Written by Jason Logsdon
A reader of mine recently wrote in with a question about how I approach moderating Facebook groups that I thought was worth sharing.
If you started a FB Group and thought a member was capable and on the same page as you for your group and make them a Co Administrator but now realize you have to constantly remove their non Group related post that should be on their own home page. How would you handle that, remove them or ask them to stop?
- Tom
I thought this was a great question, and I wanted to expand it to explore how you handle any group members who misbehave.
Learning how to deal with Facebook group members that misbehave is one of the biggest jobs of being a moderator. Here's some advice I've learned along the way as I grew my group to 41,000+ members.
I tend to break group members down into 3 categories: 1) people that I like, know, and interact with a lot who I want to keep happy 2) jerks and trolls 3) everyone else. When they misbehave, I treat them all differently.
For people I want to keep happy or that I know, I take the time to reach out to them. I will send a more nicely-worded version of "Hey, what the heck are you doing?? You know better!".
Most of the time they don't realize they are doing something wrong and will apologize.
Sometimes they know they are crossing the line, but thought they can get away with it and will apologize.
Very rarely they will get defensive, upset, or start being rude. In which case you can then decide how much hassle it is worth keeping them happy (my answer in almost every case...not much, they don't deserve it).
For jerks and trolls I simply remove them from the group, block them from the group, and use the Facebook block dialog box to remove all of their content.
You may be tempted to send them a message, reach out, or chastise them but, in my opinion, it's just a waste of time and energy. Their whole goal is to upset you and get a reaction, so giving them one just means they win.
Life is too short, ignore the jerks and trolls.
For everyone else, I generally just delete their post (unless it's real bad, but then they are normally a jerk or troll) but I usually don't send them a message or remove them.
A lot of moderators will want to send a message, talk to the person, let them know what went wrong and have a conversation. There's nothing wrong with this really, you just need to decide if it is the most valuable use of your time. Should you spend 10, 20, 30 minutes engaging someone who wasn't playing overly nice, or should you be writing a recipe, doing keyword research, posting on social media, or doing one of the other thousand things we have to do as food bloggers.
I've found that skipping sending a message and focusing on my other tasks almost always results in a better return on investment.
So in Tom's case, he needs to determine if this is someone worth keeping happy and working with in the future. If so, then I suggest sending them a nice message telling them why you think they aren't doing what they should. They honestly might not even know they are doing anything wrong.
However, if Tom feels pretty strongly they do know what they are doing is wrong (and Tom doesn't care as much about maintaining a good relationship), then removing them as an admin probably makes the most sense.
I hope that helps some!
If you want to read some more about this, here are a few helpful links.
How do you approach handling moderators and group members who are misbehaving? Let me know in the Makin Bacon Facebook Group or the comments below.
Hi, I'm Jason Logsdon! I'm an adventurous home cook and the head writer and photographer for Amazing Food Made Easy. I grew my income to 6-figures by focusing on serving my Fans by providing massive value, and I want to help you do the same.
