The five types of Facebook group membership questions to consider
We only get to ask three questions when people join our groups, so it’s important to make sure we make the most of the information we’re getting from new group members!
Not sure which questions to ask in your group?
We know we can currently only ask three, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out what those three should be!
Here are some ideas for your group questions:
#1 The email grab
This one’s essential. Grab their email addresses as soon as they join!*
Example: “Give us your email address if you’d like to receive updates about (group, business, etc.).”
#2: Rule & group policy reminders:
Rule & policy reminders are helpful for pointing out that yes, you have rules, and yes, you expect them to be followed.
Examples:
- Do you agree to the rules?
- Paraphrase one of the group rules listed below. (This is great for making sure people at least skim the rules, plus it helps out bots!)
- Hiding something in the rules to make sure people are paying attention.
- Example: What is the group’s collective favorite pizza spot? (“hide” the answer in one of the rules)
- Do you agree to the rules? Which one stands out to you? (This one serves two purposes: to bring attention to the rules and to prove the person is a human.)
- The “warning” question
- Examples
“Do you understand that there may be discussion here you won’t like and you should just scroll past these threads?”
“Will you be upset if we turn off comments off for any reason?”
“Do you know what to do if someone upsets you in this group?”
- Examples
- Emphasis on privacy question:
- Will you uphold the privacy of the group?”
- Head troublemakers off at the pass question: “Have you ever been booted or banned from a group? Please explain.”
#3: Prove you’re human questions:
If your group is prone to fake profiles, these are really helpful for weeding out bots and Nigerian princes!
- What did you have for breakfast?
- What’s your favorite color?
- What’s your favorite TV show?
#4: Business and group helper questions:
These questions might help you focus on your marketing, on group topics, or something else that helps your group and/or business.
- How did you find us? – This one is great for tracking where the best investment might be in advertising your group.
- What do you expect from this group? – This helps you to create content that is helpful to your uses
- Why do you want to join?
- What are you struggling with (in your town/with your health/in your business, etc.)?
#5: Super specific targeted questions:
This is an example of some rules that are really specific to a group. These are helpful for groups where it’s super important to group admins to stay on-topic.
- What was the last Urban Fantasy book you read?
- Who are your top 5 favorite Urban Fantasy Lead Characters?
- Who is your most read Urban Fantasy Author?
Don’t forget: you now have question formulation options!
For many (but not all) groups, Facebook now offers different types of questions, which you might want to also consider using. Previously, only a written answer was available, whereas now you can formulate your questions using checkboxes or multiple choice options.
I hope these ideas help you to refine your group rules!
*Editor’s Note: It has been brought to my attention that some people have concerns regarding GDPR and privacy policy with asking people for their email address in the questions. It is my belief at this time that if Facebook took major issue with this, they would prevent the words “email, email address, etc.” from being added in the questions. Given the new Apple iOs restrictions going into place along with Google phasing out tracking, I believe these privacy issues will be addressed at a much higher level.
That being said, an alternative to asking for an email address in the questions is to simply provide a link to a sign-up form. This is not ideal, because you need a website or a place to house the sign-up form, where you can also include your privacy policy. I also strongly recommend including an incentive, such as a free download. Example question: “Visit www.samplesite.com/signup to get our 10 most popular recipes.”
I have noticed that some people are requesting to be part of my private FB group without answering my three questions…and when I dig further, I find that they honestly did not see them….SO what is in the settings that I am missing that some poeple who join see the questions and other don’t see the quesitions. For example, one gal this morning was requesting to be added and didn’t answer my questions…my initial reaction was just to delete request…and instead, I asked what brought you to the group. and from there I discovered that she did not see the questions that i set up. So some are seeing the qeustions and some are not ….Help! Send response to marie.matienzo@me.com Thank you.
I have noticed this on occasion as well and I believe it is a Facebook bug, especially when it comes to answering the questions on a mobile device. I had the same problem and got in touch with Facebook. It was not resolved, but the more people they hear from, the better. I would contact Facebook support to let them know (this is what I did as well). Good luck!
Are the answers to the questions stored anywhere?
Sadly, the questions are not stored anywhere, currently.
I think the ones that do not answer questions are “drive-bys” meaning they land on my page because they are searching for a group to join. When they click on the icon, Facebook sends me a notice that someone wants to join the group, even though they are just window shopping!
facebook sends them a reminder to return to the page if they are indeed still interesting in joining. After 3 days, The request is dropped. I wait a couple of days, check out the posts and pics on their pages to determine if they are a good fit for us. Then I either accept them or delete the request.
If they were invited by others, they do not see the questions.
If they were invited by others, do they also not get any kind of reminder from Facebook about the group and/or the pending questions? This feels like a poor implementation to me if a mere invitation is what causes someone to get stuck in the queue, because they never even knew about the questions.
I think this varies. Somebody invited me to a group and I got daily reminders at one point. (I declined because the group didn’t really interest me). But I think it’s inconsistent because I have people who have been stuck in my “invited by others” queue forever.
Thank you for this post, it’s was helpful.
I’m so glad this was helpful to you!
Do you know if there is a way to access the answers to the questions for all the members once they are in the group?
I want to set up a question to consider what kind of info members are most interested in and having access to this data after the fact is key.
Thanks!
Facebook does not provide this information. I have invested in this product so that I have a spreadsheet of all of the info, auto-collected when members respond to questions: https://grouptize.com/2021/10/if-facebook-disappeared-forever-tomorrow-what-would-happen-to-your-community/