Most of us, when we think of Facebook groups, vaguely recall one that we were added to a while ago. Some of these groups are very active, while some have been long forgotten in the progression of our social media usage. Whether or not you personally enjoy Facebook groups, you might want to consider creating a Facebook group for your business.
Why, you might ask? Groups can be a great way to form a personal connection with your customers and potential customers. Humanizing your brand is an excellent way to promote it and with so many brands showing themselves as very available and personable on social media, you need to keep your brand on the cutting edge as well.
So, if you’re thinking of creating a Facebook group for your brand, here are 6 simple ways to make it work:
Create the Right Group
To begin with, you need to have clear idea on what exactly the group is for. Is it a place for customers to ask questions and get them answered; for customers to speak to other customers, discussion-style, or are you starting the group to receive feedback on your brand and services?
Once you’ve decided on that you can pick a name for the Facebook group and decide on your target audience. You can and should make sure your privacy settings are in line with the interaction you want going on in the group. A public group can be seen by anyone and, generally, anyone can join. Closed groups give you more options to keep it exclusive and selective. Creating a secret group means that no one will be able to find it or join it without an invitation.
Encourage Members to Join
There are a few ways to go about this. You can advertise your group on your personal profile or on another existing page that you are already the admin of. You can send out a promotional email to everyone on your mailing list. You can ask your friends to post it on their pages to reach more people, or invite their friends to join it. Just make sure that everyone invited meets the requirements of your target audience to avoid spamming and other problems later on.
It shouldn’t be just a one-time promotion, either. Continue to promote it on a regular basis, although not too frequently or people will grow tired of the constant advertising.
Create Clear Group Rules
Establishing rules for interaction and posting is important. Comment sections can get quite intense, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced and so you want to make sure you keep issues like that to a minimum.
Will you allow group members to post promotions of their own businesses? Will you moderate posts by approving them before they can be posted in the group or will members be allowed to post whenever they like?
When establishing rules, think about what bothers you about other groups you are or have been a member of. You can then keep the possibility of those issues arising to a minimum by choosing the right privacy settings and boundaries. For example: spam, irrelevant posts and constant self-promotion, among other things, are factors that can cause members to not only leave the group, but advise others not to join it either and you don’t want that.
Create Content Specifically for the Group
Maintaining a successful group will require work and commitment in order to regularly provide value to your members. Create a posting schedule so that you are neither posting too often, frustrating members with constant flow of content, nor are you posting so rarely that members may not even remember they are part of the group.
Ideally, you should share content on the group that you aren’t sharing anywhere else on social media. This will keep members in the group longer than they would stay if they were seeing the same posts everywhere.
Spend Time in Your Group Daily
Apart from scheduling your posts, you should devote time each day to the monitoring and upkeep of your group. Ideally you want your group members liking, commenting and interacting on your posts; so be interactive. Ask questions, create polls and encourage discussion whenever you can. People like to share their opinions and feel like they are being heard. Reply to comments, like and comment on other members’ posts and keep up a steady flow of interaction with your members for the best results. If you aren’t able to devote time to the monitoring and upkeep, you should hire a Social Media Manager to do it for you, as this interaction is very important.
Check Your Insights
Facebook Group Insights provides you with a fantastic bird’s eye view of all the important information: which posts are getting the most engagement, what your predominant demographic is, who engages with your posts the most and so on. Having a handle on these details can help you post much more effectively and use the right kind of content. You can tailor content to your primary demographic or increase your interaction with your most regular contributors.
Facebook’s recent increased focus on groups means that the opportunities for growing your business through it are increasing as well. If you haven’t made one yet, it may well be time to do so.
