How do I find and join a Facebook group?

Well, I can't tell you if a given group is going to be good or not, that's up to you, but I can show you how to dig around in their group structure, research group membership, and join groups that look like they might be of interest.

If you know the name of a group, it's really easy: on the top left is a search box. Just type in the name of the group there:

In this case, I'll be searching for the SupportSpace group, a Facebook group for people interested in SupportSpace, a very cool new venue for finding and offering tech support.

Press Enter or Return after you've typed in the group name and it'll come up with one or more matches that give you a variety of details:

(if you want to hack things, you can also create a simple search query and add links to your own page or profile to let people find groups on specific topics or related. The URL you need to use is exemplified by the following:

just remember to replace "supportspace" with whatever word or words (separated by "+", not space!) you'd prefer)

At this point you can see that there are two matching groups, but the first one looks like it wasn't completely set up and appears to have no members. The second is what we seek and you'll notice it already has 12 members. More importantly, notice that proper groups have "officers" or other people who are designated as being in charge: if you aren't sure about the legitimacy of a particular group, that's where you should check.

Before I join, however, I'll click on "View Group" to see if there's more information:

Looks legit enough! I can either back up and click on "Join Group" on the previous page, or, on this page, just below the logo (not shown in the screen capture above) is the link "Join This Group". Click on it and you'll get a confirmation dialog:

Click "Join" and you're in! Well, I'm in. You're welcome to join too, if you'd like. :-)

Before I wrap this up, I want to highlight that on your home page on Facebook, instead of doing a search, you can also simply click on "Groups" (see the first screen capture in this article) and dig around from there. Don't be surprised if, like MySpace, you find a ton of matching groups for your search on Facebook. A search for "iPhone", for example, produces over 500 matches. Sheesh!

If you'd like to learn how to create your own Facebook group, please don't miss my earlier tutorial how to create your own facebook group and, generally, there's lots of Facebook Help here too.