How To Grow Your Facebook Group To Market Your Business And Get New Clients

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Grow Your Facebook Group
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Thinking about creating a Facebook Group to promote your business? You are in the right place! Read on to find out how we did it!

We decided to share a case study about how we grew our group and why you should do it too!

Join us for a 10 minutes read where we share the little-known details and the challenges we faced while growing our Facebook group.

After using the methods, our Facebook group had a 400% increase in the number of members, but most importantly, our engagement increased with 350%.

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Still, when it comes to communities, it’s not all about the numbers. It’s about people and feelings. When people with the same values come together and help each other, that’s when miracles actually happen. And that’s when we are reminded why we love our work, and get the motivation we need.

Facebook group grow active users
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With our Facebook group, we wanted to get to know our clients better, offer them special advantages and share the good vibes! We also wanted to create a community where we could share our work and receive feedback: talk about new releases, offer early access to beta launches, offer exclusive inside news and ideas for your designs.

We got more than that: we got a great community that inspired us in this beautiful world of Design and Advertising.

Why Create a Facebook Group for Business

Before showing you how to grow your own active Facebook group, let’s see how a Facebook group can help your business and why you should do it.

In the last few years, Facebook made a shift towards supporting meaningful interactions and communities. 2018 statistics show that over one billion people are members of Facebook groups. 10% of them belong to meaningful communities, which are becoming the most important part of someone’s experience on Facebook.

Since 2017, business pages can create Facebook groups, for “fan clubs and groups centered around your super-fans”.

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There are more ways of using a Facebook group for business, so the first thing you need to do is decide what you want to obtain with it. It all depends on your type of business and how your community engages. You can choose to use a Facebook group for marketing purposes, or you can go one step ahead and use it for customer service or improve your business overall.

Here at Bannersnack, we provide an online tool specialized in creating visuals for marketing, advertising, and social media.

For example, it is really easy to create your Facebook group cover with our tool. Just choose the size, the background and the elements to use.

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As of May 2018, the Facebook group cover size is 820 x 428 px. Here’s a tip: try to include your community in the Facebook group cover, this way members will be assured they matter to you.

1. Using a Facebook group for marketing

Even though it’s been around for some years, Facebook is still the most popular and efficient social media platform out there with 79% of Americans using it.

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In the last couple of years, groups have had better engagement rates and higher organic reach, so it makes sense to consider them as a marketing tool.

Since the decline of the organic reach on Facebook pages, many marketers turned their attention towards Facebook groups. Here, the engagement and the reach is high compared to those of a Facebook page, so it makes sense to wonder whether to use a group for marketing purposes.

Users get a notification everytime someone posts on the group, so if you have important updates such as events or new releases, you can get them out there with groups, and you can make sure your community gets them.

“But there’s a catch, if you only talk about yourself, users will get bored and leave the group.”

Here are some alternative ways to use Facebook groups to add value to both your business and your customers.

2. Using a Facebook group for Customer Service

If you have a business that needs a Customer Service department, and users turn to you for advice about troubleshooting or asking how features work, a Facebook group may be ideal for you.

It’s not meant to replace your customer service department though. However, there are times when the user may get answers to questions from a group member. This way, in time, your Facebook Group might ease the work of your customer service department, as users will start helping each other, getting more relevant answers faster.

For example, Facebook’s help community works on the same principle.

People can type their questions and get answers from other users that face the same problem.

3. Receive feedback

Sometimes you need feedback from your audience about your products or other aspects of your business. Groups are great ways to see the impact of some of the features you want to release or to test them on a smaller scale before releasing them.

By doing this, you can get an idea of how your audience is going to perceive the new product or feature and decide whether to launch or not, but more importantly, what you can improve.

4. Build a community of brand ambassadors

With Facebook groups, you have the amazing chance to cultivate your relationship with potential brand ambassadors. The more people learn about your brand, product or service, the more they can recommend it.

You can also conduct interviews, showcase your products or create user stories that are actually relevant to your community.

5. Get inspiration for your content strategy

When you’re out of ideas, you will find that Facebook groups are great places to brainstorm and get ideas for your content strategy.

Listening to free discussions from the users or analyzing the results you got from polls will get you the fresh perspective you need to come up with useful content.

Facebook Page vs. Facebook Group

As Facebook defines it, “Facebook Pages enable public figures, businesses, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook.”

Groups, on the other hand, “allow people to come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organize, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos, and share related content.”

Here are a few of the differences between a Facebook page and a Facebook group that you have to be aware of before deciding if you should create a Facebook page, a Facebook Group, or both.

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If we look at the numbers and analyze them, Facebook groups are outperforming Facebook Pages by 60%.

As opposed to a page, a Facebook group is not your traditional marketing channel where the brand says something and the users listen. Facebook groups are about interactivity and empowering the community. So if you have a great tool or product that you feel confident about, encouraging users to write about it can be the easiest way to turn your customers into brand advocates; but if you don’t, it can just as easily turn against you. It’s always best to take an honest look at your business and evaluate the all risks before deciding to make a Facebook group.

After deciding on the reasons why you should create a Facebook group, you can build your strategy accordingly.

How to grow your own active Facebook group

We don’t have a magic recipe for growing a Facebook group, but we can share our experience. It might be easy to grow a Facebook group if you just look at the numbers, but it’s a bit harder to attract the users you want in your Facebook group. Here’s how we decided to grow our own active Facebook group, in 7 easy steps.

1. Grow your Facebook group with Intercom

After creating our Facebook Group, sending a message to our users with Intercom was the first step we took towards reaching our goal. We wanted to create an exclusive group, dedicated only to our users and to their needs.

We wanted to dedicate our group to those who actually may benefit from it, so we sent in-app messages in Intercom to our premium users, asking them to join our group.

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2. Send Newsletters

We also addressed our clients through e-mail marketing, sending a newsletter to our clients invite them to join our Facebook group.

Despite appearances, email marketing continues to be one of the top performing tactics, and even in 2018, email marketing continues to improve and evolve. 51% of marketers consider email list segmentation to be the most effective personalization tactic for effective email marketing.

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3. Outreach on Facebook Messenger

We wanted to reach out to users that already showed their desire to reach out to us, so we turned towards Facebook messaging, where we selected a few of the users that contacted us via Messenger.

They were very excited to join us!

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Next, let’s talk about how to keep them engaged and active.

4. Interact with users, tag them & keep in touch

After increasing the number of users in our Facebook group, the next challenge was keeping them active. It’s one of those things that might be easier said than done. Since it’s all about interaction, the key thing is that you shouldn’t make it all about you.

Facebook polls
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Rather than always focusing on what you would like to obtain from a Facebook group, try to shift on how to bring value to your community. Ask questions, find out what they need and try to be useful and helpful.

Also, try not to intimidate users; always take it slow, step by step. It all depends on your niche and the type of people you address, but some of them might be more introverted than others. With some target audiences, it might be harder to make them interact at first and create the meaningful interactions you are searching for, but believe me, you’ll get there.

Sooner than you think, your group can slowly become the number 1 place they go to when they open their social media platforms.

5. Add educational content

If you pay attention and are a good listener, you can have the right answers and bring value to your community. Educational content is always a great way to engage with your users.

How To videos are an easy way to add value to your community. Help them save time by showing them tips and tricks on how to use certain features.

See an example below on how we presented a new feature that saves a lot of time for our users and shared the video with our group.

6. Encourage your co-workers to join

If you are lucky enough to have a fantastic team that is willing to help at any time (like the one we have), why not use this to your advantage? We asked our co-workers to join the conversation and bring their expertise, and it was a great experience for all of us.

Our clients now have a direct way to keep in touch with the ones that actually build the software, and our coworkers got a chance to know who our clients are and find out what they can improve and how they can do their job better.

7. Make them feel like an exclusive community

It’s easier to get people to join your group and stay active if you offer some exclusive advantages; and in time this brings value to your business, too. Make your group members feel special and give them the opportunity to be helpful at the same time.

Consider doing this by sharing new features and exclusive inside news, testing beta functions, and making them feel their opinion is important, and most of all, valuable to your business.

And, since we’re here, we’ll share some Facebook Group best practices on how to handle your group efficiently, while giving it a human touch as well.

  • Don’t make it about you
  • Ask questions (and be prepared to use the answers to make your business better)
  • Ensure you’re there to help
  • Don’t be afraid to be yourself (use your personal Facebook account)
  • Don’t set too many rules (they ruin the fun)
  • Don’t overthink it, let the conversations flow naturally
  • Be patient and smile

Bottom line, Facebook groups are worth your time and effort, and with a little bit of dedication, they can grow to be the fresh perspective you need to make your business better.

Figuring out what you want from your Facebook is the first step towards creating a robust social media strategy with long-term results. Don’t just go for the numbers, target your users to have the audience you want, and then, step by step, transform your group members into brand ambassadors.

Think outside the box, be creative and curious, and you’ll find a way to make your Facebook group the leader in your niche.

Here are a few hand-picked guides for you to read next:

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21 thoughts on “How To Grow Your Facebook Group To Market Your Business And Get New Clients”

  1. Inksplore

    Hi Robert,

    Thank you so much for this informative post about creating and using the Facebook group.
    I have been using Facebook group and page for quite sometime but to be honest I’ve never been able to see the type of result I’d originally expected and now I precisely know where my efforts were lagging.

    I’d always thought about about it from a business perspective rather than forming a community and sharing values with them. For my upcoming project, I am undoubtedly going to implement all these strategies.

    Also, can you let me know if it is a viable option to post snapshots of member comments and their feedback on our newly launched services, especially when number of followers are small.

    Thank you very much for your advice in advance, appreciate it.

  2. KARRI VENKATESH

    I’m created a Facebook group but it is not growing. But After reading and following the above tips I had got 15000 Members in my Facebook group.
    You’ve done a great job!
    Thank you!

  3. Jitendra

    Good Article,

    I have a group on Facebook, but it’s not growing since i have created it. You have shared good tips and information. It will help a lot for me.

    Keep sharing great articles.
    Thanks.

  4. Rishi Nagar

    Hi Robert,

    I am big suporter of social media. Because it plays vital role in modern days. I read your article which is full of information. So, now i will use these techniques to grow my Facebook groups.

    Thanks
    Rishi Nagar

  5. Pankaj Rattan

    that’s really a very helpful article related to the creation of a successful Facebook group. I have created many Facebook page, but your really give me a new insight related to the Facebook marketing through a Group. Thank you.

  6. Nitin

    I created the both Facebook page and group for my business and I don’t get much response but I will try these tips. Thanks for sharing

  7. Haider Umer

    Once I read a phrase on Facebook. It was something like
    “Your Friends/Followers in Social Media are you asset”
    At that time I didn’t pay that much attention on it. But after reading your post I have realized that If I want to Sell any product or drive traffic to my website then Having a Big Fan Following is a MUST.
    One of the best among all is Facbook Group.
    I have seen people increasing their website ranking by their Facebook Group. Grop has more than 40K people in Same niche and whenever the guy posted something on his website he then post the link to this group and that’s it.

    I am still confused about something which is Social Sharing.
    Even if I have Zero followers on Facebook/Goolge+ then how can this will be good for my website ranking?

  8. Hari Mohan Sharma

    Hi Robert,
    Interesting article on Facebook Group. The in-depth tutorial is really helpful for me and others. After reading the article I am equipped with the necessary knowledge to start and grow my Facebook group.
    Thanks, for sharing such a useful post.

  9. Ankit Srivastav

    Hi Robert,
    It’s a great article you have written here. But i have some queries and i was wondering if you could help me a bit.
    I have a Facebook group with almost 10k members in it but most of them don’t participate in discussions. Can u please give me some tips to increase their engagement…

  10. Great article!
    I never thought of fb group for marketing purpose. This article has convinced me start a new group.

  11. Rahul

    Great Article! I too use Facebook group for growing my business. But managing groups after certain time is big thing. Like spamming, unwanted links etc. Any tips to avoid spam on fb groups?

  12. Prakash

    Dear Robert,

    I am also using this technique(idea) for my Facebook group and trying best to increase my new clients but I have one query what is difference between Facebook group and Facebook page ? I just want to get little more idea about it. I think both options are good. What you think?

    Thanks

  13. Digvijay

    Hey! Robert,
    Thanks for sharing good content. I have never used a Facebook group before but, after getting soo much information from this article, I will definitely use this.

  14. informerfrk

    Well, I never think about creating a Facebook group and grow it for business purpose. But after reading this post, I think I should try it.
    Thanks for sharing this useful post.

  15. Arun MK

    Great article Robert.

    When starting a new blog we’re all faced with the same dreaded fear that no one will come after we hit “publish.” Participating in online communities is a great way to find an audience.

    I’ve implemented some of the ideas you outlined to build relationships and traffic to my blog.

    The difference is that I’ve done it on Google+ Communities, not Facebook Groups. Anyway, I’m going to implement some of these techniques to grow my facebook group as well as my business.

  16. Mohd Amir

    Hello Robert,
    Thanks for sharing this article this is really helpful for me. I made some mistake on my facebook group but after reading this article i hope i will cover all my mistakes. Keep sharing content like this. Thanks

  17. Seema

    Hello Robert,
    Thanx for this post, this post is very helpful for people like us, who are weak in marketing strategy. You have explained everything regarding Facebook group and how to grow it. I am also currently working on my Facebook group and Facebook page and, I am gonna apply all these 7 tips that you have written here. Thanks again.
    Seema Roy.

  18. Vishwajeet Kumar

    Hello Robert,

    I have also heard many good benefits of creating a Facebook group and was wondering how to start the thing. Your post is definitely helping me a lot. Now, I am going to create my own Facebook group and implement your tips and tricks. Thanks for providing this helpful post.

    Have a Great Day 🙂
    Vishwajeet

    1. Robert

      You are welcome Kumar! Let me know how it will go after a few weeks and what you’ve learned from managing it.

  19. niraj

    Hi Robert,
    thanks bro for this post regarding fb group
    I Have Been Using Facebook Group From The Last 2 Years For Promoting My Website.Facebook Is A Social Media Platform That Is A Great Place To Grow Our Business,I Collect Feedback From Facebook Group, Which Helps Me To Grow My Service.

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