It can be difficult for most businesses to create a truly engaged Facebook business page without an advertising budget. Especially with all of the new algorithm changes, which have made it so much harder for you businesses page and posts to be seen, unless you “boost” (sponsor) the content. This many times leads to frustration and many business owners abandoning Facebook. But, don’t give up! Facebook can be a highly valuable resource for your business. Don’t give up on your Facebook business page – keep it, update it (daily if possible) however, start to focus on additionally building a Facebook Group for your business.
Having a Facebook group, in addition to your Facebook business page, is a viable way of building a highly engaged community of individuals who are likely to be interested in your business. Facebook Groups provide several benefits and can actually help you get more customers and clients! If you want to learn how a Facebook group can bring you more business – check out our blog post here.
The hardest part about starting a successful Facebook group, that brings you business, is the fear of having an inactive group. Today, we are sharing a few tips on how to create a Facebook group that can become a profitable lead magnet for your business!
Create the name
With thousands and thousands of groups on Facebook – you want to really stand out! Take some time to create a name that grabs the attention of your ideal customers.
Create guidelines/rules
If your Facebook group does not have rules and guidelines – you will lose control and become overwhelmed. Take a look at other groups created by business owners and pay attention to their rules. You don’t want your competitors posting things like ads and possibly taking away business from you. Make the rules clear!
Design a cover image
You need to connect with your group members and images act as business cards. Make a great first impression with a clean, attention-grabbing image. Stay in line with your branding, but don’t be afraid to humanize your banner image and add a personal photo (or a nice crisp logo). You can create a perfectly sized Facebook cover free on sites like Canva.com
Create a lead magnet
One of your main goals should be to get your followers onto your mailing list – because that is an invaluable list of people who are genuinely interested in your business products or services. If you were to lose your Facebook access tomorrow – you would still have a list of prospects that is yours! However, you need to give people a reason to sign up for your websites mailing list (newsletter)! Create a lead magnet! This is simply bonus content associated with your business and/or a particular blog post. For example, if your company specializes in home safety (or sells these types of products/services) and you write a blog post about “Earthquake Safety Tips”, you could offer a “free” downloadable PDF of an Earthquake Safety Plan Checklist. In order for the reader to download the PDF they would then need to provide their email address. Most email marketing programs have options for content delivery once the reader confirms their email address! This will not only help you gain more email subscribers but it may also drive additional new traffic to your website, everyone loves a freebie!
Here are a few examples of things you could offer:
- Worksheets
- Outline/cheatsheet
- Spreadsheet
- Email course or challenge
- Video training or tutorial
- Webinar or audio recording
- E-book
- Infographic
- Resource library with many worksheets/ebooks/etc
And don’t forget – your lead magnet can be used all over social media – it is not just limited to your Facebook Group. Lead magnets are great for sponsored posts as well.
Build a landing page
Create an enticing landing page for your website that advertises the lead magnet and offers a chance to sign up! If you don’t know how to create this, your favorite web designer (ahem!) can help!
Schedule daily prompts
An active Facebook group is a happy group (and even happier group admin!). Make sure to schedule daily prompts and engaging content to keep the conversations flowing. You can use content schedulers like PostPlanner to schedule daily posts in advance!
Weekly Live Stream
You need to add value and personalize your brand. Offer a weekly live stream with Q&A, tips, advice, how-to’s etc! Broadcasting live will get people tuning in and they will enjoy having the ability to speak to you live. Make sure to let your group members know when you will have your live broadcasts (ie: Every Monday at 5pm PST). Don’t give up if the first few broadcasts are slow or don’t have many viewers. Keep going and eventually more people will tune in. The great part about live broadcasts is that it will stay on FB and if people miss them, they can always watch the replay. These are also great to re-use at a later time for marketing, webinars, video FAQ’s for your website and more!
Have you wanted to create a popular and profitable Facebook group for your business? If you already have one – let us know in the comments below so we can check it out!