Facebook Groups Review

Although I work for a scientific society, I have used Facebook groups for a number of activities outside of work, primarily for music-related interests and events. The good part of groups is that they can bring together people with common interests that might not have otherwise found one another. For the most part, this is good and facilitates networking and collaboration.  I have witnessed many positive outcomes from Facebook groups. The bad part can be that certain members of the group will try to overtake the content and spam other members with posts that are self-promoting or one-sided. While you want to encourage participation, some members will overwhelm the group with their posts. Unless this is moderated or controlled by the people running the group in a timely fashion, you may lose members due to unpleasant experiences. And the ugly is that sometimes members can be outright trolls. They will always disagree and will hijack conversations with posts that are off-topic, rude or even offensive. Again, it is up to the administrators and moderators to control this, as trolling reflects poorly on your organization if left unchecked.