Facebook Groups are probably one of the main attractions of the entire platform now. We use these groups to get involved in topics and niches we are interested in.
But do you know these groups are probably one of the best methods to market your business? That’s right. Businesses have been resorting to Facebook groups for marketing, and guess what? It actually works!
Even though you won’t really see a lot of organic activity on your business through regular posting, Facebook groups still remain one of the most reliable sources of driving traffic to your business.
However, it’s still easier said than done, because if you want to actually use these groups for marketing, you need the right Facebook group marketing strategy, something that we are going to walk you through in this post.
Understanding Facebook's Organic Reach Closely
Facebook is notorious for its organic reach. Anyone in internet marketing could tell you that situation just gets worse every year.
At one point when you’d get organic interactions from Facebook back in 2007, it’s becoming like a faucet that is gradually turned off every year. It was once a steady stream, then it became a trickle and now it’s a drip, an agonizingly slow drip.
Based on the number of advertisers, there’s barely any space left for organic read on News Feed. Unless you are friends with an account or have liked a page, you won’t usually be able to discover new pages.
Back in 2018, even Facebook mentioned that it is shifting the ranking to make the News Feed more about connecting with other people rather than just consuming media in isolation.
Even the competition between these advertisers grew so much that Facebook had to introduce its own Customer Feedback Score, which is similar to the Quality Score of Google Ads. This score is an evaluation of the ads, how well they perform, and based on those stats, the ad positioning is determined.
What we need to know is that the news feed space on Facebook has been invaded so much that there’s barely any hope left for a page to reach organically to new people.
Facebook Groups and Marketing: The difference over the years
Now as the organic reach on Facebook is gradually only reducing, marketing on Facebook definitely seems like a lost cause.
Well, not quite. Because Groups are still one of the most interactive and efficient methods to gain exposure for your brand. Before we even discuss the current situation of Facebook groups, let’s try to understand how Facebook groups really worked.
Back when Facebook groups were introduced, everybody started isolating themselves from the regular feed on Facebook which was almost common for people with mutual friends. People started joining groups with similar interests.
With time, the popularity of these groups grew so much that you’d notice groups with millions of members with every post getting at least 100,000 impressions.
This became an easy method for people to try sly promotional methods and get traffic rapidly on their posts or pages.
Not only that, but the users would be able to post some of the raunchiest content right on the Facebook platform.
Facebook Groups Redefined: The new concept
Since Facebook groups were unmonitored for a really long time, Facebook has taken efforts to clean the groups. And the most interesting fact is that Facebook is actually focusing more on groups and trying to improve user experience in the groups.
Even though these groups were created for like-minds to come together under a niche, they soon started to become a hotbed for hatred and disinformation. Since these groups were closed to the outside public, they soon became a nuisance for some users.
The worst part? Facebook couldn’t do anything about it up until now.
In a blog post by Facebook, they mentioned how even the closed groups are now being monitored. There are teams that are working on even the ‘closed’ groups to keep people away from harmful posts or misleading information.
There is now even a page for admins to help them identify the workings of a group, check the privacy levels, and an entire catalog of information that Facebook collects to make the experience in groups safer and user-friendly.
So what does this mean?
Facebook is trying to give more control to the admins that are actively monitoring these groups. That means that if you occasionally go to a Facebook group, spam your links away, and hope to increase your visitors, your plan is already doomed.
With Facebook trying to improve their “Groups” experience, you need a new course of action for your marketing approaches. This checklist of using Facebook groups for marketing is going to teach you just that.
How to use Facebook Groups for Marketing?
Despite all the scrutinization and a long rulebook, there is still hope to how you can use Facebook groups for marketing your brand/business.
And here’s how you do it:
1. Offer Value with your content
Often when you post a link or anything similar in a group, you have to understand that there are thousands of people spamming away links in these groups. Irrespective of how great your content really is, it’s still going to get lost in oblivion if you don’t have a proper posting strategy in place.
Think of a Facebook group as a space where you have to offer value instead of just getting momentary traffic. And if that means just posting pictures or videos that barely get any visitors to your site, do it.
For you to build your authority within a group, you have to invest time and provide value.
Try to post pictures and videos that cover the topics the group is all about. The often you do it, the more people are going to notice your activities. And the more activity you show, the more people from the group are likely to interact with your brand.
2. Be loyal to groups
Let’s say you are a member of a ‘digital marketing’ group and you want to use this group to build an audience for your business.
When you think about it, there are hundreds of digital marketing groups that you could join.
But, does that mean you should join as many groups as you can and share your content in every one of them? No!
As alluring as it seems, there’s no reason for you to join all the groups. If you plan to raise an audience, you start by connecting with them. That means that not only do you need to post regularly, but you also have to comment on other posts, reply to comments on your posts, and engage with other group activities.
The more groups you join, the harder it is to keep up. Additionally, if you post in all these groups, people that belong to the same group are going to see your posts multiple times on their news feed. Now if you don’t want people to get annoyed with your posts, be loyal to specific groups.
Here’s a tip – find a couple of groups with the most number of members in that niche and start posting in them only. Since the number of members is high, their chance of interacting with your business also rises.
3. Avoid direct selling
There are times when you want to sell through Facebook groups as well. However, to do that, you need something more than just posting links and hoping people to buy without a reason.
Before you even think about posting a link, ensure that you have provided a proper context as to why you are posting that link. One of the best ways is to make the link look as natural as possible.
To get the most out of Facebook groups, offer an incentive with your product purchase.
This means that if you have a promo code or a discount for people, they are definitely going to check it out.
Here’s how you can encourage people to buy from you in Facebook groups:
- Sell free ebooks and host giveaways
- Offer limited-time-only deals
- Give out video lessons or free trials from your services
You should also know that people would only prefer to check out your products when they have at least interacted with your brand in the past. And that is why you have to follow both the aforementioned points in order to increase the number of sales through Facebook.
4. Use all the features
Since Facebook is already working a lot towards improving the group experience, it only makes sense to equip the members with more tools for posting.
And that is exactly what you can find in these Facebook groups.
And if you are trying to market your business, these posting options are the best ammo for your marketing arsenal.
When trying to build interactions in a group, make the most use of these features as possible. These posting options not only give you the required tools to post the right marketing material in these groups, but they also allow you to experiment with new materials in these groups.
This means you can not only add pictures or videos in the group, but can even add files, create polls, and post other related stuff in these groups.
5. Have an upper hand with the admins
Admins are the key to any group. And those are the perfect people to help you with your marketing campaigns.
So how do you maintain the best relations with an admin?
When an admin launches a group, the most important thing for them is to have the maximum activity possible in a group.
And if you are able to generate that activity with the help of your posts, you are already being noticed by the admins.
When you encourage activity in the groups, you can make these admins manage most of your work for you. This includes posting for you, scheduling posts, and of course, giving you moderator access. This ultimately gives you more control over the group, thus giving you more advantage in your marketing campaigns overall.
6. Prioritize Discussions within the group
Having regular healthy discussions with your group members is one of the best ways to increase engagement in the group.
When a group has more activity, there are more chances for your posts to appear in the regular news feed of the group members.
What you need to know is that prioritizing discussions on a regular basis requires commitment. This means that not only do you have to find ways to get the conversations going, but you even have to produce such posts that have a very interactive theme.
If your schedule is tight, come up with a posting frequency where you can post at least every week or bi-weekly. This keeps the engagement strong and people know exactly when to expect more posts from you.
Another way to grow engagement with your business is to schedule online webinars and meetings where every single member of your group could be invited. And since all the members are present in the group because they are interested in the same niche, you could actually have a good amount of traffic at your meetings. All you have to do next is to focus on converting these users through your online meeting.
Conclusion
Getting traffic from Facebook Groups is easy, but converting them into your audience is difficult. While you follow the aforementioned tips, also make sure that you identify the right time to post in these groups.
As Facebook is slowly shutting down the organic reach, Facebook Groups still remain one of the best channels for your marketing campaigns. Make sure to get the most out of them.
Hope these tips to use Facebook Groups for marketing helped you understand how to make your marketing campaigns more effective.