When you begin a community chat, there are three chat types available to you: social, broadcast and admin and moderator-only. Each type can serve your chat in unique ways.
A social chat is a place to connect a group of members over any shared interest, whether a sport, hobby, current event, or sensitive topic. It is a great chat type for fostering conversations and relationships as it lets everyone see, join, participate. Consider letting members of your group suggest topics by editing the “Who can create chats” setting from Admin Home. You can review and approve these suggestions (just like regular posts in your group).
Admin Olivia M. started Bay Area Adventure Gals to connect women with others in their community and go on adventures together—from trying out a new coffee shop to going on an eight-mile hike. The group allows members to suggest chats so that they can bond over the topics that matter most to them.
“Once members could suggest chats, we started opening it up to more specific interests because it’s important that you connect with people in the way that you want to connect. Whether that’s something that’s your personal identity, or it’s something you're passionate about like rock climbing or hiking or whatever that interest is going to be, that's how you find the most meaningful connections that add the most value.”
Olivia M., Bay Area Adventure Gals
These chats can be accessed from both Facebook and Messenger:
Facebook: go to your group menu to view your group’s chats. Click any to join.
Messenger: go to your Community inbox to view your group’s chats. Click any to join.
Members may leave a chat at any time by going to the chat menu and clicking “Leave chat.” Before that happens, learn some tips from fellow group admins on how to keep your members engaged.
A social chat may be added to a group event, which will appear to all members on the event. Learn more about using chats for events.
A broadcast chat can help you reach your entire community directly with group-wide announcements, updates, and even polls. Unlike a social chat, everyone in the group is automatically added. Admins have found it useful to share things like chat rules, group updates or announcements in this chat. Should a member need a friendly reminder, you can easily direct them here.
Pro tip: you can schedule posts in your group. Consider scheduling rule reminders to keep your community consistently informed.
Stay in touch with your moderation team in the admin and moderator-only chat. This is your space to privately discuss group management, individual tasks, specific situations, and anything else that arises. You can even share items from Admin Home, such as member post requests and join requests, directly into this chat to get your team’s input. Once an admin or moderator activates the chat, all admins and moderators are automatically added. You can find it in Admin Home or in your Messenger Community inbox.
Max T. of MediaVerse: Comics Unwrapped, whose members connect in chats over pop culture and blockbuster movies, credits the admin and moderator-only chat as the place for open and honest communication with his moderation team.
“We're [moderation team] very close knit and we’re good on scheduling and keeping each other in the know [in the admod-only chat].”
Max T., MediaVerse: Comics Unwrapped
This chat type is just one of the moderation tools available to help your community thrive and stay safe.
