Facebook Groups are getting a redesign and new features

Meta sees competing social networking platforms increasingly gaining the likes of young users, so it wants to gradually refresh Facebook with new features that will keep them in place.

We've already seen sections like Facebook Watch, Stories, Marketplace and Reels added in recent years, but now Facebook Groups are taking over. The company states that the upcoming changes will help users access Groups much faster, make it easier for them to organize if they are involved in a lot, and will find more directly relevant content related to the topics they are interested in, even within the same the Groups.

Later in the year, Facebook will add a sidebar on the left that will include shortcuts to access the user's Groups along with small updates on recent activity on them. At the same time, the user will be able to pin at the top of the list what interests him most, create new Groups and discover new Groups in a much simpler way.

Another change in appearance is the internal menu in each Group, which will give quick access to stores and events related to its theme, but also direct access to the most important new feature, Channels. The latter are quite reminiscent of the Discord platform and are divided into three categories.

Community Chat Channels will allow the user to start real-time chats through Facebook Groups. Community Audio Channels will transfer this communication to voice and / or video calls, while Community Feed Channels are practically mini groups within the Group for even more specialized topics. For example, a Facebook Group might be about bicycles and create a Community Feed for a specific bicycle brand.

Tests for the new look and functionality of Facebook Groups have already begun in small groups of users, while the general launch will take a few months.