Facebook Pages can now join Facebook Groups

Your Facebook Page can now join members-only Facebook Groups.

In a new setting update spotted by social media aficionado Matt Navarra, Facebook is now going to let Pages on the site interact with communities through Facebook Groups.

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Within Facebook Group settings, a new option has popped up for group owners that enables them to “allow Pages to request to join as group members.” Previously, only personal profiles could join Facebook Groups and post and comment within them.

“We've heard from people that engaging with public figures, non-profits, publishers, and businesses in a more intimate setting can be meaningful,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. “We previously launched the ability for Pages to start Facebook Groups so that they can engage with their communities. We are now testing the ability for Pages to join existing Facebook Groups as well.”

As Facebook points out, there are a number of Facebook Page types that really stand to benefit from this change. For one, there are actors, musicians, politicians and all other sorts of celebrities and public figures who use Facebook Pages as their main account. Some might not make their personal Facebook profiles public. Others might not even have a personal profile at all.

Before this change, various public figures and brands could have been prohibited from interacting with their fans or supporters within Facebook Groups. Now that Pages can join groups, Facebook might soon see verified Pages with millions of “likes” interact on a more personal level within Groups.

Page owners using the Page itself in Facebook Group can now also possibly see an uptick in likes due to these interactions as opposed to friend requests on their personal profiles from users they may barely even know. Page owners can now build the brand they properly want to use within Groups instead of being forced to use personal profiles which Facebook requires a real name to use.

With the positives from these changes, there’s bound to be some negatives, too. Hiding behind a random Page name as opposed to your real name on a profile is bound to lead to some abuse. And Facebook seems to have prepared for that. Facebook tells me that Group administrators can turn off the option allowing Pages to join their Facebook Group. Admins can also ban Pages just as if they were any other group member.

All Facebook Group administrators will soon be informed of this brand new feature. Enabling Pages to join Groups will be the platform wide Group default. Group admins will also be told how to turn the setting off.

Facebook appears to be taking its Groups feature more seriously in recent months. Along with the options for Facebook Pages to both join and create Groups, earlier this summer Facebook announced a Group subscription plan option, allowing some Groups to charge members for access.