Do you know what gets 10 times the engagement of a Facebook Page?
A Facebook Group.
If you’re still using Facebook Pages, welcome to 2020, where Facebook GROUPS are the way to win new customers and make sales.
I’m about to show you how to get people to automatically want to join your group, how to grow your email list and how to get your group members to tell you want they want to BUY from you, too.
Here are 25 rapid fire tips to help you master any Facebook group you're using for business.
1: Invite Them to Join Your Group Right Away
When someone comes to your website, send them to your ‘start here’ page. Give them a little bit of an introduction, and then immediately invite them to join your community on Facebook, a group of friendly members who are all there to help each other succeed.
Give them the link with the words, “Click here to request to join.”
Or right after they subscribe to your email list, ask them to join your Facebook Group.
If you’re doing a promotion of some kind, maybe step 1 is to share the promotion on Twitter or LinkedIn, and step 2 is to join the group.
You get the idea – make it easy, invite them early and often, and tell them why they want to join you group.
2: Invite Them Again
Place an invitation at the end of your emails in the signature section.
Place it in forum signatures and any and everywhere else that it’s appropriate.
3: Create an Effective Link
Create a link that is YourWebsite.com/community to take people to your Facebook Group to join.
Why not use the word “Group” or “FBGroup” instead of “Community?”
Because a community implies a sense of connection and belonging – two things people crave.
4: Sprinkle that Link EVERY Where
Do you have your own podcast? Mention the link. Are you a guest on someone else’s podcast or webinar? Mention the link.
Social media? Use the link.
Hand out your Group Link like a business card. Or like candy. Or both.
5: Link Your Groups Together
If you have multiple Facebook Groups, link them together like this:
- Go to a different group than the one you want to promote
- Go to ‘more’
- Click on ‘link existing group,’
- Then type in the group your linking and hit ‘link’
Now it will say that the Group Admin recommends this other Group
6: Feature a Group Member Outside of the Group
Choose someone inside your Group to feature in a blogpost, podcast, video, social media, or wherever you like.
This lets people know that there’s a community they can join, and that you’re featuring people from there, giving them free publicity.
7: Get Personal
Write personal messages to the top contributors in your group.
To find them, go to your Group and click on “Group Insights.” Click on “members” and you’ll see a list of the top contributors, how many posts they've created and even the comments they've made.
Send them a personal message THANKING them. In most cases you will totally make their day. They’ll feel the warm fuzzies and they’ll want to contribute even more to the Group.
8: Share the Prestige
Choose some of your top contributors to be moderators.
By giving your top people authority to moderate, they can help you control the spam and police the trolls.
They can also remove and delete posts, as well as approving new members into the group.
Perhaps best of all, it rewards your top contributors and allows them to feel chosen and special. This takes work off of your shoulders and creates ‘superfans’ who have your back and know they are part of your team.
9: Share Exclusive Content
Show them stuff behind the scenes that no one else gets to see. Make them feel like they're a part of something special and exclusive.
You might show them your process, what you’re working on, or give them info or stories that you share with no one else online.
Tell them what you're dealing with right now, and even go live and share something important about yourself or your business.
You might also give them first looks at a new product you have in development, and even get feedback on it, too.
If you’re writing a book, share a chapter with them, or a first look at the cover. People want to feel like they are on the ‘inside,’ and they’re interested in the processes that bring things to fruition, too.
And they even love hearing about the mistakes you’ve made and what you learned from them – maybe even more so than hearing about your triumphs.
10: Ask for Their Help
People love to be asked for their opinion and advice. Maybe you’re working on something and you have multiple options – share those options with your group members and see what they think.
Are you designing a logo or book cover? Show them the options and ask which one they like, and why.
Are you debating between two courses of action? Let them know and ask for their advice.
These will likely be some of the most active posts you make, as people get involved and talking, weighing in with their own thoughts and ideas.
And they can be tremendously helpful for you, too, by providing insights and ideas you never even thought of before.
11: Share Short, Highly Actionable Info
Post things that can be consumed quite quickly but yield powerful results.
For example, the exact formula you use to create a winning product.
Or the 3 questions you ask every single outsourcer that guarantees great results.
Or the 8 words that reduce refunds by 50%.
Post something super quick and easy for people to take action on and get results that make them happy.
And by the way, this is a great way to turn your members into raving fans, too.
12: Do a Monthly Survey
Again, people love to give their opinion, so why not give them a poll or survey now and then?
This can help you to better understand your audience, who they are and what they want.
It’s also a great way to inject some humor as well. Make a couple of your possible answers silly, funny or even ridiculous.
And make the last question fill in the blank, to invite their creativity and insights.
Stuck for questions?
How about…
What is the one thing that is driving you crazy about ___?
What is one small secret about your experience with ___ that you have never told anyone?
If you could choose any small superpower that would change your business for the better, what would it be?
What’s the stupidest advice you’ve ever heard in this niche? What was the best advice?
To create a poll, under the status area click “poll.” You can add different options, then click “post” and you're done.
13: Start a Discussion
One of the reasons why groups are better than pages is because of the discussions. And if you choose something that has some controversy behind it, you can get a lot of people talking.
How controversial you want to get is entirely up to you.
I once saw a debate that raged on for three days on social media, about what was better: Smooth or chunky peanut butter.
I can’t imagine anyone’s feelings were hurt during this great debate, but there sure were a lot of opinions.
14: Pop a Quiz
With a poll you’re looking for opinions.
But with a quiz you’re looking for specific answers.
Maybe you pose a riddle or a question, giving a scenario and asking what the answer is. Don’t make it too easy, but don’t make it so hard that nobody gets it, either.
People love to shout out the answers to those game shows on television, and a quiz in your Facebook Group should garner plenty of responses, too.
15: Go Live
Have a regular schedule of going live. It will do wonders for connecting with your group and increasing your authority with your members. Pick a specific topic or maybe just go on to say hello and answer questions.
To go live, go into your group and click live video.
Start your live video by acknowledging the replay viewers, so they feel welcomed, too, when they see the video later. Then talk to your live viewers, say hi and just be yourself.
16: Spam Day
This one is a little strange, but it works. You can go a long way towards controlling the spam in the group by letting it all happen in one post on one day.
Choose a day of the week where you give your members total permission to promote whatever they want to promote. You’ll make a post just for this.
Once you have a lot of members, you’ll find there are hundreds of comments in there. It gets people to talk and communicate, which is a wonderful thing because the more engagement there is, the more likely members are to see your posts in their news-feed.
It gives your folks a chance to promote what they’re working on, which makes them feel good and might even send them a little traffic.
And when they post on any other day, it’s easy to give them a warning and let them know that you do allow them to do this on that one day you’ve chosen, which makes them more receptive to not posting spam the other six days of the week.
If you see certain kinds of spam in this weekly post – things that just don’t belong in your group – get rid of those posts right away.
By training your audience to promote their own stuff only in a specific place and day, it makes it easy to clean up the rest of the group.
17: Automate
Choose a tool to post automatically on Facebook and even Twitter and other places, too.
MeetEdgar and Buffer are both good, and there are dozens of others to choose from.
The more you can automate, the more time you have for other things.
Realize you can’t automate everything, since social media is supposed to be social. You do need to respond and interact.
But there are posts you can plan for and have the software take care of it for you.
18: Educate on Notifications
You want to show members how they can get notified when new posts are up in the group.
You might create a video for this or show a screenshot with an arrow. Have them click on the notifications box that's right under the cover art, and then click on highlights. They can choose if they want all posts or just ones from friends.
And they can even click the off button, too if they want to.
Adjusting notifications allows the posts they want from this group to be shown in their news-feed.
On a mobile device they need to look for the blue check-mark to the left, underneath the cover art, or they can click on the information bar or icon at the top right and then hit notification settings from there.
19: Be Open and Honest
This one is maybe so obvious, I don’t have to spell it out, but I will anyway just in case.
You always want to be honest and authentic with your members. It’s even okay to be vulnerable with them as well.
We all love to connect with other people in general, but we especially love to connect with people who are real.
Don't be afraid to be open, to talk about the tough times, to just be honest and authentic. Doing this is going to take you a very long way when it comes to them seeing you as a leader.
And of course, never speak down to your members. Speak on the same level and even ask them for help if needed.
They're going to respect you a lot more for that.
20: Use Group Insights
Facebook collects a ton of data on our members and luckily, they share some of it with us.
To get access to this data, just go to your group and click “group insights” on the left-hand side.
It's going to tell you a few things such as how many new members you've gotten, how many posts and comments and reactions and so forth. But the most important thing here is the member details on the right-hand side.
Click on that and you'll see a list of the top contributors which you may recognize from earlier.
Scroll down and you're going to get some good demographic data such as age and gender, and also geographical data such as top countries and top cities.
This can be especially useful if you’re doing Facebook advertising, since it is giving you a very good idea of who to target. You get key insight on who is actually interested in your group and how to find more of those people.
21: Content Polls
You’re going to create another poll, but this time it’s not on a random topic. Your one goal with this poll is to understand more about what your audience needs and wants.
Give them a choice of topics for your next live training.
This will not only tell you what topics they’re interested in – it will also tell you what topics they’re NOT interested in.
You can use this information to help you choose which product to make next.
One time I was all set to create a new product on a certain topic, but when I did a poll to see what kinds of training my group wanted, that particular topic received almost no votes.
That little poll saved me from creating a product that my members simply weren’t interested in, which was almost as valuable to me as finding out what they did want to learn.
22: Crowdsource Information
You can collect information from your members that you can use elsewhere.
For example, you might ask for case studies, testimonials, success stories, tips and even resources they found especially helpful.
I once asked my group what was the best product they had purchased in the last six months. I was astonished to find that a large number of them said the same thing, and yet it was a product I had never taken notice of before.
I ordered a copy, loved it and started promoting it, banking an extra $4,300 over the next month from that one product recommendation.
I’ve also gotten some of my very best testimonials from my Group, as well as hot tips that I’ve expanded upon and then posted back onto the Group, using them in a lead magnet and a product, too.
It’s amazing what the collective minds of your group can offer you, if you only ask.
23: Create Events for Launches
You’ve got a product coming out, or a book or some type of event.
To get your members to join you for this event and even help support it, create an event.
Go to events on the left-hand side of your group and then click on “create event.” Fill out the information, include an image, and start creating buzz.
It will also send out a notification at the time at which this event is about to happen.
24: Grow Your Email List
While you can utilize your Facebook group to grow your email list, I realize that some folks might wonder why you should bother.
After all, you’re getting fabulous interaction with your group. There’s plenty of activity and communication and it's thriving which is fantastic.
But you still want the email for a couple of reasons.
Email is a great personal one to one way to communicate with somebody, especially if you're promoting something or sharing something important, because it goes directly into their inbox.
And while Groups are great, what happens if Facebook changes the rules for the groups? What if they throttle how often people see your messages, just like they did with pages?
And what if Facebook goes away altogether? Not likely, but definitely possible.
In that case, at least if you have your email list. You have a list of people who are interested in what it is that you're doing, and you could setup shop somewhere else.
This is why growing your email list is one of the most important things that you could do.
One more thing – the more people see your name, the more you are remembered, the easier it is to sell to them. If they have contact with you in your Facebook Group and in their inbox, you become someone even more familiar to them, and familiarity breeds trust.
25: New Member Questions
You can ask questions to members before you let them into your group.
You setup these questions ahead of time so that you can collect answers from people before they get access to the group.
To do this, go to your group, click on ‘more’ and then click “edit group settings.”
Some sample questions you might ask are:
- How did you find this group?
- What's your biggest struggle when it comes to building your online business?
- Which of the following best describes your situation?
- I want to start an online business
- I have an online business but I’m struggling to make it profitable
- I have an online business and it’s doing great, but I want to grow it even bigger
The first question tells you where your traffic is coming from, which also tells you where to focus your attention to get even more traffic.
The second question is important because that's how you find out what they need.
And the third question tells you if you should address your content mainly to brand new marketers, marketers with some experience or seasoned marketers who want to grow their business even bigger.
There you have it – 25 tips for growing, managing and scaling your Facebook Group to get more engagement and grow your business.
