- Are you using your Facebook group for business?
If so, we're gonna be talking about 25 Facebook group hacks
that's going to help you grow your business
and your Facebook group, stay tuned.
Hey, I'm Dale L. Roberts, best-selling author
as well as the self-publishing advocate
who wants to show you how to publish books that sell.
If you want that too,
make sure of course, that you subscribe
and join me every Monday at 12 p.m.
on twitch.tv/selfpublish if you've got Amazon Prime,
you can also subscribe for free and get a few freebies
in the process.
Without any further ado, I've got 25 tips for you.
We're gonna rattle them off really quickly and keep in mind,
I've got some links in the description down below
where I expand on few of these concepts.
Number one, create a keyword rich group name.
Don't overthink this one.
What you're gonna wanna do is, what's your niche
and how are people going to find it?
Think about something that's going to be common
that people are going to be looking up in a search engine
to find your type of content.
So unless your name is PewDiePie or Philip DeFranco,
then chances are likely you probably shouldn't use your name
as the group name.
Maybe something more relevant to your niche.
For instance, my group is called, Self Publishing Books.
It's not called Dale L. Roberts, oddly enough
and it makes it more discoverable.
Speaking of discoverability, number two,
add tags and relevant keywords to your description.
To become more discoverable in Facebook,
you need to say precisely what people are looking up
to find your type of content.
So you wanna get very very specific
by choosing those five tags for your group
as well as getting it to description, having those five tags
and any other relevant keywords
to make your group more discoverable
in the Facebook algorithm.
Number three, know your traffic.
Okay, so you're allowed up to three questions
for entry to get into your group.
I recommend you use all three of them
and ask questions that you can kind of figure out
where someone's coming from.
So for instance, in mine, one of my questions is,
are you subscribed to my YouTube channel?
If they say yes, then chances are pretty likely,
they came over form my YouTube channel.
If they say no, then I can assume that Facebook
is sending that traffic.
So it's kind of cool when you start to see more
of Facebook sending stuff to you because
of this entry-level question,
you'll be able to see exactly that.
Number four, create an eye-catching group banner.
Okay, so don't use Microsoft Paint and if you have to,
hire out something, get someone on Fiverr
or even can use things like Canva or Relaythat
or any number of apps out there to create a nice,
vibrant group banner.
And the group banner should include the name of your group
and maybe even your pretty mug if that's relevant to that
and any other imagery.
Number five, engagement is king.
All right, so if you get any one tip out of this
it's going to be that engagement is king and it's also key
to growing your group.
So make sure you keep the conversation going
and at first it's gonna be tedious,
but in due time it's gonna take off.
It's kind of like starting a fire.
At first, it's gonna start real small
and then it'll start to grow.
Number six, tag relevant members in posts.
If you find that a post is not taking off like it should,
then chances are likely you need to invite more people
to the conversation.
Now, don't get too obnoxious
and start tagging every single person in the group.
Maybe ask few people ahead of time and you know, hey,
could I be able to tag you in a post?
That's a great way to invite them in
and kind of gently notify them of your post
and get it to where you're creating more engagement
and of course, creating an entire thread
that people can consume and grow the community.
Number seven, always break up lengthy posts.
That simple, you shouldn't have this wall of text
that's going to assault people because most times,
people are scrolling through and they first of all,
don't have time to sit and read that or they just look
at that and say, well, I'll read that later on.
So don't put entire paragraphs.
Break it up line by line into short bite-sized sentences.
Number eight, emojis for the win.
Okay, this seems kind of childish for some of you out there.
Like, I don't know, emojis, what?
Yes, put emojis in there.
That imagery, that really stops the scroll
and gets it towards someone will focus in on your post
and especially if you've broken it up into bite-size pieces.
Number nine, imagery commands attention.
No surprise, I just told you emojis is going to be something
that's gonna stop the scroll.
What's gonna further stop the scroll is either a picture,
a gif or a video.
Good, better, best, in that specific model.
So if you can get those three things going in one capacity,
then you're going to stop the scroll
and create more engagement in your group.
Number 10, create daily posts.
Now, I'm not telling you to create daily posts yourself,
but what I would recommend is if you have some moderators
in the group, that you assigned them a day of the week,
in which they put a thought-provoking post
or something that's going to create engagement.
It's gonna take a little bit of experimentation,
but in due time, you'll be able to see what your audience
is going to most interact with.
Number 11, business page moderator.
Okay, this is gonna kind of seem a little crazy,
but if you've got a business page that's relevant
to your niche, for your group, then bring that business page
in as a moderator.
Anytime that you create a post,
do it with your business page
because when people interact with that, you're able to go in
and invite them to like your business page
and grow your business page in the process.
Number 12, encourage and engage in all posts.
You wanna see your group grow, you must have engagement.
I know I've said this already,
but even if it's not your post,
you should already be contributing either in a reaction
or a comment or any type of question.
Something that will keep the conversation going.
Number 13, create polls.
Hey one of the best ways to figure out what the members
want the most from the group is create a poll.
Put together something.
What they want to see, give them some options.
Sometimes you can do open-end polls,
other times you can do closed-ended polls, either way,
create polls, people love to vote.
(people cheering)
Probably one of the most popular features I do.
Number 14, delegate duties.
Okay, I'm giving you a lot of tips.
You're probably like, oh my gosh.
I can't do any...
Like, there's no way I'll be able to do all this.
That's okay, get some trusted people that can be moderators
of your group.
Not admin, you're gonna stay the administrator
of your group, but you're going to bring in moderator,
so they can kind of help get everything going
and that way you're not feeling overwhelmed.
Number 15, the three C's, create, community, culture.
All right, and that means that you're going to really try
to create the community that you want
and see in other people and want to see your specific group
to grow to be.
So you always want to make sure that any time
that any type of posts are being put in the group,
that it matches your community culture.
And if it doesn't make sense, either A,
you don't post it or B, kick out the person that's doing it.
16, create units and files section.
Units and files is a great way
to get new members kind of acclimated to the situation
and the more that your group grows,
you're gonna notice some common questions
and one of the easiest ways to answer that,
instead of saying, well, just search for it.
You can also just send them over to the units
and file section where you cover any kind of FAQ's.
Number 17, create a clear set of rules.
I know it sucks.
You got to put out some rules.
You gotta put out something that makes sense
and starts to really set expectations
to where people understand what the community cultures like,
so that way if somebody is not in alignment with that,
get, you can boot him out.
Number 18, weed out the undesirables.
Hear me say it already,
if it doesn't match the community culture, get,
boot people out.
I honestly just don't have the time of day
to be dealing with someone who is going in
and creating arguments and just stirring the pot.
Nah, I just boot them and I don't even worry
about having them come back in.
I block him from ever coming back.
Number 19, member spotlight.
This is kind of a fun way that you can kind of give back
to the community.
And if you see somebody who's particularly engaging a lot
in some of the posts and things
and contributing some great posts and conversations,
you put a member spotlight up once per week
and it's kind of a fun thing.
A lot of people like to share a little bit about themselves,
especially if they're involved in your type of business.
Number 20, live stream.
This is gonna require just a little bit more equipment
or maybe even your mobile phone.
You can live stream into your group
and talk a little bit more about your niche.
Try to invite people and let them know ahead of time
about your live stream.
So that way you create engagement.
Live stream is so amazing and the aspect that
you get a lot of people and the more engagement
that comes in obviously,
the more Facebook recommends more people in there.
I found any time I've done a live stream,
the group gets a ton of new requests that come
into the group.
Number 21, value first, sales second.
Okay, I know it's a business and I know should
be selling some things, but always deliver value first
and then sell second.
So you shouldn't be beating people up to buy your products
all the time.
All right, you need to make sure that you just slow it down,
deliver value, then go for a sale.
Number 22, purge post.
This might not apply to all niches and genres,
but it does in my particular business.
You're gonna find sometimes people want to share,
maybe a product or service or a website of some sort
and I typically try to steer clear
of having them doing a normal post.
So what I do is I put together a purge post
that happens every Tuesday and I say,
hey promote everything that you want to inside this thread
and it's amazing because that thread will typically take off
and a lot of people will learn a little bit more
about the community inside that post
without being beat up every day of the week
for a specific brand, service or product.
They've got it in one thread.
Number 23, never stop promoting the group.
That's simple, never stop promoting your group.
If you want it to grow, you have to continue to tell people
about it and share it with people and also,
recommend to your group members,
if they're enjoying being part of the community,
invite other people to come in
and promote the group for you.
Number 24, collaborate with other Facebook groups.
So there's gonna be other Facebook groups
that are within your niche and within your genre.
What you're gonna wanna do is become part of their community
and speak with the admins or moderators
and see if maybe you could do a quid pro quo
to where if they would promote your group,
if you promote there's and it's kind of a win-win situation
because then you can have just a gigantic community
between the two and lastly number 25,
be flexible, right, every now and then,
there's gonna come a time when you just have a post
that you're like, oh man, I don't like this.
Instead of just silencing them or deleting them
and getting rid of them, take a step back
and look at the bigger picture.
Does this help grow your community?
Is it something that's part of the community culture?
If so, then I would say just sit
on back and relax, be flexible, it's okay.
Hey, I've got an entire video on how to grow Facebook group
and it's a little bit more detailed.
You're gonna take a look at in the very next video.
Until then, I will see you in the very next video.