Groups

Facebook recently updated its Groups feature that lets you share, chat and e-mail with small groups of friends. Groups, is designed for a small number of people who know one another—think families and coworkers. Here, you can share pictures, comments and articles privately with only the people in the group. 
Zuckerberg said that Groups were developed to combat "the biggest problem in social media": sharing everything with everyone, when you really only want to share something with select people. "'Just friends' was the most private setting," Zuckerberg said. "But you might not want to share something with hundreds or even thousands of friends."


Where to Start


On the left navigation of your Facebook page is a link to Groups (if it's not visible, choose More). Clicking this will take you to a homepage displaying the groups that you have joined in the past. Or you can visit the Groups landing page at http://www.facebook.com/groups. Click "Groups," or if you've yet to be in a group, click "More" and then the "Groups" link. 

Name your group accordingly. I'm creating a group for my friends from high school. Under "Members" I've added a few names. I just start typing the names and with a few letters Facebook suggests names from my friends list of who I may wish to add.
Note that the default privacy setting is Closed—this means that the members of the group are visible, but everything that anyone posts is hidden to those outside the group. Additional settings are Open, in which all content is public; and Secret, in which both members of the group and content are private. Click Create to finish the setup.

Groups Chat

Groups Chat allows the conversation you have in the pop-up window to be accessed and seen only by those members in the group, (rather than just the one person you'd chat with otherwise). So if you do enable this, remember, everyone in the group could be watching. The Chat link along with other Groups features is found on the right side menu, under Members. 

3. Creating Documents

Groups can also share documents. This allows you to create new documents and share them with the group. You can't upload existing documents. 

Document formatting features are limited: You can bold and italicize text and create bulleted and numbered lists. 

Other Groups Features

The Groups Menu also has links to features to create events, view photos, edit group, and leave group. Below these FB suggests other people who have the same group affiliation to add to your friends and group. 

Activating the Event feature enables a planning window that allows scheduling, qualifying the event, where the even will be held, any additional information, and the ability to select a default list or customize the list of invitees with a check list of invite options. 


View Photos displays any pics that have been shared in the group along with uploaded video. 


A vital control feature for Groups is Edit Group

Edit allows formatting of the Groups page by including an image and a description. Control include Privacy, Membership approval, and setting up Group Email.