Tips for Managing a Facebook Community

Written by Jonny Stark, the founder of Facebook Group Secret Tel Aviv. Jonny created Secret Tel Aviv in February 2012 and it now boasts over 400k members, including Mark Zuckerberg!

I’ve been running Secret Tel Aviv for nearly 12 years. Here are some of my top tips for building and running a Facebook Group:

1. Set up the community for the right reasons – I moved to Israel by myself in 2009. I set up the group to meet new people – and it worked!
2. Have clear guidelines
3. Put the community first
4. Be Consistent
5. Spend the time letting the right people into the community – we reject about 40% of people who try to join the group. We take a proactive approach – it’s better to proactively let people into the group versus having to react to posts from spam accounts.
6. Keep the conversation relevant
7. Tidy posts rather than delete posts – we have found that if people see nasty comments and they are so inclined they are more likely to follow the herd post nasty comments too. By tidying the comments in a post you can really keep it positive and constructive.
8. Keep it positive and a safe space
9. Focus on your mental health
10. You can’t please everyone!
11. Don’t take things personally
12. Know who your target audience is and let that guide your mission
13. Use good graphics – this defines your community – we wanted Secret Tel Aviv to be an informal grungy hipster underground group so we designed graphics that fitted this. Below you can see our first cover photo (designed by the amazing Fe Melo).

14. Adapt to the needs of your community.

Comment below if you have any more tips!