List Of All New Features On Facebook Groups – October & November 2021

Facebook never fails to surprise its users when it comes to new features on Facebook groups.

Yet again, the social media giant dominated our minds by rolling out 13 super amazing features in the months of October and November 2021.

This time around, you should expect:

– 3 awesome features that’ll increase your Facebook group engagement
– 4 cool design-related features that you’d like
– 3 helpful features that make sharing of posts and connecting with members easy
– 3 new updates made to existing group features

Besides, Facebook also hosted the Communities Summit Keynote 2021 on November 04, 2021. So, brace yourselves for a ton of mind-blowing new features and updates in the coming months. You can refer to this article to know about them all:

Facebook Communities Summit Keynote 2021: All new Features and Updates explained

In case you missed out the previous sneak peek edition of the Facebook group new features, you can check it out here:

Latest Facebook group features: August + September 2021

Without further ado, let’s dive right into the Facebook group changes for October and November 2021.

❤️Increase your Facebook group engagement

1. Reels in Facebook groups

Yes, you read that right!

The reels feature that took netizens by a storm when Instagram launched them have now made their debut in Facebook groups – both public and private.

Both members and the admin team (including moderators) can see the ‘Reels’ button in the compose post section beside the photo and room option.

Or you can see it on the top beside other features like room, guides, topics, etc.

You can easily create a reel from there and post it in the community.

If post approval is on, your reel will go to the pending posts section and will be visible to members only after the admins or moderators approve it.

On the other hand, if post approval is not turned on, your reel will automatically be posted in the group for all members to see.

Samiksha Aggarwal, the admin of Moms Magic Cooking, one of the first few admins who got this feature in her group says, “This is literally a game-changer! Members are loving it and engagement has gone up immensely. I hope this feature stays and doesn’t disappear.”

2. Bell icon to turn on post notifications

You now get a bell icon on the top right side of every post and when you hit it, you can turn on notifications for that post.

Meaning, every time people react or comment on that post, you’ll be notified of it.

This is a great way to stay on top of posts and information that’s important to you.

3. React to posts from notifications

All group-related notifications in your notification bar now come with a like and reply button.

When you hit like, you can like that comment/post from then and there.

When you hit reply, you are taken to that comment directly.

A great way to navigate!

🙌🏻 Improved UI

1. Polls made interesting

Have a look at this poll Tanu Dubey, admin of Mothers Express, recently did in her Facebook group.

Interesting, right?

This is how polls now appear in Facebook groups!

When you go to the compose post section in your Facebook group to create a poll, you get the ability to add an image alongside each option.

When you add that, polls become extremely visually appealing.

Hence, they would attract your members attention more and they in turn would engage with it.

2. Set your group’s color

Now, you can set a custom color for your group’s headers, button, and background, and change it as you like.

You can choose from a number of color options and make your group stand out.

This feature is available in both desktop as well as mobile versions.

I managed to set this pastel green color for our FB group, Growth and Monetisation for Facebook group admins, by selecting the ‘set group color’ option.

3. Easily navigate through your group

You can easily navigate through your group now with the new option introduced by Facebook.

Right beside the star button (that takes you to admin tools), you’ll see three horizontal lines.

Click on it and this screen will appear. You can see different options like home, rooms, notifications etc.

4. Easily navigate through pending posts, member requests and more

When you open the membership requests section in your Facebook group through mobile, you can now easily navigate through pending posts, badge requests, and more.

As you can see in the snapshot above, you don’t have to go back and forth switching options to head to review pending posts, requests, or anything else.

👥 Share posts and connect with members easily

1. Cross post across Facebook groups

In an attempt to make things easier for Facebook group admins managing multiple communities, Facebook has introduced the new cross-posting feature.

When you publish a post in one of your Facebook groups, Facebook notifies you whether you wish to post the same in other communities you admin.

When you click on the ‘select groups’ option, you can pick the other groups you want to publish the post in and your post will be published in those groups in just one click.

2. Share group posts on WhatsApp easily

Alongside the like and comment button on posts, you can now also see a ‘Send’ button.

Click on it and you’ll be able to easily share that post link across WhatsApp.

This feature is available in both public and private Facebook groups.

For public groups, whether or not you’re a member, you’d be able to see the post.

However, in private groups, only members would be able to see the posts. Non-members will have to join the group first to access the post content.

This certainly is a great feature as members can get their hands on important posts they might have missed out on. And at the same time, engage with them.

Not only will this add value to your members but also help increase your Facebook group engagement.

Tip- Don’t go overboard with this feature and share links of every group post. Doing that will kill the essence of it and you’ll seem spammy.

3. Connect with members easily

Facebook has added two new features under member comments in groups, i.e. ‘See chat’ and ‘Message’.

Both of these let you connect with members in a single click.

When you hit either of them, you are taken to Facebook messenger and the chat with that member is opened.

In case there’s no existing chat, a new chat will be opened.

Facebook group updates to existing features (Oct & Nov 2021)

1. Message drafts in comments

You can now pick up from where you left off in the comments section of a post.

A very useful update as you don’t have to type a lengthy comment again if you had to leave it in between for some reason.

2. Mute member renamed as ‘Suspend Member’

The ‘suspend member’ you must’ve seen in your group recently is not a new feature. But, it’s ‘mute member’ that has been renamed so.

When you choose to suspend a member by clicking on the three dots against their post, they would be able to view your group’s content but won’t be able to engage with it for the time duration you selected.

3. New Badges introduced for Facebook Pages

Facebook has introduced two new badges for pages named Active Page and Complete Page.

A page earns the active page badge when the administrator or editor posts updates on it regularly.

A page earns the complete page badge when all useful information about the business is added.

That’s about it for all the new features on Facebook groups for October and November 2021.

If you don’t see them in your Facebook group, please don’t stress out as Facebook will roll them out for your community sooner or later. It’s just a waiting game.

And in case you have any queries or would like to seek suggestions from other admins, join our community – Growth and Monetisation for Facebook Group Admins, and post them in there.🙂

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! 💛