Facebook groups are a prime target for spammers.  Unfortunately, no matter what you do, there is still a good chance that one will get into your group and post spam.  Below are our top tips for preventing them, and then what to do when one does enter your group.

The best way to prevent spammers to set up questions for people to join your group.  Ideally your questions are not answered by simple yes or no answers as a common method spammers use is simply answer “yes” to each question.  For my groups I like to ask the following questions:

1. What are the ports of call on this sailing?
2. How many Disney cruises have you been on and what is your Castaway status?
3. What is your favorite character?

That doesn’t always get them, but it does get the majority of them.  

The next step is looking at their profile and seeing how many groups they are in and how long they have been on Facebook.  Typically people with new accounts aren’t real people.  Those that are in thousands of groups, if they answer the questions right, I’d keep an eye on.  But if they answer them wrong, just decline them.

So they got into the group and then started posting links to buy a shirt or a sailpak bundle or my personal favorite, offering air duct cleaning.  What do you?

The first thing is to remove the post and ban the member from the group.  No warnings.  It’s not worth it.  

The second thing you should do is go to our facebook group and leave a comment in the pinned post of the name of the spammer and what they were trying to sell.  Then people have a resource in the future they can check if someone asking doesn’t pass the vibe check.