A little over a year ago, I brought over the GIO a family FB private group that was 5 yrs old.
Here's what I did:
Announced closure and all stopped posting
Opened up GIO group and all joined.?
Gave everyone 45 days to download a copy (FB will send it to you upon request) of everything they wanted.?
Removed everything from the FB Group (Including members), waited about a month or so and then deleted the group.
Kept FB account open so I didn't loose account control (FB owns content and search results can populate "deleted" FB sites and accounts for years).?
I can't recall what file type the FB posts were exported to me. I want to think it was HTML or PDF which I have retained as an archived file for our GIO group.?
You mentioned it was a health related FB group. If your friend has a public FB group or is using the account to host postings from others, one question she needs to answer is whether or not she is concerned about the information "left on FB" after suspending or deleting it. She might want to embed a link to the new GIO group so people can find her.
Since health care posts can be very personal at times, if it were my group, I wouldn't want to take responsibility for bringing FB posts over to GIO. I would announce closure and give each poster time to request their own FB download archive. I would start fresh on GIO. People tend post a question they want answered. They don't search through years of archived posts to locate answers. Perhaps bring the relavent FB files and photos to GIO.?
FB servers refresh content periodically. A deceased friend has about 10 FB "impersonated" accounts, all looking the same and reporting them to FB hasn't led to their removal. I deleted a FB business page and it's still viewable now 2 years later. I can still find a FB page that was "deleted" 7 yrs ago by another person to point to the same business. It contains erroneous contact information which confuses people who search for the business now. FB servers have retained the content somehow. It's frustrating and I and others have contacted FB, no solution.
FB pages aren't the same as FB groups but the point I am making is that FB servers may or may not retain data you "left behind" when deleting a group, page or account. FB retains full control over posted content. When you delete a FB account the only thing you are really doing is to remove your access to managing the content. If you don't want old content "out there", it can't hurt to actually delete all of your posted content and keep the account open for a period of time so that the FB servers can refresh a couple of time and theoretically replace the prior posted data with zilch.?
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Sandi Dickenson
Moderator of ASG Volunteers Group
Laurence Marks
Frances