Where is the highest, most consistent engagement found on Facebook? If you’ve ever belonged to an active Facebook Group, you’ll easily be able to answer!
Here’s a tip: Wherever there’s a hot, current topic, you’ll find Facebook Groups supporting it. And those Groups will exhibit a high degree of activity. Posts will be popping up every few minutes.
And all members will see these popups in the bottom-left corner of their screens (as long as they are in Facebook).
Groups are totally private – only other members will see posts. (It can be a little confusing, since they will appear in your personal feed – but they’re still hidden from your other friends who aren’t in the group.)
Creating a Facebook Group
The down side: You can’t administer Groups or receive feeds on your Facebook Page – only through your personal profile. If you are adding people from a webinar, you need to tell them to (a) send you a friend request (b) mention the webinar and group in a message.
Once these people are friends, you can stop them from seeing your general personal profile posts by creating a list titled something relevant to the group (e.g. “Vegan Recipe Group”) and set your privacy settings to exclude this list from more personal posts.
And if you want them to be aware of your Facebook Page posts, connect your personal profile to your Facebook Page by including a link to it in your About section (if permitted) – or embedded within your cover photo. (This will pop up if anyone hovers their mouse over your anchor text name within the Group.)
(TIP: Edit the “Work and Education” section, adding your Link.)
If your main mission and niche topic are hotter than hot, it would be wasting opportunities not to create a Facebook Group: However, there are two caveats…
1. Make sure you maintain a regular presence on the Group, gently controlling the tone and being on the alert for spammers or troublemakers.
(You can appoint other administrators – and if a topic has passionate aficionados, you will probably not even have to search for these: Key people will naturally assume a leadership role, which you can then endow and announce officially, once you have made sure they would like to be added as a Group administrator).
2.Give people clear instructions on:
- The Group guidelines – Don’t be over-rigid with these. Nobody likes authoritarianism.
- Group privacy – Make it clear that posts or information MUST NOT be shared in any way outside the Group
- How to report spammers or offensive posts – Instruct your Group members to tag your name or that of any other administrators you appoint, placing the “@” sign in front of your name(s)
And remind people to maintain a positive tone. It’s perfectly fine to say that “flames” or abusive comments will be removed and the poster may be blocked.
Joining a Facebook Group
But that’s for administrators: If you are merely joining a group – another great strategy – the other members will not see any of your personal posts unless you accept a Friend request – which you totally do not have to do!
Merely joining a Group can be a powerful boost for your business – especially if you participate rather than lurk.
Those who participate can expect to…
- Find out what the really burning questions are for their niche
- See what people want more of
- See what people are annoyed with
- Answer questions helpfully
- Allow niche members to get to know them
- Point people (when appropriate) to their Page
- Build subscribers
- Build trust
- Find other hot groups for that exact niche through sidebar suggestions
There is no reason why you cannot run at least one Facebook Page for your business, one Facebook Group for your niche topic – and invite people to events suited for all within those umbrellas.
