Are you using Facebook Groups as part of your social media marketing strategy? I’m here to tell you it’s a long-play strategy that just cannot be overlooked in the landscape of consumer-controlled buying that we now live in.
By consumer-controlled buying, I mean that consumers are in the driver’s seat as far as their purchasing decisions go. They call the shots. They are immune to the barrage of ads and messages being thrown at them by marketers who still insist on spraying and praying, shoving spam down their throats and being downright tone-deaf to their needs and wants.
THEY are the consumer. WE are the consumer. In our non-professional capacities, we marketers are subject to and annoyed by these very same futile tactics. So why do we continue practicing them as soon as we cross the threshold from our home to our office and put on our ‘digital marketing’ caps?
As Mark Schaefer outlines in his recent book “The Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins“,
…most of our marketing is occurring without us. Today, the customers are the marketing department.
We can’t buy our way into these conversations, We have to earn our way in with a new business approach that appeals to constant human truths.
The businesses of the past were built on advertising impressions. Today, they are built on human impressions that help customers believe, belong, and find meaning.
Facebook groups are a great way to allow your tribe (your target audience and loyal fans) to engage in meaningful discussions, share experiences, opinions and advice, feel a sense of belonging, togetherness and safety. Trolls, fake news and hurtful posts are noticeably ABSENT in Facebook groups (especially private and secret groups).
Types of Facebook groups
Public
Anyone can search for, find and join this type of group
Closed
Anyone can search for and find this type of group but members must be approved before they can join
Secret
This type of group cannot be searched for (they are invisible) and members must be explicitly invited to join by the group manager
I’m a member of several Facebook groups and have found them INVALUABLE as a way of connecting with like-minded people, making friends and sharing experiences about things that are important to me. All the while feeling a closer affinity to the brand that created the group.
Facebook groups are a great way to easily:
- Facilitate a forum for your tribe on which they can spend time with their fellow enthusiasts and nurture a sense of belonging
- Create a tight-knit hub of activity on which advocacy will occur naturally
- Inject a very ‘human’ element into your brand’s purpose
- Introduce a level of exclusivity to your brand
- Providing a safe platform for healthy discussion by creating rules to prevent spam and undesirable content
- Reveal a lot of data and insights about your tribe – it’s like looking at a microcosm of your ideal target audience
- Get engagement rates of 75% or more
- Provide member-only benefits to your most engaged and loyal audience
Tips to keep your Facebook groups manageable and effective:
- Keep a niche enough audience that you get traction in terms of engagement, discussion and amount of activity
- Set rules for your members to keep the forum non-spammy
- Use a “hands-off” approach and don’t post too often – let the members do the talking
- When you do post, don’t advertise or sell, just offer benefits and value
- Listen obsessively to the conversations happening in the group and learn about your tribe and how you can make their experience with your brand better
- Use your learnings to improve on your product, service, storytelling and content marketing strategy
- Use your Facebook page, other social channels, email and website to help grow group membership
- Don’t start a group if you don’t have the resources (community managers) to manage it
- Export your group member email list so that you have an owned backup of that data (just in case Facebook changes their algorithm for their groups)
Peloton is an example of a brand that has seen huge success with Facebook groups. In 3 years they saw an almost 9000% increase in the membership of their Facebook group, with over 158,000 members as of this writing.
The power of online community is greater than it’s ever been! Unleash it with Facebook groups!
