Hi, it's Lucy Griffiths and I'm gonna be talking you through paid subscription
groups. So I've spent the last three or four months
beta-testing paid subscription groups with Facebook and I was one of the first
so 45 entrepreneurs from around the world who beta tested this and we have
just gone live. So I'm gonna talk you through some the pros and cons of using
paid subscription groups on Facebook.
One of the big pros of doing this is of
course that we are in early and it's such a phenomenal thing to be able to be
part of the beta testing process, work with Facebook employees to tweak and
craft a product that really works for small businesses and entrepreneurs
around the world. The 45 entrepreneurs who have created these groups come from
all over the world whether it's the Philippines, India, Pakistan, the US, or the
UK where I'm from and we all have different businesses and different
business models. But the one thing that connects us is groups and how we've made
communities really at the forefront of our business, and in using this
product it's a really great way to take whatever you provide in your group one
step further. So I give a lot of content and a lot of information, I do a lot of
training, a lot of Facebook lives in my free group and I'm just adding on to
that. I'm just enhancing that, giving more PDFs, more workbooks, more information so
that people really want to be part of the process and it means that you can
give something more and it's a premium version of what you have already. The
other benefit of it being on Facebook is it's really super easy for people to
join. When I've done online courses before, I'm either using platforms
like Kajabi or teachable or if I'm doing a membership group, it's actually quite a
process to get people to join up. I've definitely had issues with many of the
main payment systems and so I wouldn't say any of those systems are perfect
whereas Facebook might have some glitches, but at least it's a platform
where everyone two billion people are using Facebook every single month. So
they're coming onto the platform and it's one click away for them to then
join your group, the peer group and then get access to the content. They don't
need to go somewhere else, remember login details, remember
passwords, all of that stuff. Of course they might forget their Facebook
password details but it's much less likely than having to do a course where
they go off the platform. So, that is one of the key benefits of this. Two of the
negatives are that number one that it doesn't look so pretty at the moment and
I will show you in a moment just what I mean.
And the second negative, if you want to call it that, is that by being on
Facebook people say oh they worry about you know the algorithms changing and
your content is at the mercy of Facebook. Well if you were running a membership
paid subscription site anyway, you would probably have a free a Facebook group
that you made an exclusive group. Plus then you'd have the workbooks, your
videos, your PDFs somewhere else. So that using Facebook and the paid
system, you're just putting that all together but you can still have the data,
the email addresses, all of those contacts so that you you don't lose
touch with that information and you don't lose touch with those people but
they're just much more likely to buy from you because it's one click away. So
I'm going to talk you through my paid subscription sites so you get to
have a look around and see what you think. If you liked this video please
put some comments below. I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to know your
thoughts about paid subscription groups. Hi! So here is my paid subscription or
membership group on Facebook, which is the online
entrepreneur studio. So as you can see it really looks like any other Facebook
group. The the key thing is it's just the membership side of it so when you join
up but once you're in it, it is very similar so it just has post that you can
do you can, you can just create content and then put it into files and units. So
if you've written a blog post you can literally then say up here you click on
it and you can you can then have it as an announcement and also you can then
add it into a unit. So I just go to the unit so you can see. So obviously if
you're doing some kind of group program where you're teaching people something
whether it's recipes or whether that is how to use social media or in my case
video marketing PR, then the units come in really handy so you can kind of
create a unit. Now I will say that the units don't look as pretty like if I was
doing this in a membership site somewhere else it would be much prettier
and you could have, you know, you could have images in there so you kind of
click on, you click down, let's say here's the helpful your own publicity machines.
You click and then you'll see all the different contents. I've got masses of
videos here and so kind of you could describe how it is and and then from
that you can have an image. So you can have a kind of welcome image and upload
PDFs and upload videos. I will say that it's a hundred meg is the maximum size
of video which actually from my confidence module it was a much bigger
file so I had to kind of break it down into three sections. But you can you know,
so all of this content is you know, it's all pre-recorded
all the workbooks and so it's a really great way of you know, being able
to put it all in one place and share your expertise and share your knowledge
with someone. You can also then of course do your Facebook lives, have
announcements, have competitions and in doing the videos and the watch parties
you can really bring people all together. So you might say I don't want Facebook
to have that data of the people. So you know it's it's always worth trying to
also make sure that you have those people and they're on your email list, so
that you can actually email them about things as well.
And so then you don't lose that data that information.
The second thing to say is that people also, the negative thought that I've
heard about doing this is they say, oh they don't know about reach on Facebook.
Well if you did a membership site somewhere else and you used Facebook and
a free group on Facebook, then you wouldn't get any more reach. You're
probably going to get more reach than a paid-for group. Secondly, by doing a
membership site within Facebook, it is so easy because you're bringing everything
together in one place, so that you're helping people to, you know, really they
they come across, you know, the post about you or whatever, they're attracted to
join your group, your ad and they click on the link and it's literally the touch
of a thumb from a mobile phone and they're in the group and so, it means
that you know that makes it makes the process so much easier than if you had
to go to a landing page and then they had to go somewhere else and pay and add
their credit card details and I certainly with group online group
programs that I've run before that I've had problems with some of the payment
software and either you have issues, I'm not mentioning their names but I can
think of two and actually they're both have their failings. One is much more
streamlined than the other but takes a higher cut. The other one, you know, takes
a high cut but is very clunky and really makes the process very difficult, so you
end up going back to the original payment system. So with Facebook at the
moment it is Apple pay, but that is changing very quickly. Obviously at the
moment we are beta testing this and we're like really early. There are only
about 40 entrepreneurs around the world who are using this and are actually
launching a membership group. So it's a phenomenal kind of thing for us to be
part of and it's really exciting for me to be part of it. But there will be
tweaks and changes and and the things that I said about like it's not so
pretty or the payment things, the payment thing is changing. At the moment Facebook
doesn't take any, it doesn't make any revenue from these paid groups. It is all
about beta testing it so there's no revenue incurred, you know, a revenue loss
incurred at the moment but the payment is through Apple pay. This again will
also change. So we're paying to Apple pay but in the future it will be a
Facebook system of payment and within that system then of course we will then
start, will then start paying Facebook. So you know, this is all changing and it's
all new but it is really exciting and the reason that you think about being
the journey of your potential people. So they're on Facebook, they click a button
and they don't have to go anywhere, they don't have to remember passwords, they
don't need to remember to do anything. Whereas if you have to be somewhere else
and click on another link and I never remember passwords, I hate passwords. So
it's just another set of passwords to remember and another thing to do and you
know so this is just a streamlined process. You get announcements, you know
in the same way that you would get announcements with other groups like oh
and new modules there, oh I must do this, there's a live event, all of that stuff
it's in one place so it makes it seamless. So I think it's absolutely
fantastic. I'm really thrilled to be part of it
and you know I I really think this is the way forward for many entrepreneurs
and it's really worth checking out if you want to go and have a look I'll put
the link below. My group is the online entrepreneurs studio and at the moment
it is $29 a month and you know it is a place where you can learn about PR
marketing video and we put all of that together, social media, podcasting and I'm
bringing in experts and when I say experts, I mean because I had 20 years in TV and
radio, I'm bringing in experts who are experts in like storytelling who work
for the biggest online publications in the world or massive podcasters. So we're
you know really going for big names rather than just saying oh yes this is
next but I've been doing it a few months. Okay, so I would love to see you there
but please you know I'd love to know your thoughts on having some kind of
studio, some kind of Facebook group, creating that space where you can train
and help others to grow. Okay, thank you so much for watching. Bye bye bye.