Facebook group participation questions: 24 examples that work

Filtering out bots and drive-by joins

These exist to cost a small amount of effort. A bot answers nothing or answers nonsense, and a person who cannot spare eight seconds was never going to post.

Best as: Written answer, short

1. What made you want to join this group today?

   Open, unguessable, and impossible to auto-fill. Blank answers are your first filter.

2. In one word, what do you do?

   Fast to answer and fast to read. You can scan 40 of these in a minute.

3. Type the word “tomato” so I know you read this.

   Blunt, slightly silly, and extremely effective against bulk join scripts.

4. Where did you hear about the group?

   Doubles as attribution. You find out which post or podcast is actually working.

Qualifying for fit

Use these when the group only works if the people in it are roughly the same kind of person. Every answer here is a reason to approve or decline.

Best as: Multiple choice, or short written answer

1. Are you a [practitioner], a [buyer], or just curious?

   Multiple choice. Sorts the room in one click, and gives you a segment column for free.

2. How long have you been doing this? (Under a year / 1 to 3 years / 3 years or more)

   Experience level tells you what to post. It also tells you who to ask for a guest slot.

3. What is the single biggest thing getting in your way right now?

   The highest-value question on this page. The answers are your content calendar in the members' own words.

4. Which best describes your setup? (Solo / Small team / Agency / Enterprise)

   Segment on the way in. Retrofitting this later means asking everyone again.

5. Do you currently use [category of tool]? If so, which one?

   Tells you what your members compare you against, months before you would otherwise find out.

6. Are you here to learn, to share what you know, or both?

   Identifies the handful of people who will actually post. Follow up with those personally.

Capturing the email address

Spend one of your three questions here. The wording matters more than any tool you attach afterwards: name what arrives, say how often, and let people skip it.

Best as: Written answer

1. What’s the best email for you? I’ll send the [specific thing] straight away, then one short post a week. Leave it blank if you’d rather just read the group.

   The full version. A promise, a frequency, and an exit. The exit is what keeps fake addresses out.

2. Where should I send the [template / checklist / recording]? Members only, nothing else goes to that address.

   Good when the deliverable is the whole reason people joined.

3. Email address for the weekly [niche] roundup. Optional, and one email a week is the whole thing.

   Sets the ceiling on frequency in the question itself, which makes the first send easy to write.

4. I keep the group’s resources in one place. Add your email if you want the link, or skip this.

   Lowest-pressure version. Fewer addresses, and the ones you get are unusually engaged.

Rules, agreements and the people who ignore them

The checkbox question exists so that the day you remove someone, the record of what they agreed to already exists.

Best as: Checkbox agreement

1. Have you read the group rules, and do you agree to them?

   The standard. Set it as a required checkbox rather than a written answer.

2. This group has no promotion outside the Friday thread. Agreed?

   Naming the specific rule people break gets a better result than a general agreement.

3. Do you understand that adding members to your own list or DMing them will get you removed?

   Direct, ugly, and it noticeably reduces the number of times it happens.

Learning something you can use later

If you have a spare question, spend it on something that changes what you do rather than something that is merely interesting.

Best as: Written answer or multiple choice

1. What would make this group worth checking every week for you?

   A brief for the group, written by the people you are writing it for.

2. What’s one question you would ask the group right now?

   Seeds the feed. Post the good ones yourself in the first week and the group stops looking empty.

3. Which topic do you want most? (Pick one: A / B / C)

   Multiple choice, so it aggregates. Three months of answers is a real content plan.

4. What’s your website or where do you publish?

   Identifies the people worth collaborating with, and quietly flags the pure self-promoters.

5. City or time zone?

   Only worth asking if you run calls or meetups. Otherwise it is a wasted slot.

6. Anything I should know before I approve you?

   A catch-all. Most leave it blank. The ones who do not are usually worth reading.

Questions people ask

How many membership questions can a Facebook group ask?

Three. That is the cap, which is why each one has to earn its slot. A common split is one filtering question, one qualifying question, and one that asks for the email address.

Should membership questions be required?

Make the rules checkbox required and leave the email question optional. A required email field produces more fake addresses than real ones, because people who do not want to give an address still want into the group.

Do multiple choice questions work better than written ones?

They aggregate, which written answers do not. If you intend to count the answers or filter a spreadsheet by them, use multiple choice. If you want to read them and learn something, use a written answer. Most groups want one of each.

Can I change the questions later?

Yes, and you should. Change one at a time so you can see the effect, and note the date you changed it. Answers collected under the old wording mean something different from answers collected under the new one, which matters if the question was the consent for an email address.

Do I lose the answers after approving someone?

Yes. The answers sit on the pending request card only. Once you approve or decline, they are not stored anywhere you can reach, which is why the answers need copying or capturing before you act on the request.

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