List of the largest Facebook Groups, and the difference between 'I am a fan of' and 'I am a member of'

I recently tried to write a top 10 of Facebook Groups. In the absence of an official Facebook chart my post tried to list the Facebook groups with the most members. My original post is here: http://www.nickburcher.com/2007/10/biggest-largest-groups-on-facebook.html

Since writing this post I have become aware of a number of other monster groups! So here is my second list of the biggest groups on Facebook!

Details are below:

1) 'Let’s set and break a Guiness Record!!!! Approved by guinnessworldrecords.com'
2,011,334 members to date and growing very quickly – I guess this will end up breaking some sort of record, just a shame there is so little point to it! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7888220844

2) 'They are trying to shut down Facebook – petition to keep it! Invite all! ' This group is based around the action that ConnectU have been trying to take against Facebook over intellectual property rights. I’m not sure how much a Facebook Group would influence a judges decision, but 1,633,702 think that joining this group will help in some way. It has also inspired a whole range of imitation / sub-groups. The group can be seen at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2808848431

3) '1,000,000 strong for Stephen T Colbert' - US TV satirist has his own Facebook group – people are instructed to join this group if they 'love watching the Colbert report.' Not sure what it is exactly for, but 1,483,214 have joined so far.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7406420086

4) 'If you remember this you grew up in the 90’s' – featuring a massive list of things that you will remember, 1,258,379 members have signed up to join in!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204285338

5) 'Let’s set a Guiness Record!!!!' Same principle as the Guinness group above and the same misspelling of Guinness! Membership seems to have been dropping but still had 737,485 members when I checked tonight! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2328213900

6) 'I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!' Losing the bet at the moment as only 703,756 have signed up! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5022036305

7)'I Don’t care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass' – “they’re like shoes, only……well…….repulsive.” 676,483 people agree and have joined up to make their feelings felt! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204667614

8) 'Facebook will be forced to shutdown in 20 days! Join and save it!' Believe this was one of the original Facebook petitions. Haven’t been able to find it recently, but the last time I saw it there were 632,374 members who believed that signing up to this would somehow be able to influence a judge if Facebook was sued!

9) 'I secretly want to punch slow walking people in the back of the head' – started in Louisiana by someone called Kaz Kean, this group seems to have struck a chord with people across the world and 612,331 have signed up to date! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2208419959

10) 'No I don’t care if I die at 12AM, I refuse to pass on your chain letter' – don’t expect the 409,241 members to be passing anything on for you! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2211022716

There is an interesting contrast between the numbers joining groups and the numbers fanning (is that the correct verb nowadays?) Facebook Ad pages. Certain user generated groups have grown by hundreds of thousands in a matter of days, compared to some of the corporate pages - eg Microsoft still only have a handful of fans.

This is a very good illustration of the difference between traditional media and Web 2.0. The first is about passive consumption ('entertain me'), the latter is about active participation ('I make my own entertainment.') Brands need to think very carefully before charging into the social network space and ensure they are offering something useful / relevant. Users won't go back to a page that just has a big logo and a 'founded in' date. Likewise they don't want brands taking over their personal spaces (unless there is something for them in return.)

There are 'car crash' examples of projects that have gone wrong all over the internet (P Diddy and Burger King, Wal-marting Across America etc) and I'm sure there are others out there.......

Let me know if you find any groups I have missed or examples of advertisers getting it wrong!

Other posts about Facebook:

Facebook usage statistics: http://www.nickburcher.com/2008/03/latest-facebook-usage-statistics.html

Largest groups on Facebook (part one):
http://www.nickburcher.com/2007/10/biggest-largest-groups-on-facebook.html

Largest fan pages on Facebook:
http://www.nickburcher.com/2008/05/list-of-largest-facebook-fan-pages-with.html