Facebook groups
What might you say if I said that you are currently most likely ignoring probably the most powerful features that Facebook is offering to marketers?
Facebook groups – that’s right, groups, not pages – have massive prospects for marketers that most too frequently gets wholly overlooked.
A group can change how you engage with all your audience, hugely growing brand loyalty, conversions, and profits.
The effectiveness of the Facebook group is based on its more personal nature. This isn’t an instance of bringing plenty of followers to your channel. Instead, it is about making contact with those current followers to be able to build trust, authority, loyalty, and rapport. Facebook groups offer to be among the most powerful and efficient ways to accomplish this. And this is precisely what makes a big difference in terms of business success.
Groups meanwhile create marketing and business opportunities which don’t exist for some other types of marketing. They could even be utilized as a possible internal tool for managing your business and creating much more of a reliable team dynamic among your staff.
Why You may need a Facebook Group
The real power belonging to the Facebook group is based on its capacity to engage directly with all your followers, fans, and customers.
Facebook groups at first glance function just like a Facebook page, but whereas non-followers will probably see posts you share on your page in other networks once they get liked and shared, posts within your group will be visible only to members. Also, a Facebook group won’t use calls to action in the same manner as being a Facebook page and won’t enable you to make promoted posts.
Facebook Group Posts Versus Facebook Page Posts
Posts will show up on members home feeds and will also be given more importance than posts from pages.
That’s just because a group is usually meant for social activities such as parties, or groups of individuals with common interests.
The idea is when someone has joined a Facebook group, it’s because they would like to talk about that topic with others in the community.
This is slightly distinctive from a Facebook page which is a lot more business-oriented instrument which is more prone to contain promotions and marketing which the followers DON’T wish to see all over their feeds.
Developing a Flourishing Community Around Your Brand
The article entitled “1,000 True Fans” by Kevin Kelly, points out that for a brand or business to thrive and sustain itself, it requires one thousand “true fans.” What exactly is meant by that?
What exactly is meant is the fact that if you get that many truly passionate followers, your brand should go from strength to strength. Although this may not appear to be a large number within the grand general scheme of things, the reason behind this is that TRUE fans are the ones that consume every bit of content you place out (and buy into it), buy every product, as well as become your ambassadors. These are typically followers who can tell their friends with regards to your products and can post to forums to discuss your latest video.
Whenever you build this type of following, there is a guaranteed client base, and also the seed and traction that will become something entirely huge. Those thousand fans WILL bring in new fans, and those fans will provide in additional as well!
Another way this could be described is that it is much better to get a subscriber list with 100 people on it that read your emails, than to get a subscriber list with 2 million people on it who never open them.
For those who have enough engagement and trust with your brand, then you can certainly make a full-time income with just a really small following.
And this is when numerous businesses fail. It’s what a lot of businesses miss. That’s just because a significant amount of companies are focused only on numbers, and they, as a result, don’t spend some time on ‘aftercare’ or taking care of those members.
Turn your clients into fans who love your brand, and it is possible to experience unparalleled success.
How exactly does a group aid in all of this? First of all, by permitting your clients and followers become a part of an online community – that features a profound psychological impact – and next by letting them get in touch with you directly, thereby creating a lot of trusts. A Facebook group frequently will work as a type of “insider’s club”, which can gain a lot of loyalty and enthusiasm.
No more is yours a faceless company. No more do you seem distant and unknowable. And no longer is yours only a boring logo on the helpful product they purchase.
Instead, the client is becoming a part of a tribe. They may have chosen to get behind your message and to participate in the route of the brand. In so doing they feel a sort of property of that, plus they become much more committed to what you need to say. Your brand becomes an integral part of their identity even.
More Uses For a Facebook Group
We saw that it would allow you to contact your followers and customers more directly and intimately, which could, in turn, be highly effective in creating a stronger relationship and more engagement with those users.
But that’s just one thing that sets Facebook groups apart as being such a valuable part of your digital marketing strategy. There are many different ways that you can utilize Facebook groups to mobilize your fan base and potentially increase your engagement and profits. Read on for some of the most effective.
Top Ways to Make Use of a Facebook Group for Business
Membership as a Reward
One wat to think of a Facebook group is as a reward or an incentive. In other words, you can use this as a way to encourage your most loyal fans to take specific actions and to thank them for their loyalty.
Imagine that you regularly follow a particular blog or vlog, and you are a massive fan of the content they put out. You find it exciting and exciting, and you love the community that often enjoys lively discussion each time a new piece of content goes live. You consider yourself fan, but you haven’t quite taken the leap when it comes to signing up to the mailing list or joining the Facebook group.
Then you hear that as a thank you for joining up to the list, users will be given access to a private Facebook group that will discuss the topics tackled on the site in much more depth, that will be given privileged access to new products before anyone else, and that will be able to vote on the direction of the brand. This is a great incentive that will encourage many people to sign up right away.
You can likewise use this as a way to encourage people to join your Patreon, to buy particular products during a promotion, or to share your link and encourage more people to sign up!
Customer Feedback/Market Research
What many businesses forget is that social media is first and foremost a tool for communication. Many companies think of it purely as a platform or a pedestal from which they can shout about new products or services. They think of this as a one-way means of communication in other words.
But that is to miss out on perhaps the most valuable and important aspect of social media. Being able to not only speak with your audience but also have them respond is immensely valuable, as it will allow you to get customer feedback, to conduct market research, etc.
And this is invaluable when it comes to deciding the future of your business. Investing lots of money or time into a new business venture such as a product or a service is always going to involve a significant element of risk. But if you first speak with your audience, you can ensure that there are people out there who are willing and interested in paying for said product. In many ways, this is one of the closest things to an indeed ‘flawless’ business plan: you ask what people want, then you create it!
Likewise, this is a fantastic way to get more ideas for content, to get ideas for promoting your site, and to find out more about the people you are selling to. Many companies pay thousands of dollars for market research; with a Facebook group, you can conduct it entirely for free. Just keep in mind that your most die-hard fans are not necessarily the most representative when it comes to reflecting the interests of your followers at-large.
Competitions and Promotions
We’ve seen that Facebook groups can be powerful incentives or “prizes” when running contests and promotions. People who are engaged with your brand will love the idea of being invited to an “exclusive” VIP club only if they should sign up to your Facebook page or like a post etc.
But at the same time, you can also use the Facebook group to run future promotions and competitions. This is a great way to reach out to your most proactive followers, which in turn means you can motivate them to take action by spreading the word.
Events
Many people use Facebook groups privately to run events. This is a perfect tool for creating stag parties and hens or just organizing trips with friends. Not only does this put everyone involved in one place (making it easier for you to see everyone in one spot and communicate the plan) but it also creates a forum where everyone can contribute ideas.
This is something you can equally benefit from as a business. Running events as a business or brand is another of the most effective and underutilized strategies for increasing engagement and even just making a direct profit!
It’s one thing to run a fitness blog or a make money blog. But if you run an event, this gives people a chance to see you in person and to feel involved. At the same time, it will allow you to
Special Offers
If you are cutting the price of one of your products or services if you are running a two-for-one deal, or if you are introducing any other kind of special offer, then having a Facebook group will provide you with an ideal way to communicate this and to get more people to act on it.
You have to be careful with this, however. After all, Facebook groups are not ‘for’ promoting your products, and there is always the danger that people will find this off-putting and be moved to leave your group entirely. Groups have ‘exclusive access; to the home feed as compared with pages, and you need to treat this with respect.
BUT there is a way to do this, and that is to make the special offers part of the appeal of your group in the first place. In other words, make it clear when promoting and marketing your group that you will be using it to present special offers and deals. You can do this by saying things like ‘sign up to the Facebook group for exclusive offers and deals. If you get this right, it can work extremely well: if people are truly engaged with your brand and they love your products, then getting to hear more about them might genuinely be seen as a powerful incentive and source of excitement. This is about how you manage your brand, but if you accomplish it, then you will effectively have carte blanche to promote your business and to ‘sell’ directly to your audience.
Topic Group
Perhaps the most powerful way to use a group and the one that this book has been promoting so far is to build a private, members-only area for your most dedicated followers. While this can work wonders, another compelling marketing option works entirely differently.
That is to create a group about a topic that ostensibly has no particular connection to your brand. For example, if you sell law courses, then you could create a group for legal students. Let anyone create new posts and make the group public. When you notice some of your members are highly involved, promoted them to admin status.
This group will now run itself, and you can pretty much forget about it and leave it to its own devices.
But come back in a year, and there’s a chance it will have grown. It might be extremely large and active at this point. And that, in turn, means that you can then use it for gently marketing your courses. This gives you a vast, highly targeted, extremely engaged audience to market to and to help springboard any new project you come up within that niche.
Advertising
Speaking of which, you can also monetize your Facebook groups directly by using this direct access to promote other products and other offers from different brands. In other words, once you have built a large and engaged audience, you can then sell access to that audience.
Advertising is an excellent way to make some quick money, and it can even be a long term revenue stream. But again, it’s essential that you go about this the correct way – which means ensuring that your audience knows they’re going to be receiving these offers before you begin, and which means being highly selective and not taking every offer that comes along. Communicate to your audience that they will be receiving only hand-picked, exclusive, and special offers that are likely to appeal to them. Then make sure you are true to your word on those points.
Internal Uses
Finally, keep in mind that a business can use a Facebook group internally. This can be a useful way to arrange an event, to keep track of your staff, and to generally manage portions of your business. Many companies will use internal portals to achieve the same thing, but using a Facebook group is free and highly flexible.
