How to Extract & Save Facebook Group Members to a Google Sheet?

With over 1.8 billion monthly users, Facebook groups have become one of the popular mediums to connect, learn, and share information with people who have similar interests. However, only a few people know that Facebook groups are an ideal source to build a lead database. They can help businesses to find prospects, contact members of your rival groups, or search through thematic groups. The only issue is that Facebook groups are often full of students, interns, and other individuals you don't want to target, so scraping them will yield a large number of low-quality leads.

This is a detailed blog post that explains the simplest and easiest process for extracting Facebook group members and saving them to a Google sheet.

What Do You Mean by Extracting Facebook Group Member Data?

The meaning of extracting Facebook group member data is collecting publicly available member information, such as user names, profile links, join dates, and more. This is a systematic process that you need to follow manually. Some useful ways to extract group members data are Facebook scrapers and automated APIs.

The extracted Google sheet containing Facebook group members' data can be used by:

• Social media marketers: Social media marketers always build their communities and reach out to audiences. However, they lack the time to create a report. Social media marketers have to spend dedicated hours researching content their audience likes.
• Data analysts: Data Analysts can use the extracted Facebook group members Google sheet to unlock audience demographics, interests, and engagement patterns. Whether they want to find potential leads, track competitor communities, or perform targeted segmentation, this Google sheet will fulfill all their needs.
• Sales team and recruiters: The Extracted Facebook group member sheet can be used by the sales team to generate leads from interest-based groups. Recruiters, on the other hand, can also use such a Google sheet to find applicants from industry-specific communities.

How to Have Members of a Facebook Group in a Google Sheet?

Follow the instructions below to effectively extract and export your group member data for various objectives.

Step 1: Setup Facebook App

First of all, visit Facebook for Developers. Now create an App and generate both App ID and App Secret. After this, add Facebook Graph API permissions pages_read_engagement and groups_access_member_info.

Step 2: User Access Token

Use the Graph API Explorer.

You need to authenticate with your Facebook account as a group admin. Request your scopes group_access, groups_access_member_info, user_groups, according to your needs.

Step 3: Install Python library

You need to install Python library by writing the following code in the terminal.

pip install requests pandas.

Step 4: Graph API to Get Group Members

Now write the following Python script in your desired language:

import requests
import pandas as pd
ACCESS_TOKEN = 'your-access-token'
GROUP_ID = 'your-facebook-group-id'
BASE_URL = f'https://graph.facebook.com/v17.0/{GROUP_ID}/members'
 params = {
    'access_token': ACCESS_TOKEN,
    'fields': 'id,name'
}
 
members = []
while True:
    response = requests.get(BASE_URL, params=params)
	data = response.json()
 	if 'data' in data:
        members.extend(data['data'])
	if 'paging' in data and 'next' in data['paging']:
        BASE_URL = data['paging']['next']
        params = {}  # next URL has token included
	else:
        break
# Save to CSV
df = pd.DataFrame(members)
df.to_csv('facebook_group_members.csv', index=False)
print("Data saved to facebook_group_members.csv")

Step 5: Handle Pagination and Rate Limits

As Facebook limits no of requests per user, you need to use backoff to prevent request blocks.

Step 6: Analyse Data

You need to manually send data to a Google sheet. After this, you have to analyse the data you received.

Optional Code to Export to Google Sheet

The following is optional code that helps you to export extracted Facebook group members data to Google sheet:

import gspread
from oauth2client.service_account import ServiceAccountCredentials
# Setup credentials
scope = ['https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds',
         'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive']
creds = ServiceAccountCredentials.from_json_keyfile_name('credentials.json', scope)
client = gspread.authorize(creds)
 # Create sheet and upload data
sheet = client.create('Facebook Group Members')
worksheet = sheet.get_worksheet(0)
worksheet.insert_rows(df.values.tolist(), 2)

Challenges in Extracting and Saving Group Members to Google Sheet

Limitations and Privacy Policy

Facebook uses strict privacy policies. It restricts accessing personal information of a user, i.e., email. Updation of Facebook privacy and terms of use can cause difficulty in extracting member data.

Admin Access Required

If you are an admin, then and then you will be able to access and export group member data. People other than the admin cannot see member information.

Incomplete or Inaccurate Data

Many Facebook group members provide incomplete profile information. That is why scrapping those groups will provide you with inaccurate information.

Account Suspension Risk

Extracting group member data frequently can trigger Facebook’s security algorithm. It may lead to either warnings, restricted features, or sometimes account suspension.

Member Consent and Ethical Concerns

Exporting Facebook group members’ details, like email, without permission, can raise ethical concerns. In many cases, this can violate data protection regulations.

What are Other Ways to Extract & Save Facebook Group Members to a Google Sheet?

There are numerous ways to extract and save Facebook group members to a Google Sheet. The usual way to do this is to use a combination of browser extensions, automation tools, or to develop a customer script. Popular methods involve extracting the group members using dedicated tools and then exporting them to your desired file, such as CSV, Excel. You can manually export the file to Google Sheets after exportation is complete. Alternatively, you can also utilize some browser extensions to directly extract and save Facebook group members to a Google Sheet.

Tips for Extracting Facebook Group Members

Facebook group member extraction is not limited to just automation. It needs some smart practices. Follow the steps below to extract Facebook group data ethically, efficiently, and safely.

Step 1: Select Your Group

First, you have to select the Facebook group for which you are in charge.

Step 2: Setup Google Sheets Integration

The second step is to setup Google Sheets integration before extracting group members.

Step 3: Customization

Customize Personal information like name, profile URL, email response to inquiries, joining date, and so on according to your needs.

Step 4: Add Delays Between Two Actions

You have to add delays between any actions to prevent triggering Facebook’s anti-bot detection.

Step 5: Labeling Column

You can keep data organized by labeling columns in a Google sheet.

Step 6: Follow CCPA/GDPR Laws

Never extract private Facebook groups without permission. Respect CCPA/GDPR laws.

Step 7: Cross-Check Member Profile

Extracted data can be enhanced by cross-checking the member profile on any CRM tool or professional social networking platforms like LinkedIn.

Benefits of Extracting Facebook Group Member Data

• Scraping Facebook Group Data will give you email and contact details of users that can be used to produce a targeted email list.
• You can get complete insight into the preferences and behaviour of users.
• You will be able to understand competitor activities and engagement strategies within Facebook groups.
• Scraping Facebook group data can help you craft personalized campaigns that resonate with specific niches.

Is it legal to scrape Facebook Groups data?

You have to extract only publicly available Facebook groups. It is not ethical to extract private data of users such as email, gender, mobile number, location, and more. However, there are high chance that your group extraction process may provide personal data. It is good practice not to scrape anyone’s personal data unless you have a good reason to do this.

Final Words

Extracting and saving Facebook Group members can turn it into business gold. When it is done ethically, it can generate leads, conduct market research, and build a good community. Facebook groups are commonplace for building communities, starting discussions, and sharing information on a specific topic.

Want to scrape any Facebook group for analysis, research, or business leads? Scraping Intelligence has advanced ethical scraping methods. Such a company can help your business by providing clickable insights about group members, such as name, profile, and other text, to achieve your business goal.

Share this article: