That didn’t take long!
As announced by Facebook Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox last week (see my blog post on the announcements), a change has been made to Facebook Groups pulling all the Admin tools and insights into a single place.
We are currently only seeing the new feature on mobile and, as with any major change, Facebook is highlighting the new feature:
The admin hub is designed to help Admins streamline their management of the Group and ease the day-to-day tasks such as approving new members and dealing with reported posts and comments. It is also helpful to have quick access to Group Settings and, for Groups with multiple Admins and Moderators, instant insight to their activity in managing the Group.
What other features are still to come?
We expect to see the Admin Tools and Insights hub to roll out to desktop too.
In addition look out for:
- Group Announcements
Rather than a single pinned posts Admins will soon be able to place a number of posts to the top of the Group. These can also be scheduled. This gives the Admin more control on what members see as they come into the Group rather than simply the Pinned post and whatever was most recently posted or commented on. - Personalisation
Groups will start to look distinctively different with the ability to set a theme and colour. The idea it to help personalise Groups to feel uniquely “ours”. - Rules: prominence in the Group for members
Group navigation is to be adjusted to give Rules a special place. Previously these tended to appear either within the Group Description or the Pinned Post. The plan is for Rules to form a much more integrated part of the user experience.
Personally I’m most looking forward to the Group Announcements update. It looks to be a good way of enabling prominence for posts by Admins, or simply to prioritise content. Groups are such a democratic place but for large Groups it can mean that posts by Admins are lost. Great to get back a little more control.