Over the past several years of being on Facebook, I have seen Facebook Groups used in various ways. I thought I would share some of these in order to help you consider ideas you hadn’t previously.

To clarify, I am not talking about Facebook Timelines or Facebook Pages, but Facebook Groups. Facebook Timelines are personal pages. This is what you sign up for when you first join facebook. Most likely you know a little bit about these already.

Facebook Pages are public sites within Facebook. They function a lot like websites. Although they are similar to Groups, they are not the same.

Facebook Groups are the focus of this post. Anyone can start one and you can add people or leave a group at anytime. They can be public or private. I have seen Facebook Groups be very helpful for various ministries, nonprofits and causes.

Here is a list of ideas for using Facebook Groups:

1) Leadership Teams – Facebook Groups are a great way to stay in touch with leadership teams through the week. Whether for a short-term project or otherwise, you can use Groups to check in on one another.

2) Accountability Purposes – Want to eat better? Trying to exercise more? Perhaps you desire to read the Bible consistently? I use Facebook Groups for this last one. Over the past year I have averaged 35 people each time (spread across 2-3 Facebook Groups). Currently I have a group going with over 60 people involved.

3) Studies – I mentioned studying Scripture above, but you could do the same thing if you are in school or if you are just wanting to form a reading group.

4) Organizations – I know several nonprofits that get more traffic on Facebook than their own websites! This is not ideal, but it happens. Most of these are Facebook Pages, rather than Groups. However, you have less control over who sees your Page posts than your Group posts. When you are in a Group, the default is for people to receive your updates in their Notifications.

5) Updates – Facebook Groups can serve as a short form of an eNewsletter. I wouldn’t go crazy here though. If you post too often, people will simply leave the group, or worst, turn off notifications. If they do the latter, they will still be in the group, but probably will never see your posts.

6) Prayer Groups – Similar to an Accountability or Study Group, you could use Facebook Groups for prayer purposes. I would recommend starting one for a specific purpose and length of time, but you could have an ongoing one as well.

Pretty much you can use Facebook Groups for any purpose that you might use a small group or coffee group in the real world. The advantage is you can do them virtually, which allows for more groups and more people to join you.

Tip: Consider using Facebook Groups for short-term purposes and provide a natural exit. If you don’t provide this clarity and give an exit strategy, you will most likely have people leave or stay, but be unengaged.

How are you using Facebook Groups? Which of these ideas stands out to you? Please share in the comments section.