Facebook introduces new features for groups to help build communities

In a bid to help admins better manage and grow their online communities, Facebook has added several new tools for members and administrators of groups including welcome posts, group-specific badges and member profiles. Group admins will also get new features like expanded insights and tips to help them manage contentious conversations and to know when is the best time to schedule posts.

To start with, Group admins can now write welcome posts that will automatically tag new members.

Then, there are new badges for group admins, moderators and members who have recently joined. Additionally, member can now also view group-specific profiles about others when they click on their name. This gives you a brief intro to the person using publicly available information, like how long they’ve been a member of the group, whether you have mutual friends or if they’re attending any of the same events as you.

To ease-out admin's work, the social network has introduced new admin-specific tools that let moderators remind members of the rules of conduct, temporarily turn off a member's ability to post or comment and even remove members who violate these rules with a click. The new tips can help you figure out when to schedule posts as well as things to add, like location tags, to make your group even more useful to members.

"We loved getting to know group leaders at the Facebook Communities Summit, and we got to learn a lot more about the groups they manage," Product management director Alex Deve said in a blog post. "We’re also exploring programs to help these leaders meet up in person and keep the connection going—we’ll be announcing more about these new programs soon,” Deve added.