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Group Monetization is getting real, as Meta announced that Facebook Groups will now have the ability to set up an online store. This update promises to “bridge community and commerce.”

The feature, called Shops in Groups, will allow group admins to decide where the proceeds go—such as to a related nonprofit or to help compensate volunteers who manage the group.

Several fun related features are also coming to groups, including:

• Product Recommendations in Groups – When a group member asks for guidance, Facebook will display shoppable products that other members mention. This will make it easier to purchase a recommended product right from the Group.

• Top Product Mentions – A News Feed feature that will display products recommended by a user’s fellow group members, even if they didn’t go to the Group directly.

• Live Shopping for creators – A QVC-style shopping event feature in which influencers can partner with brands and highlight products. (BTW—Pinterest just announced a similar feature, too.)

• Community replies – Users see questions about products they themselves have already purchased, allowing them to respond and provide helpful input and vice versa.

• Business page ability to use tagged product photos – On Instagram, tagged brands can now add images to their shop’s product detail pages. This could be a fantastic way to easily integrate user generated content (UGC) into a shop.

BONUS: In addition to these monetization-focused features, there are some exciting new features for Groups that were announced at the recent Facebook Communities Summit, such as:

• The ability to customize visual elements like colors, fonts, post backgrounds, and even reaction emojis.

• Unique greeting messages and group rules that appear when signing up for a Group.

• Subgroups (and paid subgroups).

• Community chats.

Product Recommendations in Groups feature

Why it Matters

As mentioned in TechCrunch, these features follow a long trend of Facebook (now under the “Meta” company umbrella) working to build out shopping and monetization features for brands and influencers. And this newest roll out is coming just in time for the 2021 holiday season.

We also know that Groups are now often critical to a brand’s success on Facebook. Now, brands selling products have exciting new ways to utilize Groups in order to sell their products more effectively. Hopefully, these features will be seen as useful and a positive new feature for Group members.

Here’s a compelling quote from the founder of OctoNation, where some of the Group Shopping features were first tested:

“Allowing our members to view and purchase OctoNation’s products in a trusted space they were familiar with has significantly increased sales.”

— Warren Carlyle, founder and CEO, OctoNation

Top Product Mentions feature

Live Shopping for creators feature

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Looking for More Social Media Help?

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