted space where only group members can see and engage with the content posted there. Anyone who wishes to access it has to send a joining request first to become a part of the group.

Confused which of these is best for your Facebook group – Public or Private?

Well, if members often share their personal stuff and seek suggestions from others (for instance, a fitness community where members share their transformation images or a parenting community where members often ask related questions) in your community, then you should choose PRIVATE as your FB group’s setting.

On the contrary, if your group discussions are more open-ended and you would like them to reach maximum people so that they can also get some value out of it, opt for PUBLIC.

Please note that private Facebook groups cannot be changed to public so as to protect the privacy of the members in it.

Each of these Facebook group privacy settings has its own advantages and disadvantages. To know them all and be able to make an informed decision, do go through this blog.👇🏻

Public Vs Private Facebook group: Which one to choose?

• Hide Group

Only when you choose to make your Facebook group PRIVATE, will you see this option in your Facebook group settings.

Because Private Facebook groups are further classified into two types- Visible and Hidden.

When a private group is visible, it can be seen by anyone who searches for it. And, it will appear organically in the news feed (under suggested groups) for people who are likely to join it.

However, when a private group is hidden, it will appear only when a member searches for it. Meaning, it’s more exclusive and works on the basis of invite-only.

• Location

According to Facebook, “Adding a location in your Facebook group helps people search for and discover groups that are relevant to their area.”

For instance, if you have a group that connects people of Delhi, you should add Delhi in your Facebook group location.

To do so, click on the pencil icon against location, type in Delhi and it will appear automatically in the dropdown. Select and hit save.

• Tags

Tags are used to describe the category your Facebook group belongs to. It can be anything – parenting, politics, fitness, education, entertainment, or more.

You can choose up to 2 relevant tags for your group.

When you click on any of these tags, you’ll see further related classifications.

The tag “Children & Parenting” further has tags like single parenting, child development, foster care, adoption, etc.

And the tag “Fashion & Lifestyle” further has tags like beauty, fashion, and children’s clothing.

You can choose both the tags from the same category or from different categories.

“Adding tags helps people search for groups by topics that they’re interested in,” says Facebook.

When you add tags to your FB group, it has high chances of appearing in the “groups discover” section for the person who’s looking to join groups in the related field.

CUSTOMIZE GROUP

After setting up the basics of your Facebook group, go ahead and customize it.

• Web Address

You must have come across Facebook groups that look pretty awesome, but their URL looks like this.

What does it tell you about the group?

Well, nothing.

That’s exactly why you need to customize the URL of your FB group. Another reason being it’s a great practice.

Check out how Rinku Shah, one of the admins pointed out the same in our Facebook group.

Please note that you can customize your group’s URL only before your group hits 5000 members.

• Color

You can choose any color that best suits your group.

We have chosen green as this color is associated with money and finances.

And this is exactly in line with our group’s mission – to help FB group admins earn from their groups and also help them grow, and engage better.

You can choose a group color that matches your group’s intent or simply one that you like.

• Badges

Facebook group badges are a great way to keep your group members engaged.

Just like there are badges in IRL indicating a person’s achievements, there are Facebook group badges that indicate a person’s contributions in a community.

For those of you who don’t know – Badges are small icons that appear next to a person’s name in a Facebook group.

These indicate a person’s contributions in the group. Like, there are badges for new members. Seeing that, other group members easily recognize that they are new to the group, and guide them, make them feel supported, and answer their queries.

There are also badges for admins and moderators to single them out from the crowd and reach out in case of any concern.

Check out the entire list of badges that are available for Facebook groups, how to add badges to your group, and more in this blog.👇🏻

The Complete Guide to Facebook Group Badges

• Group Affiliation

Sometime back, Facebook came up with this new feature called ‘Group Affiliation’ that gives admins the much deserved recognition.

As part of this feature, admins can choose to show that they are the admin of the group or can promote their business if any.

Whatever they choose, appears right under the group cover photo and is clickable. Which means it’s one of the first things members will notice.

You can check out this blog  to know more about this feature or other new features released in groups.

Latest Facebook Group Features Update (January 2021)

ADD EXTRA FEATURES

It’s time to add in those extra features in your Facebook group that will keep your members active and engaged.

• Group Type

There are 6 different group types you can choose from.

Choose a group type that resonates well with the purpose and intent of your group. If you have a group on baby nutrition, the group type should be parenting.

Refer to this blog 👇🏻 where we have explained each group type in detail. This will definitely help you make a better choice.

Facebook Group Types – Understanding which one is best for your group

Different group types have different features that help you meet your group’s needs.

For instance, there’s this anonymous posting option available exclusively for parenting group types because of their safe and secure nature.

Any member can post anonymously in the group and seek valuable suggestions from fellow group members.

• Rooms

Nowadays, people are dependent on technology more than ever when it comes to connecting with each other.

Owing to this, Facebook introduced “Messenger Rooms”, a new way to spend time with friends, family, and fellow group members.

In the words of Facebook, “Messenger Rooms make hanging out easy with joinable video links; private with extensive user controls; and fun with filters, games and screen-sharing.”

Only 50 people can be a part of a room at one particular time.

Although both members and admins can easily create a room from the groups composer, admins can choose to make rooms “Admin-only”. Meaning, only admins can create rooms in groups but anyone will be able to join.

“If a group has post approvals on, Admins will be the only ones who can create a Room, unless the admin changes the setting. For groups that don’t have post approvals on, the default will be anyone in the group can create a Room.”

• Guides

Guides (formerly known as Units) are a great way for admins to organize content in their Facebook groups and share them with members.

They rightly resemble the modules of an online course because of the way they are designed and appear in Facebook groups.

In fact, you can even track member progress by enabling the “show progress” option in the settings. This way you know which member has completed which all units.

Have a look at how we are using guides in our Facebook group to provide the most valuable information to our members.

Since we’re working towards helping Facebook group admins grow, engage, and monetize their Facebook groups, we have categorised our guides in a similar manner.

• Host Q&A

A few months back Facebook introduced the Question and Answer post type among others to engage members even more in group conversations.

When in the group composer, members can choose ‘Host a Q&A’ and they can create a post like this.

Seeing this, group members can shoot questions on that particular topic and the host will answer.

To learn more about how this post type works, you can check this blog 👇🏻 where you’ll also come across other other interesting FB group features.

Facebook Group Features Update: Feb & March 2021

NOTE: From the settings option, you can turn on/off this feature anytime you want. When turned on, you can choose who can host questions and answers in your group – only admins and moderators or anyone in the group.

MANAGE MEMBERSHIP

To keep your group safe and secure, make sure you update these settings.

• Who can join the group

Decide whether you want to receive joining requests from member profiles only or both member profiles and Facebook pages.

Tip: Ideally, you should allow only member profiles because a community is formed by conversations and members. Adding pages who are managed by multiple admins hamper group conversations.

• Who can approve member requests

Choose only if group admins and moderators will approve member requests or anyone in the group can.

Please note that members can only approve requests from their friends only.

Tip: To prevent spammers from entering the community, only you or the moderators should let new members in. And remember to scrutinize every profile well before approving the request.

• Who is preapproved to join

You can choose to pre-approve certain member requests for your Facebook group by:

a. Choosing a group

Meaning, when you add a FB group you admin here and the members of that group send membership requests to be a part of your group, they will be preapproved.

b. Uploading a file

That contains a list of email addresses of people you’d like to be pre approved.

Please note that pre-approving members in your Facebook group does not send them invites to join the group.

MANAGE DISCUSSION

After you’re done with membership settings, head over to set up your group conversations and discussions.

• Who can Post

Choose whether you want anyone in the group to post or just admins and moderators.

Opt for the former as a community is formed by the members and their conversations. To keep away from spam posts, you must turn on post approval. More about this in the next point.

• Approve all member posts

As part of this option, choose whether you want admins and moderators to approve all member posts or would prefer members to post directly to the group.

To allow admins and moderators to approve member posts – Turn ON post approval

To allow members to post directly – Turn OFF post approval

•  Sort Comments

With this setting, members will be able to change the order of comments on all group posts. To put it simply, they can choose whether they would like to see all comments, suggested default comments, most recent comments, or the top comments.

This is a relatively new setting in Facebook groups, however earlier, members could filter comments manually on individual posts and choose the desired option.

• Approve Edits

Alongside post approvals, there’s also edit approvals that can go through the admins and moderators.

That is, when a member makes any changes to his/her approved post, the post will have to be approved again by the admins and moderators for the changes to reflect.

This feature was added a few months back and it’s a great way to prevent goofy spammers from adding unnecessary links to the group posts.

However, you can choose to turn off edit approvals if you wish. When you do, changes made to already approved posts will not be shown under pending posts and will be directly visible in the group.

MANAGE ADVANCED GROUP SETTINGS 

This is the last set of group settings on Facebook. Here’s all they comprise.

• Linked Pages

If you’re the admin of any Facebook page, you can easily link it with your Facebook group in this option.

When you do, all the admins of the page will be able to post in your group as a page, while the page moderators will only be able to like and comment on group posts.

Linking your FB page to the group helps you connect your business. Which means when any of the admins post in the group as the page, members will get to know about your business, helping it thrive.

• Recommended Groups

The recommended groups option allows you to link any other FB groups you admin or are a part of. When you do that, the members come to know of your other group and will likely join, helping it grow.

• Apps

Use this option to add any third-party app to your Facebook group. Please be aware that all the apps you add to your FB group are active and can see the posts and comments of the group. However, no app can see who posted or commented, thereby ensuring that no user data is collected.

In our FB group, we have added 4 apps – Convosight, Streamyard, Hootsuite, and Zapier.

Through Convosight, we are:

• Keeping a close tab on our Facebook group’s engagement rate, activity rate
• Scheduling posts at the best time to ensure maximum engagement
• Tracking brand mentions
• Taking action on spammy words and content in no time

We often host live sessions in our FB group, and for that we use Streamyard. It enables multiple people (6-10) to go live at once. Alongside, it also allows you to stream the video simultaneously to multiple Facebook groups, pages, and other social channels.

We’ve added Hootsuite to be able to post content pieces across different social channels including the group.

Zapier helps in automating tasks and we added it in our FB group to be notified of any new post on our internal communication channel, i.e. Slack. It helps us remain on top of every post and we are able to make sure that no post goes unanswered.

That’s all with the group settings on Facebook. Now addressing some important questions on them.

Facebook group settings FAQs

How to change Facebook group settings?

To change your group settings on Facebook, follow these steps:

1. On the left side in your news feed, select the group you wish to change settings for

2. Your group’s home screen will appear. From the options given on the left, select Settings. Facebook group settings page will appear – Now, select the settings you want to change.

Can’t edit Facebook group settings. What to do?

If you are not able to edit your Facebook group settings, here are a few things (Facebook tells) you can try:

– Log out of Facebook by clicking the arrow on the top right corner and click “Logout”

– Clear cookies and cache, if you’re using a computer

– Make sure you’re using the most updated version of the app or browser

– Restart your computer or phone

– Uninstall and reinstall the app, if you’re using a phone

– Log into Facebook and try again

Also, make sure that you’re connected to a safe Wi-Fi network and that the connection is stable.

If the issue still persists, reach out to Facebook by clicking on the Group Support option given under Facebook group admin tools.

If you don’t have the ‘Groups Support’ option, go to ‘Help & Support’ by clicking on the dropdown and report your issue there.

How to change group privacy settings on Facebook?

To change your Facebook group privacy settings, please follow these steps:

1. On the left side in your news feed, select the group you wish to change settings for

2. From the options given on the left, select Settings

3. Click on the dropdown / pen icon against Privacy and make the desired changes

Please note that you cannot change a private Facebook group to Public.

However, if you have a public Facebook group, you can change it to private.

That’s all with the Facebook group settings. I hope this guide comes handy whenever you are looking to change your group settings on Facebook.🙌🏻

In case you have any inputs, feel free to share them in the comments below or write in our Facebook group.🙂

Simran Grover

Creating value in the lives of others with my content, little by little.✨

Working at Convosight, I do more than just wrangle commas. I’m passionate about innovating new ways to create super valuable and actionable content about Communities and Community Marketing at large, and sharing it with the right audience.
I also happen to manage a global community of power admins on Facebook, and that’s where most of my learnings come from.

Do check out my latest blogs and feel free to share them! 💛