How to Use Secret Facebook Groups to Enhance Your Business
Posted by: judylm on January 9th, 2012
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Posted: Business Notes, Closed Group, Facebook Info, Open Group, Secret Group
Taken from: Social Media Examiner
One of the most underutilized features of Facebook for Businesses is the “SECRET GROUP”!
- A Secret Group is easy to create and manage
- Perfect for Small-Group Interaction
- Facebook originally created Secret Groups for people to have small, intimate interactions with family and friends, but Secret Groups are also perfect for Small Businesses, Coaches and Professional Development, like “Mastermind Groups”
Why Secret Groups?
- Businesses sometimes need private spaces for working, coordinating schedules and developing marketing and advertising ideas with a small group of people.
There are THREE types of Facebook Groups:
- Public (open): everyone can see the Group, find it in a search and make posts
- Closed: everyone can see the Group, but only members can see (and make) posts
- Secret: only members can see the Group, see and make posts
Soooooooooooooo, How SECRET is a Facebook Secret Group?
- When you create a Secret Group, no one, except the members of the Group, will be able to find it in a search and no one will be able to find any trace of it on your personal or business Facebook profiles. (AND Secret Groups are not indexed by Google)
- Even if you send someone the URL of the Secret Group, they will not be able to see the Group Page. (It’s that secret)
- You will get Facebook notifications ( and or email notifications – for each post from any member. These posts will show up in your news feed, which can be a bit confusing until you notice the little lock icon next to any Secret Group post. Sooooo no one can read those, unless they are looking over your shoulder!
- If you choose to get email notifications of posts to the Group, you will be able to reply to those emails and have your reply go directly to the Group comment for that post.
There are several features about Secret Groups that ANY Small Business Could Use! Check this out!!!
- Group Chat – everyone in the Group can use the Chat feature at the same time! You can have a conversation around complicated subjects to work things out without having to pick up the phone or back and forth emails – Not sure if you can use this function on a mobile device (mobile browser or app)
- Shared Document Creation: the entire group can have input on one document and be able to edit what other members have put on it. This feature is similar to using Google Docs, and can be used to refine promotional text, press releases, responses to controversy, etc.
- Private Photo Sharing: members can post photos that no one else on Facebook can see. For example, Secret Group members on an advertising team can discuss which images to use on an upcoming campaign. They could create albums with the name of their upcoming advertising campaigns and put several images in them to discuss in the comments or in the Group chat! You can TAG photos, but only with the names of the members of the Group!
- Shared Email Address: Facebook lets you create a custom email address you can use to email posts to the Secret Group Page! You can email text and images.
How can a Small Business Use a Secret Group?
- If you are a manager with staff who live on Facebook, you can create a Secret Group to keep in touch about hours, shift substitutions, emergencies and all sorts of things that a manager would normally use email or text messages for! Everyone can check the Secret Group Posts for morning updates and these messages won’t show up on someone’s personal wall!
- If you have a remote virtual team working on a marketing project, you can use the Group Chat feature to work through ideas that come up randomly through the day that only need a couple of minutes of attention in the same way you would use Google Chat or an IM System.
- If you have a crisis management team using a Secret Group, you can take photos on your smartphone and send them directly to the Group using your private Group email address. You completely bypass the upload and tag process you normally use for Facebook photos.
- You can create group documents for how to handle a particular crisis for ready reference and be able to announce a group chat time that immediately shows up in the member’s Top News Feed.
- If you are a personal development coach, using the Secret Group system is great, even if it is a bit convoluted to get a fully Secret Group. 1st you need to create a Closed Group. That way you can give out the Group’s URL and then they can click the Ask to Join the Group Button (top right of the Group page)
- You don’t need to be personal Facebook Friends with potential members for this to work. Then once everyone is a member of the Closed Group, you can change the Group setting to Secret
