Using member questions is extremely important because we want to make sure we have the right people in the group, to see whether or not they are going to be a good fit.
Joelle, Group Admin
Key Tips
- Being thoughtful about accepting members lets you include people who will enjoy being in your group and positively contribute.
- Adding membership questions gives you an idea of whether the person asking to join will be a good fit.
When people request to join your group, use a membership question to ask how they heard about your group.
When first setting up your group, you might invite close friends or people who share the same interests. As the group grows, the number of people asking to join increases. Experienced admins tell us that prioritizing and managing new member requests is an important part of making sure that new members are a good fit for the group.
Membership questions help you learn more about people who want to join your group by asking them up to three free-form questions. Only admins and moderators see the answers, which can be reviewed within the member request queue. Since membership in private groups is limited to people who were personally invited to join, membership questions are only available to groups with a public or private setting.
Membership questions can be as simple as “what do you hope to get out of the group?” to more detailed questions about how they feel they might contribute to the group as a member. Experienced admins recommend mentioning the group's rules in one of the questions, asking potential members to agree to read and abide by them once they join the group.
Once your group has grown and you're receiving numerous membership requests, you may find using membership request filters helpful. With membership request filtering, you can select and sort pre-defined filters to apply to pending requests. These can be accepted or declined individually or in bulk. The list of pre-set filters includes by location or gender, whether a person was invited by a current member, whether they are in other groups you manage and more. This information is made available based on what that person shares on their public profile.
Member request filtering is one of the time-saving screening techniques recommended by admins.
