A Facebook Group is a fantastic tool for building community—when people are regularly showing up. But what can you do if no one is joining your Facebook Group?
Having people join your Facebook Group can be challenging. So, before you start tackling the task of making it grow, you must make sure you’ve got the basics done correctly.
First, you’ll need to make sure your group is set up the right way to attract the people you want into your group. Second, create content and engagement that will keep the momentum going.
Related Post: Facebook 101
The first option you will see in group settings is your Facebook Group name.
You can only change your group name every 28 days, so take your time to decide what you want it to be.
A good Facebook Group name will …
Related Post: Facebook 101
Facebook Groups added a new feature of group types in 2018, but they are still an underutilized feature.
By selecting the right type for your group, you can open up different options that can help your ideal member find you and also help current members get the most out of your group.
Five different group types are available for you to choose from:
In any group type, you can make it an open or closed group, create posts, manage members, and view your group insights.
Let’s look at how you can maximize each one.
This group type will work for most groups. It gives you all the basic features including:
If in doubt, this is a good place to start with your group.
As the name suggests, these groups allow members to buy items from and sell items to one another. Any member of the group (not just a group organizer) is able to buy or sell.
If you only want to sell your products, you may find a Facebook Page is a better fit.
This type of group is typically used to start local groups of people selling similar items.
You may find it a good fit for your brand if it gives you a chance to connect meaningfully with your community. For example, if you teach about podcasting, you could create a buy/sell group attached to your page where people can sell their used podcasting equipment. Doing so can create a useful resource for people in your ideal target market and have a space to connect with them.
If you are a gamer, a Youtuber that focuses on games, or you sell items to gamers, you may have fun creating a Gaming Facebook group. You can connect to a game, run tournaments, and have fun building a community through your games.
Though you can definitely get creative with this and insert some of your promotional content into the group, remember that if you don’t keep it primarily about the games that people will not stay engaged in the group.
This is one of the most interesting group types with the widest applications. If you are engaged in educating or teaching your audience in any way, this group type will open up many unique opportunities.
For example, non-profits can also utilize this group to teach about the cause that your organization supports. You can create individual lessons, which are called “units” in the social learning groups.
Within units, you can add videos, audio, PDF files, or regular posts. When people respond to those posts, it keeps them all in the order that you set up. This makes it easier for you to answer questions, for group members to connect with each other by topic, and for you to update content.
Another fun feature is that members can mark “Done” when they have completed an item. For example, they watch a video or complete an assignment. This helps you keep track of your members’ progress through the units and identify where people may be getting stuck.
Human Resources and Social Media often are separate departments in bigger companies, but this is a perfect opportunity for some strategic collaboration! The jobs group type will allow you to create and manage job listings within the group.
You will want to recommend that this is kept as an open group. That way you can invite current employees to become members and they can share the group or tag open positions for their friends.
Like your group name, the description of the group is important for both search and to attract members to join. Using key search terms in your description is important. So is making an easy to read description written for your ideal members.
Add your website link in the first sentence if you want to drive traffic there. Doing so can help people find additional information quickly and easily. Then ask yourself whether your description answers these questions:
Make sure you proofread the description. Have someone else review it and make sure it is clear and concise.
Now you want to review your settings to optimize them for your specific group. Don’t skip this step! It will make a big difference in who sees your group in the first place.
Getting your group set up the right way is the first step. Not only do you need new people to find you through search, you need them to stick around and invite others to the group too. You need good management of posts by others as well as unique creative content of your own.
Set clear rules for the group. You will also want to manage your membership settings for the best experience for everyone in the group.
Those settings can be changed at any time. If you find that you start to have more spam posts in the group, you may want to tighten controls for a period of time while reminding members of the rules of the group.
Managing your group helps keep the group members you want in the group engaged and also makes it a space they want to invite others to join.
You have people joining your group! Congratulations! Now take advantage of their attention to start great content. If you want to manage your content more effectively (or if you are managing the group as a team), then taking advantage of a content scheduler like Agorapulse can help.
Though you can’t mention accounts or respond to comments within Agorapulse for Facebook groups, you can still use all the content publishing features including:
Your main goal in a group is to communicate with and serve your ideal group members to build relationships. Then it will be an online space they look forward to visiting and sharing.
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