Facebook Groups - Tiny (FWP) Vent

Good morning friends! I woke up to quite the fiasco in the group this morning! I had two choices, pull the covers over my head and hide, or address it. For those of you who know me, you know I never hide. Haha!

First A Little History

This group actually wasn't started by me. It was started by a moderator who is no longer with us and the reason they started it was because they loved our product line and wanted to share with others who felt the same way. When they stepped down, they passed the group onto me because it had too many members to shut down. I don't personally know if I would have started a group. At the time, I had my own forum on my own website that was moderated by some wonderful people and it was such a friendly and loving place for all of us.

Over time, the group kept growing and it was becoming apparent that people spent their lives on Facebook and the majority of the people who were members of our forum, had moved over to this group. I really didn't have much of a choice, so to Facebook we went, and we closed down our company forum.

A couple of years later, I did try to add a new forum onto our site, but nobody came. Facebook was the first place people went in the morning, and stayed there all day until they fell asleep with their phone in their hands.
How to Make it Work

Once we committed to the Facebook group, I brought my other moderators here and we set up some rules to keep the group safe. We made sure it was private so we could approve members and not let in the spammers. We put some rules in place because we knew how social media worked. We decided that because we were paying for the running of this group, that only our products could be used. We didn't think anyone would mind that because that is what every other company sponsored group was doing in other industries. And we decided that if people had issues that couldn't be solved by other members or by us in the group, that we would direct people to customer service and close the thread so it could fall down the threads and allow for photos and discussions that were appropriate for the group.

COVID and Live Video

Over time, our group grew and with close to 46,000 members. It was harder to know people in the intimate way that we used to. And people were joining our group by the hundreds every single day. That started when Covid hit and I decided to go live three nights a week. I was the ONLY person going live, and I did that because I felt we all needed a break from the horrific news. We could get together for an hour, three nights a week and talk about something other than death statistics, masks and politics. We even loosened the rules and let people post photos with whatever they had because we knew people weren't working and no companies could ship products, supply chain issues were a mess and it was a big $h!+ show. We got each other through. It was kind and it was beautiful.

The World Opened Back Up

Once we were allowed outside, the world opened up a bit and companies were able to go back to work. The supply chain, albeit slow, was moving again and we were able to go back to work, see loved ones, go shopping and travel, even if we looked like mummies doing it. That is when we went back to our rules and I cut down to two lives per week. Now, every single company goes live, every single company has a fan page or group and the supply chain is moving along again.

Social Media Today

Social media isn't as much of a happy place anymore. People are quick to jump on each other, make assumptions about each other and because most of us are now hiding behind a screen, it seems so easy to say something that we would never say to someone's face. We've lost the art of reading an expression that helps us understand where someone is coming from. And the whole thing can feel cold and isolating. It's made people depressed, anxious and angry.

Our Group Today

With all that being said, we still want to be a safe place to fall. We want our group to be a happy place. A place where you can share a card as a beginner and feel lifted up. A place where you can ask for tips and tricks for better ink blending and experienced stampers can help. A place where people can shared masterpieces and all of us, including me, can aspire to be able to watercolor like that someday.

What we don't want to be a place where people just complain. And sometimes, what starts out as an innocent question becomes a total bashing session and that isn't good for anyone.

If someone presses too hard on the tip of their Pick and Stick Tool and the wax tip breaks, it can go like this:

Poster- "The wax tip on my Pick and Stick Tool broke"

First Comment- "That's cause you pressed too hard"

Second Comment- "Mine did that too 🙁"

Third Comment- "Call customer service"

Fourth Comment- "Why does someone always say call customer service, shes just asking a question! 😠"

Fifth Comment- "This question doesn't belong here"

Sixth Comment- "If I buy something, it should work for more than a day."

Seventh Comment- "But she used it wrong. It's wax! You have to be stupid not to know that wax will break if you press too hard."

Eight Comment- "I'm NOT stupid and I resent the implication!"

Ninth Comment- "Call customer service, this isn't the place for this."

Tenth Comment- "I'll just go buy a cheap one from a knock off site if this is the kind of service you get around here."

Eleventh Comment- "Join another group, this one used to be the best and now it's the worst!"

Moderator- "Hello friends, the best thing to do is contact customer service and they will be happy to help! I am going to close comments down so we can get back to sharing cards."

As you can see, the person with the issue got NO help, but now a bunch of people are upset. And we didn't even say a thing! But now people are leaving the group, they are upset and all because this is now how social media works. Today's thread was reported ove 100 times already asking us to shut it down because of how people were treating each other and they were bashing my company and group, when I hadn't even had a chance to read it yet. This is why we turn off commenting or remove a thread. It's not about the wax tip. We can fix that in a minute!

I don't know the right answer. My company owner friends tell me that I am too accessible and that's why this happens. That people have too much access to me. Other companies start groups and you never see them. But I am not going away. I still want to comment on your cards and answer your questions as often as I can. I just hope people will be a little kinder to our moderators when they remove something or turn off comments on something that has gotten completely out of hand. I'm trying to process all of this over my first cup of coffee and I really want to go make some cards. Feel free to add your thoughts. I will read every single one, I promise.