The town square is not only online, but often out of sight.
Facebook Groups often operate as an unseen network filled with public conversation about policy, developments and message narratives.
Facebook Groups have been a core feature of the platform since its earliest iteration. Currently, tens of millions of active communities exist on Facebook, with half of users being members of five or more active groups. Groups have become one of the primary ways people interact with others on the social network, representing a significant portion of the content they see and engage with on the platform.
The Problem
Facebook Groups are often town squares for cities or communities, but they are sometimes more difficult to find than other public forums. Facebook, as a platform, is designed to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” The platform offers groups as a central feature where people can connect over shared interests and “engage more deeply with the things they care about.”
But because Meta limits access to the contents of these groups and users may elect to mark their posts as private, it is often hard to fully grasp the scale of public discourse and sentiment formation occurring in these spaces.
We’ve observed that these groups function as coordination hubs for opposition movements or supportive amplification networks for our issue advocacy campaigns.
These groups create entirely new public opinion battlefields that largely go ignored. The traditional stakeholder mapping that has been done for decades often misses these informal influence networks that can mobilize faster than established organizations. However, they are often rife with misinformation and inaccurate context.
Most importantly, community sentiment often crystallizes in these groups before reaching traditional media or other public forums.
Function of Facebook Groups
To better understand the scope of this phenomenon, we analyzed communities and identified two main types: direct opposition groups and general community groups.
Direct opposition groups are often created after a proposed development or issue reaches a critical mass in the conversation. For our renewable energy clients, these take the form of groups like “Don’t B.E.S.S. with Texas” or “No Wind Turbines Lincoln County.” These groups are characterized by geographical location and often have a specific development project referenced in the title. They are easy to identify and track.
The second category obscures the goal and content of the group behind a community-focused mission. These examples include “Texas Rural Community Alliance” or “Harper TX CommunityBulletin Board.” The stated mission of these groups is often a place to connect people with a smorgasbord of topics, such as: items for sale, community events, rants, raves and notices, among others. While their stated purpose appears neutral, the actual content within these groups frequently includes posts that influence public opinion on specific policy issues or development projects. These neighborhood or homeowners association (HOA) groups are often engaged on local issues from road construction to HOA fees, making it more than just a marketplace.
Crucially, we’ve observed groups in both categories and across geography working together to amplify messages.
This is the network effect: a single post can be shared to dozens of communities within a matter of hours.
Often it comes from a larger, national reach group down to local, community-focused groups. This creates a challenge with coordinated opposition or an opportunity with amplification of supportive messages.
It’s important to note that while Facebook Groups are a cornerstone of this network, it extends far beyond to other mediums, like WhatsApp or Telegram. These alternative platforms present the same monitoring challenges as Facebook Groups, with content that remains largely unsearchable and inaccessible to traditional social listening tools.
Strategic Implications for Advocacy Campaigns
We have found new ways to harness the network of Facebook Groups. Groups deliver real time intelligence about emerging opposition strategies. Posts within these communities offer deep insight into member sentiment, frequently revealing what stakeholders are hearing before we can establish on-the-ground project support. They expose tactical approaches such as symposiums or media events, along with key messaging themes. For our clients, we monitor these closely and provide actionable reporting to adapt strategy accordingly.
Monitoring can also reveal coalition building while it’s taking place and before it’s announced. From these observations, we must move to update our own coalition efforts.
Conversely, engaging these groups can help to amplify messages of support or mobilize stakeholders faster than traditional channels. As demonstrated previously, oftentimes groups work together by cross-posting information therefore boosting our efforts. We’ve seen this amplification happen with calls to action around contacting legislators in support or opposition of a local project.
Recommendations
These often invisible networks cannot be ignored. From local project development to passing or killing legislation in state houses, successful issue campaigns need to monitor, adapt and engage with Facebook Groups.
With our clients, we implement the following:
- Monitoring and Intelligence: Identify relevant Facebook Groups, establish a systemic monitoring (requires a significant amount of manual labor), and map connections between communities.
- Message Adaptation: Use observations to refine talking points and communication strategy to address concerns that are repeatedly brought up. This includes countering misinformation early before it reaches mainstream media.
- Strategic Engagement: Engage through authentic and transparent community voices, including first-hand from the company, as appropriate.
- Content Seeding: Use the community as an amplification tool for existing content that helps to shape the narrative or activate members to help the cause.
MIT research has shown that ineffective community input during the development process increases the likelihood of delays or cancellations for nearly 30% of projects. Using FacebookGroups as a window into community concerns, addressing them early in the development cycle and engaging with the community connectors can help a project achieve success
We currently help organizations, companies and associations navigate this new landscape while continuing to utilize traditional tactics of grassroots campaigns, digital advertising and media relations. We can do the same for you.
