As popular as Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram are, nothing quite beats Facebook when it comes to building loyalty and trust with your audience. None of the other platforms allow you as much flexibility and engagement as Facebook.
Instagram is flashy and cool, but limits you to only one link in your bio. YouTube is reliable and authoritative with thousands of tutorial videos, but you can’t share images or engage with your audience fluidly.
Pinterest is ‘nice’ and has thousands of images, which makes it very useful for getting traffic, but it’s limited when it comes to one-on-one engagement with your audience.
But…
Facebook has it ALL
You can share unlimited links, videos, images, and its greatest strength is that you can engage with your audience on a very personal level. Nothing beats Facebook when it comes to building trust. Well, other than a personal phone call.
And here’s the best part – it’s AWESOME for driving free traffic to your blog, videos, etc.
Why use Facebook Groups?
Facebook doesn’t like or want its users’ doing business on their personal profile. While you can set up a Facebook page, these days, getting organic traffic with Facebook pages is a monumental struggle.
The reach is limited because Facebook wants you to pay to play. So, that’s not ideal for free traffic.
Facebook groups, however, are free. Your group members will see your posts. You even can mark important posts as announcements and pin them to the top of the discussion so that all members can see these posts first.
That’s fantastic for getting engagement on the posts that matter most to your business.
Building your Facebook Group and driving traffic
You can build your group by pointing visitors from your YouTube videos (if you have any) to your Facebook group. The same principle applies with your email list, blog, etc. Let everyone know you have a Facebook group!
Always have links on your different web properties pointing people to your group. If you’re selling digital products, let your list know about your group and ask them to join it to get the latest tips and stay updated.
In your Facebook group, there will be a description field. This is a valuable and free advertising opportunity!
Write a short description with a link to your landing page here. Offer something of value in return for the visitor’s email address. This will help you to build your list and reduce the risks to your business, just in case Facebook shuts you down.
Remember to add a keyword in your group name that’s relevant to your niche. A keyword or two in the description will help too. Don’t overdo it.
Two or three keywords will more than suffice to let Facebook know what your group is about so that it can recommend your group when people search for these keywords.
Driving traffic with Facebook groups is very straightforward once you have sufficient members. Share your blog posts, YouTube videos (or just videos), products, services, etc.
Remember to write a caption or a post that stirs your members’ curiosity so that they click on the link. Merely sharing a post just doesn’t cut it. You must spur your members to engage… and good copy in your posts will do that for you.
Take note that the Facebook group cover image is a billboard for you to advertise your business. You should have your website URL displayed on it and have a URL link in the description.
Get someone on Upwork or Freelancer to design an attractive cover for you.
You may also wish to join popular and related groups in your niche. Contribute tons of value in these groups. Pay attention to who likes and engages with your posts.
Add these members as friends. A percentage of them will accept your friend requests. Once they do, send them a message, and thank them for engaging with your post and say you appreciate it.
Many Facebook Group owners do NOT like members direct messaging each other. By adding another person from the group as a friend, you’re slowly circumnavigating this rule.
You’ll need to play it smart here. Do NOT immediately spam the other member with your links. Just let them be your friend for about a month or two.
Then write a blog post and share it with them in a private message and ask if they’d be willing to offer you their opinions on it. People love offering their opinions… sometimes maybe too much.
When they get back to you, thank them and ask them if they’d be willing to join your Facebook group. If they say yes, invite them.
By following a slow and measured approach, you’ll gradually increase the number of members in your group and the people in it will like you because you already have the beginnings of a relationship with them via messenger.
Increasing engagement in your group
Deliver value over and over to your members. Share information that will help them. It’s perfectly fine to share posts from websites that are not yours. What the people in your group want is good content.
If you can give it to them, they’ll be hooked and stay on. Aim for 4:1 ratio where you deliver 4 value-driven posts and then follow it with 1 post where you sell something (if you need to).
Since you should be in other Facebook groups related to your niche, study the competition. Look at which of their posts receive the most engagement.
Model these posts. Do NOT copy them… but model them and do it on a delay.
For example, if a post in your competitor’s group is getting lots of engagement, create a post that models it, but schedule your post to go out a month later.
This will make it less obvious if some of your members are in the other group too. By modelling popular posts, the engagement on your posts will be higher.
Another important point to note – you’re never too cool to engage with your members. A marketer and a movie star are not the same thing.
Celebrities can post a photo of themselves and not engage with a single person who is following them, and they’ll still get thousands or even millions of likes. That’s because they have a larger-than-life personality and image. They can get away with it.
An average marketer doesn’t have such clout. You MUST engage with the people in your group often – at least 2-3 times a week. This will ensure that you are at the forefront of their Facebook minds and the group will not feel like a leaderless tribe.
What’s next?
If you follow the tips above, you’ll be able to have a thriving and popular Facebook group. Always remember that delivering value comes first… then selling.
Don’t put the cart before the horse. Too many marketers do that in their haste to make profits… and they end up with groups that ‘die’ off because of abysmal engagement.
Keep your group active and treat it like a fraternity of awesome people who are interested and passionate about the same topic. This will inspire a sense of camaraderie, and you’ll appear as an authority in your group members’ eyes.
From there, driving traffic and getting sales from your Facebook group will be a breeze. Start building your Facebook group today.
