Why Your Facebook Group Isn’t Thriving
Let’s face it: a lot of businesses simply miss the point when it comes to internet marketing and especially when it comes to social media marketing.
If you have a Facebook group but it hasnÕt made any progress/isnÕt seeing any activity, then thereÕs a strong chance you might fall into that category. Read on to see what youÕre doing wrong and how to course-correct.
Have a Point
Too many companies believe that the best way to promote themselves is to set up a bland and boring brand and then to post about how great they are. Think I’m joking or exaggerating? Just take a look at the number of companies that have blue and white logos that are mainly text, with vague names like ÔVexSoftÕ and that donÕt make it clear exactly what they do (’empowering individuality, teamwork, and synergy in all sectors!’).
There is simply no incentive and no emotional pull for people to sign up to a Facebook group belonging to such a business. People join groups because they believe in a brand and because they want to support it/learn more about the topic. If your brand is just Ôgeneric businessÕ, then who is going to want to hear more from you? DonÕt be so safe: know who you are talking to, and dare to show some personality.
Provide Value
These same companies often have Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and Facebook groups where they just post bland statements about their own company:
‘VexSoft makes the top financial monitoring solutions in the industry!’
‘Have you tried our new accounting features?’
Things like this provide zero value to the user, they donÕt encourage conversation, and they simply lack any real value. Would you stay in a group that did this? Or would you leave right away?
Be Consistent
Finally, another one of the most common mistakes made by businesses is to fail to be consistent. They will create a Facebook group, and then simply not post into it for months on end. This means that when someone enters the group for the first time, they will think it is abandoned, or they will believe that the company simply isnÕt interesting enough to be worth following. That doesnÕt exactly incentivize them to sign up themselves!
As such then, you should make sure that you are not only posting interesting things, but also posting often enough that your group appears to be a hub of activity.
Using Facebook Groups for Feedback and Suggestions
Facebook groups are extremely useful for any business or brand, yet they often go under-utilized. Of course one of the big advantages of a Facebook group is that it allows a level of conversation and intimacy that is often missing from Facebook pages. This is somewhere for people who are like minded and share similar interests to meet and discuss and itÕs amazing for getting people invested in your brand and community.
But what it can ALSO be, is an excellent opportunity to get feedback and information. And in many ways, that can be the perfect business model.
A lot of businesses make the mistake of thinking of social media Ð and the web as a whole Ð as a platform, a pedestal, or perhaps a megaphone. They think of this as a way to scream out to the world and get their message across. This is understandable, given that this is how traditional marketing has worked for many years.
In fact though, the most successful use of the internet in marketing is as much about what you get back as it is about what you put out. ItÕs about letting the audience become a part of the creation process, thereby increasing their investment significantly and making them feel a part of something.
In the case of a blog, you might have spent the last several years posting content to your blog and finding that people arenÕt reading or sharing it. So why not instead ask your Facebook group the content theyÕd like to see? If they tell you, then you can almost guarantee that they will be interested in reading that content at least. More likely still, they will be representative of a much large audience that will also enjoy the content.
And the same goes for a product. You can simply ask your customers what product they would get excited about, and then make that product. ItÕs a foolproof business model! Not only have you made something that you KNOW there is an audience for, but also you have made that audience feel more invested due to the role they played in making it happen.
There are countless other ways to use a Facebook group to collect information. You can use it to learn about how your audience found your brand for instance, or you can use it to learn about your competitors. Either way, many companies spend thousands for this. With a Facebook group, you can get it all for free!
How To Promote Your Content In Another Facebook Group
How To Promote Your Content In Another Facebook Group
When you think about marketing via a Facebook group, you probably think about creating your own Facebook group and then using this in order to promote a product or service that youÕve created.
While this is an effective and viable option for promoting your business however, it is only one of several marketing strategies involving the use of Facebook groups. In fact, one of the best ways to use a Facebook group is by using groups made by other brands and users.
But there is a way to go about this if you want to be successful. Read on to make sure you get it right!
Choosing the Right Group
This is what we call the Ôgo to marketÕ strategy. It means finding somewhere that your target demographic is likely to spend time, and then marketing to that specific group. For example, if you sell martial arts supplies, then you might look for Facebook groups about martial arts, UFC, karate, or even Jackie Chan movies.
The key is to make sure that the group members match your ideal target demographic (or buyer persona) as closely as is possible. Ideally, the subject of the group should almost precisely match the industry you are in.
At the same time though, as we can see in this example, there is also some benefit to occasionally trying related and tangential topics. Someone who doesnÕt do martial arts but DOES love Jackie Chan, might consider buying a book on kung fu for example. By looking for tangentially related subject matters, you can often open up your products to entirely new potential customers. This is also a great way to increase your readership if you run a blog or website.
Contributing
While missing the mark with your niche is a common mistake, itÕs actually the less serious mistake that gets made. More serious is when you post your content to a group and the moderators remove your post and remove you from the group! This happens a lot because you might look as though you are simply spamming the group and using it for self-promotion (which you kind of areÉ).
The solution then is not to start using the group for self-promotion right away, but to FIRST use it as it was intended. Answer questions, post interesting blog posts, and generally try to make a name for yourself. This is the secret ingredient that so many marketers are missing.
How to Create a Facebook Group That Runs Itself
There are many great reasons to create a Facebook group for your business, but one of the most compelling is that this is a project that can run itself.
Facebook groups are used by one billion people on the planet, and allow for a far more engaged and personal form of communication between brands and their customers. Despite these facts, a lot of companies simply arenÕt using them. The reason for this is that they donÕt feel they have the time or resources to dedicate to yet another marketing endeavor on Facebook! TheyÕre already running a Facebook page and an advertising campaign!
But what if the group could run itself? What if you could set it up, walk away, and then come back months later to find it had grown huge?
This is completely possible owing to the community nature of the group. A Facebook group allows people to discuss their favorite topics, share stories and tips, and generally Ôtalk amongst themselvesÕ. While it can be useful to facilitate conversation in person, you arenÕt strictly needed at all!
How do you get to this point?
First of all, you choose a topic for your Facebook group that is very niche. By doing this, you target a more select segment of the population, who are therefore likely to have more in common and therefore have more to discuss with one another.
At the same time, you need to make sure that there are clear and concise rules that help to set the tone for interactions and help people behave toward one another in a courteous fashion. There is an option in the settings to set this up.
By keeping your group private at least to begin with and inviting people manually/requiring approval for new members, you can thereby ensure that at least the first batch of members will have the right attitude. This will again hopefully set a ÔtoneÕ for the rest of the members and the conversation going forward.
Another thing to consider is making some of your own members into moderators. That means they will be tasked with approving posts and members, and clamping down on any breaches of your terms. By using moderators, you not only offload some of your own work, but you also create extremely loyal followers in those moderators who will be pleased to have been chosen, and likely to feel even more committed to your brand as a result.
3 Ways to Keep a Steady Flow of Content to Your Facebook Group
Facebook groups are highly powerful marketing tools that can allow you to build an extremely engaged and loyal audience Ð perhaps moreso than other options such as Facebook pages.
But while a Facebook group is unique in the way it often gets used, it still requires content and discussion to provide value. People came to your group because they wanted to discuss a subject theyÕre passionate about and learn more about it. If the group is empty, then theyÕll leave.
How do you keep your Facebook group full of great content? Here are three excellent options.
Research
One of the best ways to use a Facebook group is to share content you find on the web that you think your audience will be interested in. Ideally, this should be the kind of Ôhigher caliberÕ content that only those that are extremely well-versed in the subject matter would be interested in Ð the kinds of stuff that your shallower blog might not share.
But where to get this highly engaging and fascinating content? The answer is to dedicate some time each day to researching topics. And one of the best ways to go about that is to head over to BuzzSumo (www.buzzsumo.com). Here, you can type in any niche and get a selection of posts that are trending on social media on that topic. This is an amazing strategy, because it lets you find content that you already know is capable of performing well on the platform.
Another option is to sign up to other similar Facebook groups and pages and to use those for inspiration.
Allow Posts From Members
There are many different settings you can tweak in your Facebook group. One is to decide to allow members to post to your group or not. You can alternatively allow posts but require that all said posts are approved by a moderator.
By allowing posts, you empower your members to share content and start discussions, thereby ensuring a steady flow of new content and information!
Use Post Scheduling
Did you know you can schedule posts on Facebook? Write the post as you normally would, but instead of hitting post, hit the small clock icon next to that button. This way, you can choose when the post goes live.
If you know youÕre going to be busy, then spend a day researching great content and then just set it to go live at set intervals.
3 Ways to Get More Facebook Group Members
3 Ways to Get More Facebook Group Members
The main benefit of a Facebook group is not that it allows you to grow your audience and reach lots of people. Groups, unlike pages, are typically quieter and less public. If you have your privacy set to private, then other visitors wonÕt even be able to see the content of a group until they join!
The benefit of Facebook groups is more about increasing the engagement with the followers you already have. And to that end, you need to think about what goes in the group more than how you promote it.
BUT with that said, you will still likely want to grow your Facebook group to at least some degree, so that you can get the best ROI for the time and effort you put into it. Here are some easy ways to grow your member count.
Link to Your Facebook PageIf you have a Facebook page, then linking to that will mean that your group appears at the top and this will attract more of your Facebook page members. This is a great way to treat your Facebook promotion as a kind of sales funnel Ð taking your viewers from a less invested form of communication to one that involves them taking part more actively.
At the same time, this can be a really good way to Ôwake upÕ your Facebook page, if it has become somewhat stale.
Talk About It Elsewhere
Another great way to get more people into your Facebook group is to talk about it elsewhere. If you have a blog or a YouTube channel, then make sure to actually mention your page and to make it sound enticing. Drop it into the conversation as often as possible, and choose your language carefully. Calling your members things like ÔVIPsÕ can go a long way to making the whole concept seem more exclusive and exciting.
You can also use other types of incentive Ð for instance by offering something free from within the group only to members.
Run a Competition
Invite your members to invite other members to the group. The member who brings in the most new members wins something. This could be an ebook or something similar, or even mean making them moderators!
Simply making more members into moderators can even have a similar effect Ð as they will likely feel pride at being in that role and want to share what they are doing with friends.
Increasing Your Reach On Facebook And Instagram With Paid Ads
Increasing Your Reach On Facebook And Instagram With Paid Ads
Hello there everyone! Facebook boasts of over 2 billion monthly active users. With a user base that size, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a very large portion of your target audience there, but it can be tough to build it organically.
Luckily, Facebook is also one of the best advertising platforms out there, and its audience targeting tools can help you reach that portion of your audience easily and for cheap. So today we’re going to show you how to create a paid ads campaign that’ll help you increase your reach on Facebook and Instagram, the easy way.
Getting Started
To create a paid ads campaign on Facebook, you need to access the ads manager. Go to http://facebook.com/adsmanager/creation on your browser while logged in to your Facebook account to access the campaign creation page directly.
You’ll be able to start creating your new ad campaign on this screen, step by step. The first step is to select your campaign objective. Selecting a campaign objective provides you with a campaign setup that is optimized to help you achieve your marketing goal.
Because your marketing goal for this campaign is to increase your reach, you have to click on the “reach” option.
Now enter a name for your new ad campaign in the “campaign name” field, then click on the “set up add account” button.
Next up you will be asked to select your account country, your currency, and your time zone. Click on “continue” after selecting your ad account info.
Creating The Ad Set
Next up you have to create the ad set for this campaign. First, enter a name for your new ad set in the “ad set name” field. Now select the Facebook page that you want to promote from the “Facebook page” menu. Let’s now set up the target audience. With Facebook ads you can reach users by targeting multiple user data. First, you have to select the locations that you are going to target in the “locations” section. To select a location, simply type the name of a location in the text field above the map and click on it to select it. You can target several locations at once.
After selecting a location, you can also select to target “everyone in this location”, “people who live in this location”, “people recently in this location” or “people traveling to this location”.
Now select the base and top “age” of your target audience. Now select the “gender” of your audience. Now select your “languages”. To select a language, simply click in the “languages” box, type the initial of the language that you want to target, and click on it to select it. You can target multiple languages at once.
In the “detailed targeting” section you can “include” or “exclude” people based on “demographics”, “interests”, and “behaviors”. In the “connections” section you can select to reach users according to the type of connection that they have with your page, such as “people who like your page” or “friends of people who like your page”.
You can click on “save audience” to save this audience setup so you can use it on another campaign later.
In the “placements” section you can select where you want to show your Facebook ads. If you select “Automatic placements” your ads will appear to all users on all types of devices across multiple placements that include Instagram and the Audience Network.
If you select “edit placements”, you can select where you want to show your ads and on what devices. If you select this option, you have to make sure to select “Instagram” as a target platform to extend your reach to Instagram.
On the “budget and schedule” section you have to select a budget and a schedule for your campaign. Select “daily budget” if you want to spend a fixed amount on a daily basis, or select “lifetime budget” if you want to spend your entire budget until your campaign ends or the budget is depleted.
On “schedule” you can select “run my ad set continuously starting today” to run your ads until you stop them manually, or you can select “set a start date and an end date” to select when your ads start running and when the campaign ends. You can click on “continue” when you finish creating the ad set.
Creating The Ad Set
Now it is time to create the ad. Start by typing a name for your ad in the “ad name” field.
In the “Identity” section you have to choose how you want to represent your business in your ad. By default, the Facebook page that you selected when you created the ad set will be already selected here.
Now, if you haven’t connected an Instagram account to your Facebook page, Instagram will use the name of your page and the profile picture to show your ads. If you want an Instagram account to represent your ads on the platform, you’ll simply have to click on “add Instagram account”, enter your Instagram account information, and click on “confirm”. For this example we’ll simply let our Facebook page to represent our ads on Instagram.
Now you have to select your ad format. The ad formats available for this type of campaign include “carousel” or “single image or video”. Let’s select “single image or video”.
After selecting a format you have to upload your media. Select “image” if you’re going to use an image. Select “video or slideshow” if you are going to use a video or slideshow. Upload your image, video, or slideshow, and move to the next step.
Over in the “text” section you have to add your ad copy, ad text, and your ad URLs.
Start by adding your ad copy to the “text” field. Now check the “add a website URL” box and enter your destination URL in the “website URL” field.
Now enter a headline for your ad in the “headline” field. Now add a brief description or value proposition to the “news feed link description” field.
Now click on the “call to action” menu to add a “call to action” button to your ad. There are several types of CTA buttons available. Select the one that best describes the action you want users to complete.
You can take a look at how your ads will appear on different placements in the “ad preview” window.
You can click on the “confirm” button after you finish creating your ad to submit it for approval. Approval usually takes between 10 and 15 minutes. And that is it! You can expose your brand to a lot of users by spending as little as $5 a day!
Creating Social Media Marketing Posts For LinkedIn In 2019-20
Hey there friends! LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform that is not used enough by marketers, but you don’t want to miss out, because the advantage of LinkedIn marketing is the hyper-focused audience you’ll find there.
Today we are going to show you how you can create LinkedIn marketing posts that are guaranteed to generate engagement as well as qualified leads and conversions down the line!
Getting Started
We’re going to start this lesson by creating a company post that we’ll optimize for marketing. To create a company update, you need to create a company page first. If you don’t have a company page for your business on LinkedIn yet, you need to create one before we continue.
Sign in to your LinkedIn account, click on the “me” menu, and click on the name of your company page. Now click on “Start a post” to start composing your new LinkedIn marketing post.
Composing A LinkedIn Marketing Post
Composing LinkedIn marketing posts is easy because they should always be focused on professional problem-solving. You see, the LinkedIn user base is very narrow because it is made entirely of professionals, job seekers, and business managers.
This means that your LinkedIn marketing strategy has to be focused on sharing content that is intended to solve a problem or a series of problems in your target industry.
Because of this, you have to limit your content marketing strategy to sharing relevant articles and curated links or videos. You can’t simply promote your website, and you should not share business-to-customer promotional links. You can only promote business-to-business products or services to “B2B” leads that are already engaged with your content updates.
Alright, so let’s start by opening the post with a fact or a question. To open with a fact or a question, you simply have to extract a relevant piece of information from the article or video that you are going to share, and to summarize it as a fact or a question in your post.
Another strategy that works is, if you are sharing a numbered article or video, to number each entry in the article or list so you can invite users to learn more by clicking on your link
You can also apply both strategies by opening with a fact or question, and then you can expand the post by adding the numbered entries.
Let’s compose a post where we apply both strategies. First, we’re going to type a fact from the article that we are going to share on our post.
Now we are going to expand this fact by adding the numbered entries in the article. Remember to use actionable words to connect the fact with the numbered list in the post.
Now add a call to action to encourage users to visit your link and access the content piece. Now follow the call to action with your link. Here we also recommend you to insert a shortened URL.
LinkedIn will generate a link preview of your post that users can click through. If you want to replace the link preview with a branded image or video, you’ll just have to click on the “x” icon to eliminate the link preview, and then to click on the “share images” button to upload an image or on the “share videos” button to upload a video.
In our case, we’ll use the link preview for our LinkedIn marketing post. Now, the last step is to add hashtags to your marketing post. The best way to add hashtags to a LinkedIn marketing post is by identifying relevant keywords and search terms in your post copy and adding a “#” symbol at the start of each. The maximum number of hashtags that you should add to a LinkedIn marketing post is five hashtags.
You can click on the “post” button when you are finished composing your new marketing post. And that is it!
On average, LinkedIn users need to consume at least 10 pieces of content before making a business or purchasing decision, so focus on publishing unique and relevant posts every day to build authority and to generate leads.
Creating Social Media Marketing Posts For Instagram In 2019-20
Creating Social Media Marketing Posts For Instagram In 2019-20
Hey there friends! Instagram is the world’s favorite visual discovery platform. Its visual storytelling format also makes it the perfect platform for marketing.
Today we are going to show you how to create Instagram posts that generate lots of engagement and clicks to your websites and product pages.
Getting Started
Before we show you how to compose an Instagram marketing post, we need to show you how to insert external URLs that you can promote on Instagram.
You see, you can’t insert URLs into Instagram posts. That makes it impossible to share content that is outside Instagram, so all engagement happens inside the platform. You can circumvent this limitation by inserting your URLs into your profile though.
Sign in to your Instagram account. Tap on the profile icon located on the lower right-corner of your device’s screen and then tap on “edit profile”.
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You can include two URLs to your profile. Use the “website” field to insert the URL that you are going to promote, and the “bio” field to insert the URL of your business website.
This is because the “website” field is the only field where you can insert a clickable URL, so it is the best place to insert the URL where you want users to take action. In the “bio” field on the other hand you can insert a text-only version of your business website URL for brand awareness.
In this example we are going to promote the URL of an affiliate product, so we’re going to add it to the “website” field. To add your URL, tap on the “website” field and paste the URL that you are going to promote. Make sure to always add a shortened version of your URL.
Now tap on the “bio” field. Paste a text-only version of your website URL at the end of your bio. You can tap on “done” when you are finished adding your URLs.
Selecting Media For Your Instagram Marketing Post
Because Instagram is a visual discovery platform, you will have to take a photo, to upload an image, or to record a video for each post that you compose.
To add media to a new post, you can tap the camera icon to take a picture or record a video, or you can tap on the “plus” icon located on the lower screen to access the gallery and upload an image from your device.
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In this example, we’re going to select a product image from our gallery to promote our affiliate offer. Please note that stock images don’t perform well on Instagram. Always focus on adding your own images to build trust. You can tap on “next” to continue.
You can edit your image or video by adding a filter and adjusting other settings. You can experiment with these settings to generate consistent visual effects that you can use on all your posts. By using the same visual effect on all your posts you will increase brand recall. You can tap on “next” to continue after you are finished editing your media.
Composing An Instagram Marketing Post
Let’s now compose an Instagram marketing post. The goal of an Instagram marketing post is to generate engagement, reach, brand awareness, and product consideration among qualified members of your target audience.
An Instagram marketing post doesn’t necessarily have to follow a structure as long as it includes your target keywords, relevant search terms, a call to action if you’re promoting an external URL, and hashtags.
Let’s start by composing a compelling caption where we target product keywords and search terms related to our affiliate offer. To increase curiosity, we are going to open our caption with a question where we target a product
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keyword. Next we are going to add a relevant search term and a description of the affiliate product that we are promoting.
Now we’re going to type a call to action to encourage users to visit the referral link in our bio to learn more about the product.
Now it is time to add your hashtags. Hashtags are a crucial element of an Instagram marketing post because they increase discoverability and make it easier for your target audience to find your content.
You can add up to 30 hashtags to an Instagram post, but marketing studies have found that posts with a maximum of 9 hashtags perform the best.
So let’s start adding our hashtags. Only add keywords that are relevant to your post as hashtags. Always make sure to research the best hashtags for each post. For example, we researched keywords and search terms used by people looking for the type of products included in our offer, then we compared those keywords to results in hashtag searches on Instagram to find the best hashtags for our post.
You can tap on “share” when you are finished composing your new Instagram marketing post. And that’s it!
The Go To Market Technique for Facebook Groups
Marketers may be familiar with the term Ôgo to marketÕ. ItÕs essentially a marketing technique that involves identifying precisely who your target audience is for your product or service, locating where they spend time, and then creating promotions and posts that those people will see. For instance, if you were to sell gardening implements, then you might identify that your target demographic is gardeners, and you might head over to ÔGardenerÕs WorldÕ magazine and pay for an advert in that glossy.
The result is that a huge number of the precise people who are likely to buy from you, will now see your product. That can of course result in a great number of sales.
How do you do this on the web? One option is to use social sharing sites and social networks. Groups and subreddits are popular options. Find the right subreddit for your topic and share a post in there, and if it is shared and upvoted enough times, then this can lead to that post being seen by hundreds of thousands of people Ð this can even potentially lead to vast numbers of sales.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t typically work out that way. What is actually much more likely to happen, is that you share your post on a subreddit, and it gets buried to the bottom. Why? Because itÕs not a perfect match for that community. Worse, is that it might get completely removed from the site and you could even be banned from that community! The vast majority of online communities do not like it when you share content that is clearly self-promotional.
But that’s why is so valuable to consider creating your own social group. When you do this, you can firstly choose precisely the topics that you will be sharing. You might opt to create a group discussing the exact niche that you will be selling to. These people will be likely to be interested in what you have to offer, because you made sure the group would target the exact right people!
At the same time, you are the owner and that means that you get the Ôfinal sayÕ on the type of content that can be shared there. No one can deem that what you posted was inappropriate, and therefore you know your content isnÕt going to get deleted.
Create a small Facebook group in the topic you are targeting, invite people, and then let it thrive and grow on its own. Then, when you are ready to, post about your product or service!
