Many individuals and businesses have Facebook pages. In fact, in recent times, people are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of Facebook groups. This is because of the immense benefits they offer.
In this article, you will learn how to keep your Facebook group active and engaged in 2021.
Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups
There are Facebook pages and Facebook groups. So, what is the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook group?
On a page, the owner of the page primarily takes care of content posting. The followers can then engage by commenting on the posts. On the other hand, in a Facebook group, all members have the right to post content and as it were, engage with each other.
Additionally, a page is different from a group because pages are always open to the public, whereas groups can be made public or private. That is, open or closed.
Further, Facebook pages are usually meant for your existing customers. That is, those who are familiar with your business already. Conversely, a Facebook group is a place where you can attract and engage with new customers and prospects.
Uses of Facebook Groups
Is your Facebook group gradually losing steam? This guide is tailored to cater to the concern. Here, you will learn how to keep your Facebook groups active and engaged at all times. With the methods highlighted, your groups would be better engaged than ever.
Many use their groups strictly for generating sales. Others use it to keep their customers in touch. That way, they can relate around a particular product- sharing tips and ideas with one another.
Whatever your purpose of creating a Facebook group is, the bottom line remains to keep people active. Thus, the question: how do you keep your business Facebook group from losing its thrill? Or let’s say the group has grown cold – what do you do?
Facebook groups are undoubtedly the most underrated marketing strategy to generate leads and ensure active engagement. Many marketers are always of the opinion that Facebook groups are purposely for increasing traffic.
This is definitely not the only way, neither is it the best approach to leverage the power of Facebook groups. With the right approach and if deployed correctly, Facebook groups can potentially increase direct leads and sales.
Engagement, therefore, becomes a thing here. All you need to do to make the best out of Facebook groups is to keep a high engagement rate. That is to keep the flow of interaction and discussion. Other things are for sharing, responding, and to let customers buy.
Again, an interesting part of this is that all these can be achieved for free.
Why Create A Facebook Group?
You can easily promote your business with a Facebook group. Also, it is a great way to build loyal followers – as long as your group can relate to your followers’ niche and enhance the target audience.
Therefore, Facebook groups are a fantastic way of slowly but gradually and consistently developing a loyal following of the specified niche. That is the ones who are always looking for your next advice and suggestions.
They believe in you and will follow your advice to the letter. This transcends what you get with business pages which are more or less salesy.
Facebook groups afford you the opportunity to learn from other people’s experiences too. Your followers, which consist of a set of particular people with a common goal, can unite to share their respective knowledge about a thing.
That way, the community can learn practical tips that they can apply to life and business. Essentially, you can build a loyal community with Facebook groups.
How to Create Facebook Groups with a High Engagement Rate
It is very easy to create a Facebook group. Simply follow these steps to begin.
1. Click on “Create Group” from your Facebook page. It can be found on the top right corner as shown.
2. Create a group name. For example, “Data Scientists”.
3. Now, invite people to the group to start the conversation. Invite new members from News Feed and enter their names
4. Select your group privacy setting
To the question of which is the better- private or open group? Always choose a private group because this allows you to keep or retain the group’s uniqueness. It also enables safe conversations among the group members. That way, you will avoid the profuse spread of spam in social media nowadays.
How to Keep Your Facebook Group Engaged and Active
The following top tactics can foster an increase in the level of engagement and activity on Facebook groups. Bearing in mind that the fundamental interpretation of inclusivity is trust, begin with this before trying to incentivize engagement.
That is, make sure each group member know that, and feel accepted as well as celebrated when/anytime they relate to your posts and discuss on the group.
1. Welcome your new group members
By welcoming the new group members, you are showing them that they are in the right place. You are connecting with them and that way, they will feel at home.
They will be comfortable to open up to you and divulge as much information as they deem useful for your business and for others. As a general rule, take members who joined in the last week as new members. You can easily see this number in your group discussion view.
In addition, there is a link of thumbnail photos that shows the number of new members that have recently been added. Click on “Write Post” to write them a customized message and share with them to welcome them on board.
2. Keep engagement relatively simple
One good way to ensure and keep your Facebook group engaged and consistently active is to make engagement easy for members.
You can decide to ask them to introduce themselves so that new members can feel welcomed and confident that the group is actually functioning.
In the process of introduction, people feel valued and consider the group as a family. In turn, they can easily engage with the members outside the group in the future.
You can choose to use Chatsilo Chrome extension to tag and send them personalized messages to get members involved and engaged. Click on “Message” on the person’s profile to send them a message.
3. Take advantage of the charm of storytelling
Storytelling is a vital means of engaging your audience. You can create videos that tell a short story, which invariably ignites the members’ passion.
Many top brands have harnessed the visual means of storytelling to generate loads of engagement. So, why would you not consider the same?
Also, you can ask members to share their photos, which the entire group can see. When you keep things real, people want to deal with you more often and consequently, win their loyalty.
4. Keep posting polls, quizzes and surveys
On a regular basis, always post a poll, survey, or quiz. This will ensure that your group members are kept hooked. People are engaged when you ask them for their comments.
With a post, survey or quiz, members can quickly share their opinion, suggestions among others. Engagement happens thereafter. This is a no-brainer.
A good way of using a poll is to determine the current trends that relate to your niche, and then create a poll on that.
People do not really like surveys. So seldom use them. Quizzes, on the other hand, must be easy to answer otherwise participation would be zero or minimal. You can even motivate members to participate by adding a prize.
This will certainly keep the group active and engaged.
5. Ask questions
A great way to get the conversation in place is to post direct questions. Take questions as a call to action (CTA) that triggers people to quickly participate in the conversation and share their thoughts.
Ask them closed questions, open-ended types, debate-oriented questions, general questions, and others.
6. Design and post photo quotes
Photo quotes are a combined word and graphical/visual means of communicating quickly within the group. The work well to increase engagement and can work with Facebook groups as well. Get a simple photo and spice it with some humorous or inspirational quotes.
Upon completion, share it with members and see people react to them almost immediately. Ensure that the images match well with the group’s genre or niche. Of course, before coming to this, you must have done the due diligence of taking inventory and keeping the likes and dislikes of your audience. Whatever you do, simplicity is key.
7. Adopt the edu-tainment strategy of posting
You do not have to post so many times a day. In fact, the frequency of your posts does not determine how engaged your Facebook group is or will be.
According to a study by Buffer, not every content type is suitable for Facebook. The idea is to choose content that combines education and entertainment – hence, edutainment. As regards the frequency of posting, 1-2 posts per day are enough.
Sharing a piece of content every day normally compels you to share the best you have rather than put up everything you have. As long as the posts are of high quality, positive and enhanced engagement is not debatable.
8. Ensure correct timing
You have to ensure that the timing of your posts on the group is accurate or else you will get reduced engagement. You can schedule a post on Facebook:
- Click on the “Groups” in the left menu.
- Select your group
- Click on the clock symbol and select “Schedule Post“
- Select the date and time you would like the post to be published
- Click Schedule
Usually, the best time is between 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
9. Adopt the use of Facebook live videos
Did you know that you can leverage the power of Facebook live videos with a group?
To do that, simply download the Facebook Mobile App on your device. Go to Facebook Group, and click on the button to create a new post. Now, select the live video for the group icon.
Facebook Live Video is a great way of reaching your target audience and boosting engagement. When you go live often, people start to see you and know what you do. Conversions then become easier because people know you.
10. Tell your group members to put on their notifications
As the group creator or admin, you do want your members to be notified when a new post is added to your group right?
To make that happen, ask them to turn on their notifications. They can do that from “News Feed”, “Groups”, and by clicking on “Notifications”
11. Like, comment, reply and respond
To get better engagement and enhanced activity, you have to be on your toes. Take the initiative to like, comment, respond and reply to members in your group.
You will be doing them the good of feeling comfortable participating more, and at the same time, engaging your group more often.
12. Leverage the power of Facebook Group Insights
Have you heard of Group Insights?
They are a great way of measuring the level of engagement you have with your members. They can help you understand the preferred way of engagement, seeing the most active members of the group, identifying posts that have the best engagement, among other positive ones.
With such crucial data at your disposal, you can easily understand the things that are working and continuously manipulate your strategy accordingly. Group Insights is on the left side of the dashboard.
One easy way to lure people to your Facebook group, and in turn, keep them engaged is by placing a link in your main navigation menu. These people are very likely to jump at the chance to join your group since they are more or less your exact audience.
Going by how video content has taken over the world by storm, one good way to increase activity and engagement in your group is to follow the stats that 80% of all consumer internet traffic will be video content by 2022.
This is 2022. Here we are. At the moment, more than 500 million hours are being consumed on YouTube every day. This makes it the perfect platform to promote your Facebook Group.
You can also practice some simple things like:
– Be on time. That is timeliness. To activate and engage members on Facebook Groups, give them early access. For instance, if you are writing a new book, they read the draft chapters ahead. If you are launching a new product, give them a short video to be the first set of people that can access, enjoy, and review if necessary.
– Be truthful. Sincerity makes you engage members in your group with a whisper. Here, you can divulge the tales of how you came about the product or what inspired the story of the book, among other things. This truthfulness tactic doesn’t work because group members are the first to know. Instead, it does because you give them more.
– Be a participant. It is not enough to be an admin. That you are one even makes you a top participant. This is what people call engagement through activation. Give your fans assignments not just collect them like baseball cards, as some author once said. When you ask group members to help select a headline, a book cover or photo for an ad, or other things- it shows you care about them, and their preference. It also demonstrates a high level of participation on your end.
– Personalization. Here, you give your members unique “badges” to tell people that they belong to a special community. This can be online, offline or both. They are amazing psychological motivators. Do something for your group members that makes them feel they are a part of a special tribe.
All these would help you keep an active and engaged group.
Examples of Group Engagement Strategies
The following posts can be useful in your group. They have a unique idea that you can use depending on the niche of your group:
- GeoAstroScience Group
- Two Monkeys Travel Forum
- Gena + Jordana & Your magical business
Moreover, one of the most important channels you want to focus on in the new year, 2022 is the Facebook Group. As seen on the Facebook bog,
People have always come to Facebook to connect with friends and family, but over time it’s become more than that- it’s also a place to connect with people who share your interests and passions. We’re making changes that put Groups at the center of Facebook and sharing new ways Facebook can help bring people together offline.
The above quote explicitly defines what Facebook Group stands for, and its implications for businesses nowadays. Now, what exactly does this mean for social marketers? Basically, it means there is a need to revisit the usual Facebook Groups strategy.
To kick-start this journey, whether from scratch or to revive an existing community:
1. Have a purpose. Think about it. As simple as this sounds, it is important. As you have with any strategy, you must know your goal and purpose.
2. Be explicit with the description of your group via the group discovery tab. Also, optimize your group name.
3. Join other groups and participate as much as you can. It is worth it
4. Take advantage of the features included in the posting
5. Consistency cannot be replaced.
6. More members can be attracted to gated content
7. Ensure your guidelines are clearly set
8. Promote your group
9. Embrace automation as much as you can.
10. Do not compromise quality for anything.
Additionally, give your Facebook group a central theme. Set your rules and stand by them as the day goes by.
You will be able to keep track of your members, follow the chats, messages, comments and others through and be an active member of your group yourself.
Subsequently, all you have to do will just be to pass down the spirit of engagement to your group members. You will then begin to see your group grow and of course, yield as much as you want in terms of quality, service and monetary-wise.
Advantages of Facebook Groups
The following are the benefits of having or subscribing to Facebook Groups:
- It is a perfect platform to build an engaged community. That is the right one for your target audience
- You can easily connect with like-minded individuals within your niche
- You can gain email subscribers like it’s no one ‘s business
- You can conduct free market research at any point in time
- Your credibility will be greatly enhanced as you will build an enormous authority in your niche
- You can make cool money with an active and engaged Facebook Group.
Final Thoughts
Truthfully, starting a Facebook group can be a daunting task but it gets easier by the day. This is especially when you get the hang of it. You will see it’s an excellent marketing tactic that can tremendously foster the growth of your business.
With the right strategies, the growth of your group will be on autopilot. Facebook groups are known to, and have been further described as a way of growing your fan base on a platter of gold.
With Facebook groups, you can build a loyal family that resonates with your business, and a community that shares the same passions as you. This is the way to increase engagement and enhance conversion.
If there is proper interaction in your group, all you have to do is sit back and focus on promoting the group. This doesn’t cost much. The catch is, Facebook groups have loads of potential to take your business to the moon.