Hey mama! A question I see a lot is HOW DO I GROW MY FB GROUP?
I also see a lot of worries about Facebook groups! People are worried if they start a Facebook group it will be draining/exhausting/overwhelming, crawling with spammers, they’ll give away all their knowledge for free and no one will hire them, or it will never grow and thrive.
Disclaimer: I don’t run the world’s largest Facebook group. But I do run a group with good, consistent growth, quality members, and I LOVE engaging there.
My advice for growing a thriving FB group you love to own:
- You set the tone: from group rules to how to welcome new members to how you interact with spammers, you set the tone for your group. The people in there will follow your lead. My group has a motto: “be a real human” – people don’t like to buy from spammers or weirdos, they like to buy from real humans they know, like, and trust. Be one, and you’ll get clients. Your group will have your own philosophy that will become the group’s culture.
- Come up with a plan you LOVE: Girlfriend, do not try to reinvent the wheel every single week. Successful groups have daily themes you can repeat week after week, mixed in with fresh value and entertainment posts. Take a look at your favorite days and prompts in other groups – what do you want to repurpose? What do you wish another group was doing? Get creative. You can create a quick little graphic in Canva for each day, save them in an easy place on your phone or computer to post each week.
- Commit to doing it consistently: The death kiss for a group (ps is death kiss an actual phrase or something I just jumbled together?) is inconsistency from the person who owns the group. DO NOT start a group if you aren’t committed to showing up and doing the work. You are responsible for this group, and what happens with it says something about you. Don’t sign up if you aren’t ready to make this a high quality thing.
- Schedule your posts in advance: Another huge DO NOT – trying to roll in each day to do the posts on the fly. Batch them a minimum of one week at a time! You already have your kick ass daily prompts stored neatly on your computer or phone. Once a week, hop into your group and schedule a week (or more) worth of posts in one go. That doesn’t mean you can’t do additional posts as inspiration strikes during the week (please do!)
- Let yourself be real: If you’ve followed me at all, you know authenticity and realness are things I LOVE and preach! Use the semi-privacy of your closed group (the only kind worth having IMO) to feel totally open to BE YOURSELF. Selfies without makeup, FB lives where you share the non-shiny and perfect side of your life/business/self, sharing what you’re learning and how you’re growing, letting your weird little quirk freak flag fly- this is what makes your group stand out and feel special. It also really helps your group members to develop that know, like, trust with you – and be ready to say YES when it’s time to buy.
- Provide value: Speaking of time to buy – no one is joining your group to be seeing an endless infomercial of your offers. Make it worth their time in there by providing value. You do NOT have to do your work for free – but share what you know. Every once in awhile I will coach a little in my group, but I typically will share AHA moments my clients or myself are having, share actionable how-tos (like this), or provide motivation/inspiration to the DIYers.
- BE PATIENT: It snowballs. I showed up consistently in my group for a couple months before momentum started building. Yes, it was a teeny tiny group – and I marketed it that way. It was a selling point! The people who joined my group in January/February 2018 were almost getting the same level of value my mastermind ladies get, minus the coaching calls. Don’t be ashamed of your small group. Before you know it, you’ll be getting 40+ a week (then 40+ a day!) and the group will be very different. And the new people who want to binge all your content will be thankful to find a backlog of value.
Want to join my group? I’d love to have you. Click here to join.
