Are you looking for a better way to organize your Facebook Group posts? Did you know, you can use Facebook Group topics.
On this episode of Social Snacks, you will learn how to use Facebook Group topics.
This way you can better organize conversations in your Facebook Group, make it easier for members to find important posts, help other group members, and stay engaged with your Facebook Group members!
Why should you use Group Topics?
If you’ve ever used Facebook Groups, you know how frustrating it can be to find past conversations.
While you can search Facebook Groups, it doesn’t always return results even though you know there are group posts on a particular topic.
With the ablity to group topics in your Facebook Group, this helps fix Facebook Group search and makes it a lot easier for your group admin or members to easily find posts.
How to use Facebook Group topics
To begin using Facebook Group topics, here's a short 5-minute video tutorial that shows you how they work, how you can add group posts to Facebook Group topics and how to get notified about specific discussion topics in a Facebook Group.
Transcription Services by GMR Transcription
1. Creating a Group topic
In order to add group posts to a discussion topic, you can click the dropdown on a post and select “add a new topic.”
Alternately, if you’ve already created any Group topics, you can select from those in the same dropdown menu as well.
Note: If you want to add a post to multiple group topics at once, you can select “show all” from the dropdown menu and quickly assign a post to another discussion topic or create a new one.
2. Organizing group topics
Once you’ve assigned a post to a Facebook Group topic, they will appear in the discussion topics section at the top of your group timeline.
Your posts will also show which topics they have been assigned to.
3. Removing Facebook Group Topics
If you want to remove Group Topics from a post, you can click on the discussion topic at the top of your group timeline and remove an individual post from that topic.
When you do this, if there are no longer any posts in a particular topic, the topic will be removed from the discussion topics area.
Getting notified about new group topics
Another useful feature for topics in your Facebook Group is that you can get notified about individual topics.
To turn notifications on for a particular group topic, simply click into the topic and then click on “get notifications.”
To turn notifications off, click the button again.
If you run your own group, this can be very useful if you have a topic setup for unanswered questions.
You can add new posts to a group topic as they come in and get notified when someone responds to them.
Once they have been completed, you or a group moderator can move them to an archived topic that you create.
How to edit Group Topics
Here are instructions on editing your group topics after you have created them.
Using Group Topics On Mobile
One curious omission for group discussion topics is that they are only available from the desktop right now.
If you want to use them on mobile, you’ll have to request the desktop version of Facebook from your mobile device.
Over to you
Facebook Group topics are a fast and efficient way to better organize your group posts.
Not only can they make it easy for group admins to keep on-top of unanswered posts, but members can also quickly find new content on a particular topic they are interested in.
Having worked with Group Topics, we find that you should keep the number of topics to a minimum. Otherwise you might overwhelm your audience.
What has been your experience with group discussion topics?
Share how many group topics you are using and let us know if you have any questions about them that we didn’t cover on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or in the comments below.
I run about 6 different Facebook groups and I can’t seem to see this feature on any of them. I wonder if they’re slowly rolling the feature out to different groups?
A lot of times, they don’t roll out a feature to everyone at once. We checked around a few groups that we run and all of them had them, but a few of our colleagues didn’t in some of their groups. Our recommendation is to keep checking your account. By chance, what category and privacy level are your groups set for?
They don’t roll out a feature to everyone at once. One thing you can try is to completely logout of Facebook and then try logging back in. That can sometimes trigger a new feature @javidjamae:disqus.
Christian, it would be really helpful if you mentioned in this post that this featured is not fully available. That would have saved me 30 minutes that I wasted looking for the functionality on my Facebook. This article wasted more time than it saved.
I believe we mentioned that in the video. Regarding it not being fully available, most Facebook features are this way, as they roll things out to users at different intervals. Every post would have to have a note stating it might be experimental.
I don’t watch videos. I read. That note would be valuable on every post as long as the feature was experimental. It’s your site, but I take myself to be suggesting an improvement that could help you to provide more value to your readership. I’m sorry if I’m coming off as whiny or anything.
Not at all. It’s just that every Facebook feature is usually experimental and they release to certain geographies or in some cases just individual accounts. We’ll see what we can do about adding a note.
I appreciate your question – otherwise I also would have wasted a half hour. I listened to the tutorial but didn’t hear (or missed) “not fully functional”. Hmm….
@pamelacaughey:disqus, another place you might want to look is on mobile. Some people are getting it in the Facebook mobile app. You may want to update your app to the latest version from your device’s appstore. Also try logging out once you’ve updated and then back in. Sometimes this can trigger new features.
And now Topics seem to be gone completely!
Has anyone heard if this will be rolling out to all groups anytime soon?? It was initially released over a year ago but none of the groups I manage have this feature yet. Any way to request it from FB or manually add it?
We haven’t seen any official announcements about Facebook Group topics, @aubreycormani:disqus. We’ve had business owners reach out to us on how to use this in their Groups, but as far as we know, it’s a feature Facebook needs to enable for your account.
Tried it and the Topics option is not there. I’d say your instructions are wrong or facebook has removed it
Hi @davidjmscott:disqus. Facebook tends to release features to some users and not others. This one is definitely there in fact, a number of other users have it as well. If you haven’t logged out of Facebook in a while, you might want to try logging out of mobile and desktop and then log back in to see if that activates the feature for your account.
Facebook doesn’t always roll features out to every account at the same time. There might also be country restrictions for some features. What country are you located in? Also, are you an admin on that Group? This is a feature only available to Group admins.
Can I remove a topic from my group on a mobile device?
Yes, @disqus_oHwAhldpUE:disqus. You’ll need to tap on the dropdown menu. In some cases, you may need to request the desktop site. Here are instructions on how you go about doing that. http://www.christiankonline.com/request-desktop-site-facebook-video/
Suppose you don’t want the “Topics” feature in your group. Can you opt out?
@disqus_oHwAhldpUE:disqus, you would want to determine if you need topics for your group posts. You set the rules for how you use them in your Group. As far as opting out, just don’t use it (although we think it helps with organizing Group posts).
Thank you for the quick reply.
You’re very welcome. Great questions!
I accidentally added the same topic category twice to my list of topics, can you delete a topic type?
Yes. You can go and remove Facebook Group topics you accidentally created. Just remove them from the post.
Thank you
I find this a terrible option. I run a group and it seems anyone can add topics. People are adding random abusive and racist tops to the goup. There’s no way of banning this?
@charlieboudville:disqus, you may want to set some ground rules for your Group. If people continue to spam the Facebook Group with inappropriate group topics, consider removing them.
There are rules. The problem is there is no way of knowing who is adding the topics. This wasn’t very well thought out by facebook
We tend to agree. In the meantime, you can go in and remove the group topics – essentially, part of managing a Facebook Group. How many are we looking at?
Removing the topics daily is becoming a real pain. Around 30 everyday
We would look at removing those people from your Facebook Group if they continue that behavior.
What people?? There is no way of finding out who has added the topics.
You should be able to look at the posts that they were added to or the latest activity to see if it denotes whether someone added them.
Yes you can see its added to posts but this does not tell you who added them. Do you not understand this? Seem to be going around in circles here.
We get that – we’re just asking whether you’ve checked your Group history to see if you can identify who the Group members are that may be adding the topics.It definitely needs to be fixed.
One thing you can do to help is to submit a support ticket to Facebook. Here’s a link for you to do that for Groups. https://www.facebook.com/help/1075368719167893/?helpref=hc_fnav
What do you mean check the group history?
Go to your Group and look through the activity to see if you can identify a pattern.
That would be purely guessing. Still won’t tel me who exactly it is.
It would be guessing, but you would be closer than you are now – you may even want to mute those people and see if the additional unwanted Facebook Group topics subside. Let us know what you do in the meantime and hopefully Facebook will fix it, because there definitely needs to be more control for Admins.
You can remove topics you don’t want.
My main group which I’ve had for over 12 months has 10k members and no topics feature. It would be really useful to organize the posts. But, i also have 2 new groups, a couple of months old and the topics feature is already enabled.
The question is, is there a way to force FB to update my main group to include topics?
Dan
We’re in the same position, @dropshipnews:disqus. One thing you may want to try is to look at the type of Facebook Group you have for the two that have the feature and compare it to the one that doesn’t and try different categories to see if it unlocks Facebook Group Topics in your main group – it’s definitely a very useful feature to have.
Yes, I’ve tried changing the group type, support, club, learning you name it, I must have tried them all. I’ve reported it to FB many times but never get a support reply.
It’s so frustrating but I suppose we just have to live with it.
Unfortunately, if you don’t have Facebook Group topics yet in those Groups, you’ll have to wait for Facebook to roll-out the feature to them.
If we hear of anything, @dropshipnews:disqus, we’ll be sure to let you know.
I would LOVE to have topics in my group but it seems I’m not “one of the chosen ones”. Any tricks to gain access to their use?
Not that we’ve come across, @juliegaydoshayes:disqus. You may want to try changing your Group category to see if that triggers any additional options.
Others that I know of have the same secret group and Team type page and it works for them. Thanks for your prompt response though.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works, @juliegaydoshayes:disqus. We wish it did sometimes. They will give a user a set of features that others don’t get. It’s their way of testing and rolling out new features.
Hi, i don’t have this feature 🙁 . I see in other groups in my country – it is available. But not in mine. What can i do to add it?
@lyubinagerassimovakalajdzhieva:disqus, we’re in the same situation. You can try adjusting your Facebook Group category to see if that triggers Facebook Group topics, but it didn’t work for us. Facebook will typically roll out features to some Pages and Groups – even if they’re yours, and not to all of them at one time.
i changed the category few times – and nothing :(.
So we have to wait more?
Yes, @lyubinagerassimovakalajdzhieva:disqus. We’ve been fortunate to have it for a few years now, but a number of our colleagues are just now getting it in the past couple of weeks.
This is a great video, but the discussion has been more helpful. I admin two different closed FB groups, one that has topics enabled and one that does not. So, the discussion helps me to understand that I likely am unable to get FB to add this to the group without it and that changing the group type is not likely to make a difference. The interesting thing about my group that already has it, is it works differently than as described in the video. In my group, it is an admin function only. Only an admin can create topics from the drop down menu of the moderator menu. Once I create a topic I can add it to posts using the drop down menu on each post, but again, only an admin will see this on the post menu. So, it looks like different versions of group topics are being used?
Hmm, I agree with Trevor -I have a closed group and this option is no where to be found. When was it first rolled out and when do you think everyone will have it? Haha, like anyone has an answer to the mysteries of FG. Thanks though – would be great, if it only worked for me.
I’m not entirely sure, @pamelacaughey:disqus. We’ve tested it at @socialchefs:disqus for new Groups, old ones, etc and there doesn’t seem to be a way to activate it on your own.
I have a closed group also, and I HAD topics and used them, until they disappeared. Facebook is really annoying.
margelot what
Yes?
My topics in my closed group with 3000 members dissapeared. I had them several months and it organized my group. I don’t understand why Facebook can’t be more transparent about what they’re doing. No notification that the topics are new on your group, no notification that they disappear from one moment to the other. No way to ask questions about this or other problems on Facebook. I think Facebook is closing down if it goes on like this. Too unreliable.
I had topics activated about a year ago in the group that I’m admin. It helped me a lot to sort the photos, because we collect old school photos. AND NOW THEY VANISHED!! I can’t find anything in Facebook help subjects. What the hell are they doing? I had a lot of work putting topics to all the posts! And now all for nothing? Where can I complain? I’m really pissed.😡🤬
The topics you created should still be there, @margelot:disqus, just not the option to add new ones. You may want to post your complaints here about the missing Facebook Group topics feature: https://www.facebook.com/help/
But they are not. They are really not there. They juist vanished. I know that I can have a total of 150 topics and for each post I can add 5, or less. I tried to complaint, but it’s really hard to reach Facebook. My complaint was closed without any answer. If the topics were still in a fase of rolling out, it takes a long time, and maybe they wanted to stop it all together and remove it from the groups that were already using it.
Thank you for this information on FB topics. I have watched the video and read the comments and do not believe this has been asked yet. If so, I apologize for the duplication. You mention that the posts will be in order as you’ve added them to a topic, so you could have a post from 2015 at the top of the screen when a post from 2016 is the last one to be added to the topic. Is there any way to reorganize that? My thought would be tedious…remove all the topics from the posts and re-assign the topics in order from earliest to latest. Would that work or do you have any other suggestions? Thanks!