Is Facebook removing inactive group members? No, just an update

If you’re a group admin, have you noticed that the number of members in your group has dropped recently?

You may have even heard on the social media grapevine that Facebook is going around and removing inactive group members. Ouch!

Don’t worry though, it’s not as bad as you may have thought. As it turns out, Facebook has changed the way they allow users to invite other users to Facebook groups, and it’s this change that’s causing you to have a smaller member count in your group.

You see, before, you could just invite another user to a group, and voila, they’re automatically a member. But Facebook is changing that, and now people you invite to groups have to accept an invitation before they actually become a member.

Okay, so how does this affect my group member total?

Because Facebook is also applying this rule to existing group members. Basically, if a member had been invited to a group in the past but never, ever, ever visited that group, they’re being removed. Not totally removed, mind you, rather put on a special Invited list, meaning admins of that group can send them reminders to join – but they won’t be re-added as a group member until they accept the invitation.

So that’s why group totals are going down. Not because Facebook is removing inactive members, rather they’re removing members who have never even visited your group in the first place. So hopefully this won’t be affecting your engagement stats in any negative way.

Did you notice a drop in your group members this week?