Millennial Investments — Entrepreneurship
Why Your Business, Whatever It Is, Should Start a Facebook Group 😎
Getting your business exposure can come from the most unlikely places.
Just when you think one social platform “did it all,” a new one comes out of nowhere — First MySpace, then Facebook, then Twitter, then Instagram, then Snapchat, and now TikTok. Businesses don’t have the time to try to grow a following or community on every single one, so how should you decide where to focus?
My job is to convince you that your company should start and grow a Facebook group no matter what business you are in.
Easy to Get Started and Grow 🌱
Last year, my company, EveryBankBonus, decided to invest more time into growing our social channels to drive more web traffic and boost our search engine optimization (SEO). Since our site is geared toward helping people make extra money from home by taking advantage of bank account sign up promotions, we figured our tech-savvy target audience would probably be online.
We invested a few hundred dollars into ads across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with little success. Instagram turned out to be too picture-oriented for “bank account” related content; Twitter isn’t useful for creating a “community,” and Facebook pages don’t get viewers unless it’s a viral cat video. 🐈
Looking to build a community, we decided to make a Facebook group. Following some advice from Neil Patel, we made sure to:
- Add a compelling banner image to the top.
- Name the group something that lots of our potential users would be searching for. For example, we named our group “Bank Bonus 101 — Earn money opening bank accounts 💸💰” to hit the keywords “bank bonus,” emphasize “101” to draw in new folks, and a brief description, so people knew what to expect from the group.
- Create a detailed, fun, inviting description for the group. Most people will read this before joining the group. Make it sound compelling and relevant to them!
- Add the right tags. This will help Facebook promote the group to potential users.
- Make it private. This adds a sense of exclusivity that will entice people to join. (Like the Millennial Investments Super Secret Slack Group! 🕵️)
After that, we added a bunch of friends and then invited our email list to join the group. We got the group to more than 150 in a few weeks.
Since then, we have grown the group to more than 1400 in about 8 months — with most of the growth coming organically from Facebook! (Not bad, right?)
Tons of Engagement 📢
Facebook groups have an advantage over every other type of content you try to post. The content shared with them comes from individuals and is weighted much more than promoted content. Facebook has made several pushes toward emphasizing user-generated content lately, and groups are the perfect way to leverage that in a way that benefits your brand.
As content and questions started coming through from group members, Facebook got a better idea of what the group Bank Bonus 101 was about. Facebook automatically began promoting our group to others in similar groups, and now we get consistent newcomers every week just from suggestions. And we don’t do a thing.
Even better, since Facebook groups let you engage with visitors through polls, GIFs, games, recommendations, etc., we can reach out to our group members in many more ways than other platforms allow. “Gee,” we thought to ourselves. “This is way better than trying to speak to everyone through an email list.”
Soon after creating the group, it was already self-sustaining, with group members posting and asking questions about banks, bank accounts, and bank account bonuses every day. And we were always a part of the conversation.
Loads of Recurring Customers 🛍️
Communities are great because you can market to your “love group” intimately and for free. You just let people hang out with each other as they would anyway; only you get to essentially “brand” every conversation. It’s a pretty cool deal.
In Bank Bonus 101, we created pinned “Announcement” posts that highlight our website’s best features and how they can help group members solve their problems (i.e., make more money by opening bank accounts). Every new member of the group sees that post first before anything else, and for those asking questions to the group, it becomes an easy reference that others can refer to.
Since investing in our Facebook group, we’ve seen hundreds of additional visitors come to the site monthly. We’ve also seen our organic traffic get a boost because those interacting on Facebook are telling their friends off Facebook about us, too.
Other Benefits ✨
I don’t know if it’s just me, but content creation takes forever. One extra benefit of having a group has a way to leverage others for content generation. Instead of trying to put out a 1000-word blog piece every day just in hopes of ranking on Google, you can let your fans create content by merely participating in the group. Posts, comments, questions — everything gets people engaged in your conversations.
And since Google also takes social profiles into consideration, we’ve seen an SEO boost from it! We’ve also used our group to recruit developers, freelancers, and writers interested in our cause. It’s awesome.
Give It a Try! 🔨
What do you want to associate your business with? Real estate? Investing? Chicken farms? Create a group, promote the heck out of it for a bit, then stoke the flame and watch it grow. Fans will find it and become your customers. Just watch and see! 👀
Thanks for Reading!
Phil Kirkeiner contributed this article to help other entrepreneurs be successful in marketing their startups. As always, thanks for supporting us in our journey to help others learn about personal finance, investing, and entrepreneurship to help them build wealth. We put a lot of time into creating great content for your enjoyment. We also love hearing your feedback. Let us know if you decide to make a Facebook group for your company. Drop the link below in the comments if you do! If you found this article helpful, please be sure to check out more great content from Millennial Investments! 🙏😎
