TOP 5 tips for growing an engaged Facebook Group
A Facebook group is an extremely important asset for your business as it provides a platform for you to connect and create close relationships with your community and with your tribe online. You have the option of sharing your values, sharing your expertise and knowledge with the people in your group. You get to position yourself as a leader in your own space. You may also think of it as a ‘new email list’. Whenever you have new products to launch or new services to offer, you already have an audience to cater to. The people in your group are like a customer database who will provide you with a feedback and they will also be the first customers to buy your product or service.
There are many benefits of having a highly engaged Facebook group.
Basic tips include- welcoming a new member in your group ( if your group has less than 500 members), offering a free incentive to new members, asking general questions in the group (like the city they belong to), being grateful to your group members, giving out birthday incentives ( you could pick a range ie. June – July for the same).
Let us go through the TOP 5 tips for growing an engaged Facebook Group.
- Branding
Good branding is very important to have a successful and highly engaged Facebook group. Make sure your group is aligned with your brand’s color and aesthetics across all platforms online so that people believe that the account is led by an authentic person from the company.
The one important tip is that in the first week of your group, make the group public so that people can figure out what is the group about and that would create an element of excitement. Make sure that you mention who is hosting the group on your group’s banner. You may add a picture of yourself along with your business’ official website. This will also make the users understand that you are the main person to contact. You can also include a hashtag on your group’s banner. A hashtag is a great way to gain more exposure for your group.
Example: If you are offering Digital Marketing courses, then firstly you would want to sync the color code of your website and your group’s banner and post. Secondly create a hashtag, something like #learnDM which means ‘learn Digital Marketing’. Do not forget to add your image to your group’s banner and a website or email id so that people can actually contact you.
- Lay Down the Ground Rules
You have to mention the ground rules in your group so that people know what is and what isn’t allowed in the group. You can make a ‘welcoming’ video and pin it to the top of your group. Anyone who joins your group gets to see this video at first. This video will basically clear the notion of the existence of your group and the purpose. You can also direct the user to read the rules. You can keep your rules in your group under the file section so that people can go and read them. You may also give an overarching rule that you only accept support and positive feedback, and any trolling and negativity or abuse will absolutely not be entertained. It is easier to monitor your group’s crowd once you lay down the basic rules. The integrity of your group is kept intact.
Also, you may ask your group’s members to introduce each other in the comment section of the welcoming video so that the group can turn into a sustainable ecosystem like a place.
In order to stay away from spammers, keep a constant eye on your group’s activity. Make sure your group is private so that people have to ask you for access to come in. You may also designate a private person to be your spam police.
- Content Tiers
This is not like merely creating content for your Facebook, Twitter or any other social media handle. This is quite different as you want to encourage communication, conversation, engagement and support with your fellow group mates. You can divide your content flow in any fashion. You can have something like ‘Motivational Mondays’. You may post something motivational and then ask the users to comment on their goals for the week. This will lead to an active conversation. You can also have a post wherein you ask the users to promote themselves in the comment section. Assign one day to this kind of activity. You may also have an engaged thread if you make your users talk about their accomplishments (of the week) in the comment section of your post.
- Cross Promotion
You need to cross-promote your group on various social media handles. You can tweet weekly about your group so that more and more people can come in and join. You can have YouTube videos talking about your Facebook group and this will lead to your Facebook Group’s promotion at different platforms. You can also post about some exclusive services available only to the member of the group and so people will be more interested in joining in.
- Go LIVE in your group
There a lot many groups on Facebook and you just don’t want your followers to drive away from you. You need to keep a constant contact with them and going ‘Live’ on Facebook is a great way to do it. You can bring people back to your group and your space by making them see your video post. You can have Live Free Training Sessions on your Facebook Group (as mentioned in point number 4). A Q/A (Question/Answer) Session is also a great way to engage followers on your Facebook group. This kind of a session will make your followers believe that you take interest in their queries. You may also send out emails before you start a live session so as to attract a larger audience. You may also make use of chat bots to increase the audience on your live chats.
