If you're not growing a Facebook group to grow your audience AND your business, then you'll want to seriously consider
DO this now. More specifically, you'll want to go beyond creating and growing a Facebook group
—you'll want a THRIVING COMMUNITY around your message and your business.
There are massive BENEFITSto having a Facebook group that includes:
- Having a cozy place online to build your own community with a more exact audience than your Facebook page.
- Creating real connections with people interested in your work.
- Growing your email list!
- Using your Facebook group to conduct market research before diving into product/service creation. This gives way to serving your community even better!
- Giving space for you to show up authentically and more intimately with your group members boosting your trust factor and be recognized as an authority in your niche.
- Facebook groups have SUPER potential to help you earn more money.
[click_to_tweet tweet="A quality Facebook group isn't just a place to hang out. Asking people to invest their time in your group means you must also deliver why it benefits them to join it." quote="A quality Facebook group isn't just a place to hang out. Asking people to invest their time in your group means you must also deliver why it benefits them to join it." theme="style5"]
Mastering a thriving Facebook group requires consistentnurturing and attention to its growth in addition to delivering value. You have to provide a very good reason for members to stay involved in your Facebook group, otherwise, you're just wasting time.
Facebook Page Before Facebook Group:
A good group first requires a growing and thriving Facebook page, FIRST. This means you are ACTIVELY delivering value to work with the Facebook algorithms to grab the attention and interest of your audience. When your page is growing, then your group will grow to.
Link your Facebook page to the Facebook group associated with your page:
Create a link on your website menu directing traffic back to your group (you can also add it to your sidebar:
Include a link in the footer of your email, your (other) social media profiles (like Instagram), and invite them to your group by way of Facebook posts and a personal invitation via a Facebook LIVE on your business page!
Build A Thriving Community:
Mastering a THRIVING Facebook Group goes beyond inviting and growing the group. Consider the following for your Facebook group:
- An inviting (and branded) banner
- A mission statement for the group (why did you create it for your community?)
- A welcome message for new members (using the tagging ability by clicking the button 'Write Post" available for group administrators .
- A set of CLEAR guidelines for group members to follow and include a link to the guidelines with each welcome message.
- Ask a series of questions to prospective group members in your Facebook group settings. For example, I run my group, Grow Your Followers , to help you grow your Facebook page and share your work and message. A pre-requisite to joining my group, I ask for the name of your Facebook page. This is a small buffer to entry, and lets me know in advance who is serious about belonging to the group.
- Create and select a featured image on your personal Facebook profile for everyone to see and include a link to your Facebook group.
- Stay active in your group (at least weekly) and deliver value. You can drive traffic to your blogs, your poster images, host a watch party, show up in a Facebook LIVE , host weekly threads, pose provocative questions, and/or host 5 to 7-day challenges that promote learning opportunities for them to experience your EXPERTISE leading the group to your special offer.
Your Facebook group is an ASSET to your business, helping you drive traffic to your site and to your funnels. The key is to remain active and committed to the mission and guidelines you've set. As soon as you lose sight of the mission and guidelines, then members who came in supporting it will quickly lose interest if they can't rely on you as a leader in the group. PLEASE…ready this paragraph again and if you find yourself wondering about the time to admin a group —then get help. Ask group members to volunteer to help you moderate it or hire someone who can support you.
Standards and Controversy:
Trust in your mission and adjust where necessary but NEVER become a people pleaser to your members (this is very different than being of service).
- Set a scheduled time daily or weekly when you choose to connect and engage with your group members (and don't get into a habit of replying to every notification instantly, you have important work do to do!).
- Give value always, but also be good about setting boundaries with those who drain your energy and whose intention is merely to take, take, take (you know who they are). Remove them from the group.
- What makes you different from your colleagues in your industry? What is commonly accepted as truth, and where do you see it differently? Share it in the group and get the dialogue going with group members. This is by far the best teaching tool that also helps you show up as a trusted leader. Please…DON'T BE AFRAID to lose members of your group over this. Controversy is good at attracting who resonates with your message and removing those who aren't meant to be your ideal clients (saving everyone time).
Gratitude and Special Offers:
The more you engage with your Facebook group the more you can express gratitude for their active participation, feedback, and support. This provides an awesome opportunity to supplement the gratitude with free offers and specials. Make these offers special just for them and not available anywhere else. Treat your community with the love and special care it deserves and they'll stick around because they won't want to miss a thing!
Experience Counts:
What your group experiences with you will count the most. Show up authentically and deliver value and you will grow a tribe that trusts you above all.
Facebook groups offer the opportunity to grow a community around your product or service. Their experience with you will determine continued investment (or not) with you.
Why Facebook Groups?
Ahhhh…. the most important question when Instagram, snapchat, and Pinterest are on the rise. If you're in an industry that offers a program or service like coaching… you can't ignore Facebook(in spite of how fast other social media sites are growing). It's NOT about what platform is hot right now. It's about knowing where your ideal market resides and meeting them there !
YES… absolutely have a presence on all social media platforms (that's smart to do), but then decide where most of your social media marketing effort and energy is best applied.
To date, Facebook (and especially Facebook Groups) give way to building thriving communities and strong relationships better than any other platform.
Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. ~Mark Cuban
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