Name: A lot of people get creative with their Facebook group name in the hope that it will ‘stand out’ but this is not the best strategy. Your name needs to explicitly describe, in no uncertain terms, what your group is about. Facebook will help to grow your group by suggesting it to people it thinks would spend time there (remember, Facebook’s goal here is to have people spending as much time on its platform as possible). If your group has an obscure or flowery title that does not connect with your audience, you will miss out on all these new sign ups. Your name needs to instantly tell people what your group is about and what it is going to do for the person joining.
Post on your personal profile: You will most likely already have connections that could benefit from being in your group, people in a similar niche or with similar interests. Entice them with something of value. For example, tell them that you have written a short e-book or a ‘how to’ PDF that relates to what your group will be about. Once people have engaged with the post, send them to your group and deliver the content in a pinned post.
From within your group, only invite members who you think will be engaged with the content. You may be tempted to add all of your friends and family to bump up your group’s numbers but remember, Facebook prioritises engagement above all else. Therefore, if your group is full of people who never engage with your content or join discussions, you won’t benefit from Facebook’s suggestion mechanism. In summary, inviting friends and family to your group can be a great way to boost numbers, but remember, it’s only worth having them there if they’ll enjoy and engage with the content.
Engagement As we mentioned in the last point, Facebook will turbo-charge the growth of your group for you, by suggesting it to people outside your network who may benefit from joining. However, this will only happen if your group has good engagement. There are lots of ways to generate engagement, but here are a couple of ideas:
- Post divisive content that people will have strong opinions on. This doesn’t not have to be mean, nasty or, heaven forbid, political, just questions that will push a few people’s creative buttons and tempt them to jump into the conversation.
- Posting valuable content. Post teasers for e-books, training, PDFs, tools etc and ask people to comment and like them in order to access the collateral.
When applied successfully, both of these strategies will allow you to demonstrate to Facebook that people like spending time in your group, thus leading them to show it to more people.
Make your group central: Make sure that your group is central to everything you are doing, whether that is a YouTube channel, website etc. This means that you want to be mentioning your group everywhere. Put links to it in emails, on your website, mention it to people that you speak to, let them know that you have created a group where people like them are interacting, engaging and growing together. Make your group a central hub or community of people around your niche.
Post value in other groups: Join groups in a similar niche to you that have a lot of interaction and members. Do not spam!! Don’t launch straight into plugging your group, you will most likely be kicked out. Provide consistent valuable information, perhaps every few days, and engage with other members of the group. Post things that make people curious about you, once you start networking people will naturally check out your profile and then on to your group. You can include a link to your Facebook group under the ‘Intro’ section of your profile (which should also include your website as well as a short bio).
Pro tip: Do you want to monetise your group? If you add joining questions to your group it not only weeds out the people that are not serious about joining, but it also allows you to asks for their email address in return for a reward (training series, free gift etc). You’ll then be able to add them to your mailing list and hopefully introduce them to your sales funnel.