Why you need a Facebook Group for your Business

Starting a Facebook Group for your business might be what you need to take your marketing strategy to the next level. Groups provide a place to get your content in front of relevant audiences and offer value by facilitating a network for members to connect. Before you get started, here is what you need to know about Facebook Groups.

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What is a Facebook Group?

A Facebook Group is a place on Facebook where people with a common interest can share information and express their opinions on a particular topic. A group provides the opportunity for people to come together to support a cause, provide education on a specific subject, discuss an issue, or organize an activity. Members can post photos, share related content, and comment on posts. Anybody with a Facebook profile can set up and manage their own Facebook Group. Membership can be open to the public where anyone can join, or join by invitation only.

Why start a Facebook Group?

1. Share information and keep in touch with other members of the group

2. Generate content or see content published by other members

3. Communicate with other members through the internal chat

Why start a Facebook Group if you already have a Facebook Page?

During an interview with Social Media Examiner, Bella [Vasta] provides a good analogy of the difference between a Facebook Page and a Facebook Group.

Bella equates a Facebook page to your front yard & groups to your backyard. Anyone can visit your Facebook page, but it is your Facebook Group, where you get more. A Facebook Group provides a sense of camaraderie with perks similar to a backyard party. For a party, the bonuses for your friends might be food and beverages, and for the Facebook Group, the extras for your business community might be VIP Status. Types of VIP status perks could be early invitations to promos, early release of an e-book, and a promise that there will be like-minded people to share interests. Knowing there will be a 'host' at the Facebook group to oversee the group's tone and behaviour is also an incentive for members to join.

Consider a group for your business if,

1. Facebook is an identified channel that you will be using to promote your business.

2. You have the time to oversee the group, which includes creating content and time to moderate the conversations.

3. Your goal is to create a community (not just promote your business)

4. The community's goal is to support your business's growth, such as build an audience and, or brand awareness, educate the audience, etc.

5. You've reviewed and willing to adhere to the policies of running a Facebook group. It is also good to check tips on managing a Facebook Group.

6. You've done your research and considered the advantages and disadvantages of starting a community group on Facebook.

Also read: How to Pick the Right Social Media Platforms

How to Create a Facebook Group

1. On your Facebook page (editor view), select the Groups tab under your main header

2. Select Create Linked Group

3. Enter the name of the group, privacy level and the people you would like to invite

4. Proceed to add necessary graphic and imagery

5. Continue following the next step to publishing your Facebook Group

6. Promote the group on your business page

What are some Facebook group features that could be useful for an online business community?

Share content - as your page or as your personal profile

If you added yourself as an admin, you can post within your group, as your profile, using the drop-down menu in the status update box.

If you are an admin of a group and you want to allow different brands to come in and represent the brand via their page, you can offer that as an optional feature. The benefit of turning on this option is that you can post company-wide updates, and anyone who has admin rights to the page can post on behalf of the brand. Some examples may be – hours of operation for your business, an invitation to a company event, etc. However, most people expect a group to be people-to-people and may not want to join if they think it is too promotional or impersonal. Weigh the pros and cons before deciding if you like this feature in your group or not.

Also read: Get to Know Your Audience

Going Live

With the popularity of Facebook Lives growing daily, this is one of the highly recommended strategies to increase your engagement organically. Go Live directly in your Facebook Group can allow you to share exclusive updates, host Members-Only events, or host a live Q&A. It is a great way to build community and build trusting relationships with your members.

Use Badges

Badges are a way to identify leaders within a group and a way to welcome members and recognize current members for outstanding group contributions. There are unique badges available for admin and moderator, new members, group anniversary, a conversation starter, founding member, visual storyteller, and more

Create Interesting Posts with Formatted Text

You can create customized formatting with your group post, including headers, bulleted and numbered lists, quotations and coding options. You can insert embedded links or use bold or italics on your text by selecting the words you'd like to format and clicking on the desired option. Available only through your desktop web browser.

Organize Content into units (or chapters)

Suppose you identify your group as a social learning group or for education. In that case, you can organize content-specific units to make it easy to reference for your members, similar to a table of contents or chapters. The topics for each unit will depend on your business or marketing strategy. For example, if you are a business consultant, you might separate the units or chapters by industry or by sections of the business plan (e.g. marketing, financials, etc.). Here is some more information on how to organize content into units .

Group Insights

You can use Group Insights to do things like:

1. Understand how members engage in your group.

2. See who the most active group members are.

3. Learn which posts have the most engagement.

Currently groups of 50-250 will not see demographic information such as gender, cities, age, etc. 

Insights (Facebook analytics) show who the new members are and how your community is growing. Insights show who's waiting to join your group, whose membership you declined, engagement details, post-performance metrics based on comments or reactions, when your members are most active, and more. Facebook Insights provides data that will give you information to learn what content to share, when to share it, what badge to use, or any other incentive that you would like to offer. Individual post reach still isn't shown in analytics but is shown on the actual post.

Read More: www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-set-up-facebook-groups-for-pages

Rule violation notifications

You can send a message that alerts a member who violates any rules. If you choose, you can attach a personal message to clarify the violation. You can also mute the member for 1–7 days (so they can see posts but can't comment) rather than immediately banning them from the group with no explanation.

See examples of rules here.

Subscription Groups

If you set up a subscription group , your members will pay to access exclusive content, such as live videos, expertise, and mentorship. Members purchase monthly subscription fees through iTunes Store, Google Play Store or Facebook Payments. 

Also read: A Consultants Guide to using Facebook