Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Whenever I share with people how I successfully grew a CLOSED and NICHED Facebook group to over 20,000 members in 2 years, the popular response I get is “It’s too much work abeg, I will just get another admin to manage it”.
I understand that running and managing a Facebook group that doesn’t have issues like having to put out fires and is engaging, can be a chore. However, there are many pros to it, as you learned in the training I did on Monetizing Facebook Groups last month.
Having a Facebook group has earned me 8-figures in 2 years and it is a worthwhile venture if you do it right.
However, there are people who might want to be lazy about it and take certain short cuts, such as getting numerous admins and not providing enough security.
In this day and age where data and an audience are the new gold, you cannot afford to be lazy about running your Facebook group.
Recently, someone in a group I belong to, complained bitterly that her group had been hacked and the hackers asked her to pay 100 dollars as ransom before she can regain control of her group.
I truly felt sorry for her. Nowadays, entire businesses and sources of income are being “kidnapped” and held as ransom by wicked people all over the place. Movies and TV series are being kidnapped, business ideas, prototypes and even innovative software are being kidnapped, with the kidnappers asking for ransom in bitcoin or dollars. Now they’re coming down to regular folk like you and I.
Don’t make the mistake of leaving your group unprotected and inviting trouble by yourself by being careless. There are a few simple things you can do to ensure your account and Facebook groups don’t get hacked, forcing you to either forfeit it or pay unnecessary ransoms. Here are some of them:
1. Do not make another person an ADMIN on your group. Groups and Pages have different Page Roles. The highest role with the most power is the ADMIN. As an admin, you can make other group members admins and you can even kick out other admins. You can archive the group and shut it down. Do not give anyone else this power.
Instead, if you need help managing your group, make them MODERATORS. Moderators have almost the same powers as admins but their control is limited. They can accept people into the group, approve posts and delete defaulting posts and comments. If you need someone to come live on your group to teach something, make them moderators, not admins. People can be deceiving. They can offer to help you with your group but they have sinister motives. Be discerning.
2. Don’t allow people add their friends to your group themselves. When you see join requests and beneath the name, you see “added by so so and so”, it means a member of your group is adding their friends. Many people do it because they think they are helping their friends or helping you grow your group, but it doesn’t help anyone.
Recently, a lot of group owners lost hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of group members because Facebook decided to do a sanitation and removed everyone who didn’t join a group by themselves. This is why I keep stressing here that you shouldn’t add your friends by yourself to this group. Instead, share the link with them. If they want to join, they will click on the link.
As a group admin, you don’t add your friends to your group like that as well. Follow Facebook ethics. Don’t force people into a group they didn’t ask to be in. Share the link to your group on your profile and let them join of their own accord so they don’t report your group to Facebook and have it shut down.
3. Don’t hastily accept everyone who sends a join request because you want to grow your group by all means. Do a background check on each profile before you accept them. Most of these people are spammers, hackers or illegal business accounts.
I cannot tell you how many native doctors have tried to join this group, or people promoting Internet Fraud, Selling stolen goods, ponzi schemes or posing as fake Prophets. We peruse each account to ensure that you have the best time on this group. If we accepted everyone, we’d be over a hundred thousand by now. But we always strive for quality over quantity.
4. Beware of brand new accounts who try to join your group. They are usually hacker accounts. An example is receiving a join request from someone who you can see joined Facebook 2 hours ago or yesterday. As a rule in OPEN, we don’t accept join requests from accounts that are less than 6 months old.
5. Beware of join requests from foreigners with accounts less than a year old and have less than 5 personal pictures and hardly any posts to their timelines. These are usually accounts of internet fraudsters. Don’t get too excited that someone from the USA, UK, Europe or India is joining your group. Do your due diligence. It will also help you to have a knowledge of Geography and pay attention to the city and state, not just the country. I’ve seen join requests from people who say they are from “Sapele in Ohio, USA”.
6. Be discerning. Trust your gut. If an account feels fake to you, it probably is. Don’t be desperate to grow your group that you put yourself in trouble. Be extra careful.
7. Enable two-factor authentication in your settings. This ensures that if your account is being logged into from another device but yours, Facebook will send you a confirmation number via email or text message to confirm that it is you. If it isn’t you, they wouldn’t be allowed access into the account.
8. Change your password at least once a year. I suggest changing your password every 6 months.
9. Log out your Facebook from devices you aren’t using. If you log into Facebook from a friend’s laptop or phone, ensure you log out as soon as you are done.
10. Be careful. Be absolutely careful. Protect your investment.
I hope this helps. Have you had any issues with your Facebook group or account? How did you handle it?
