How to Build a Facebook Group Within Your Industry
Did you know over 1.8 billion Facebook users are in a Facebook group to connect with people in their industry or with the same interest?
In the world of digital marketing, Facebook groups help increase brand awareness for your own business. Use Facebook groups to ask questions, share tips and tricks and get customer feedback.
The key to creating a successful Facebook group is knowing what works.
Before designing your own Facebook group, Knowing what works and how to make your group successful is essential.
Facebook users opt into groups to bypass the many Facebook news feed algorithms to connect with their chosen audience.
A Facebook group is a great way for you to promote your business or increase brand awareness among like-minded people. Still, you may have trouble or have no idea how to build and promote your group.
But how do you create a Facebook group that will help grow your business? Read along for tips to help you build a new Facebook group within your industry.
How to Create a Facebook Group From Your Computer in 7 Steps
Here’s how you can create a Facebook group using your computer:
- Log in to your account or sign up if you do not have an account
- Navigate to the “Groups” section on the left-hand side of your computer
- Click on the “+ Create New Group.”
- Type your group name
- Add members
- Choose groups privacy (private or public)
- Add group cover photo
Your newly created group is now live, and you can invite others to join.
How to Create a Facebook group From Your Phone
Mobile phones help you navigate the internet without going to your computer, and as one of the largest social media platforms, Facebook has ensured that you can use your phone to create Facebook groups from your phone.
To use your phone to create a Facebook group:
- Tap the top right “Menu” button.
- Scroll down and tap “Groups.”
- Tap “Create Group.”
- Type your group name.
- Choose the privacy setting you want (public or private).
- Add people to your group.
How to Create a Facebook group from your Facebook Page
If you have a Facebook business page, you can use it to create a group, and your Facebook page will be the admin.
To create a group using your Facebook page as the admin:
- Go to Feed
- Click pages in the Menu on the left side of your computer
- Select Page
- Tap on “Create Linked Group”
- Fill in the details for your group
- Click Create.
Your Page doesn’t limit you to only one group. It can administer up to 200 groups, and you will see these groups listed on your Page.
Should you create a public, secret, or private Facebook group?
When creating a Facebook group for business purposes, it’s important to keep your goals in mind. What do you hope to achieve by creating this group? How will it benefit your business?
To grow a successful Facebook group, the setting you choose matters. There are three types of Facebook groups you can create:
- Public: This setting allows anyone to see the group, its members, and their posts.
- Closed/private: Anyone can find the group and see who’s in it, but only members can see posts.
- Secret: This setting only allows members to find the group and see posts.
Closed/ Private group
The best type of group for business purposes is a closed group. This way, you can control who sees the content in the group, and you can still build a strong community of engaged professionals.
Public Group
Public groups tend to attract low-quality members, so if you choose this setting, constantly monitor the group to keep the group under control. Anyone can find this group, see what is posted, and join without needing your approval.
Secret Group
A secret Facebook group can be a community you build from a course you provide or your company’s exclusive group.
It allows you to add members by invites only and is not the best setting if you want organic searches. A secret Facebook group is unsearchable, so you will need to send invites to friends who are on Facebook.
If you decide to create secret groups, you should be aware that Facebook will not allow you to switch settings to a more restrictive setting if you have more than 5000 members.
13 Tips on Creating and Managing Facebook Group Within Your Industry
Facebook groups are undeniably valuable, and you should ensure your group is valuable to your members, who you should treat as your guests. Here are the tips you should use to run your own successful Facebook group and market your business.
1. Optimize the group name
Do you know the goal and the target audience you want to reach? A clear target will help you optimize your group name for searches.
Keep your group’s name short, sweet, and reflective of its purpose. Choose a name with a heavy keyword to make your group discoverable in the search button.
2. Look for an Existing Group Related to Your Industry
Now that you have a Facebook group, you want it to be engaging and relevant to your field. Find out what other groups in your industry post about to have an idea of how to engage your group members.
Look at the topics people are discussing within these groups and see if they seem relevant to what you do.
Search for keywords related to what you do or products or services you offer to see which other businesses are already discussing them in their groups on Facebook groups.
3. Post Topics Related to Your Industry
As a Facebook group admin, Always select and post topics relevant to your industry and that others will want to discuss. The more niche topics you include, the more valuable your group will be to those who join it. If you choose an industry-related topic like marketing or customer service, try not to stray too far from that topic because people who join the wrong Facebook groups might not stick around long enough.
4. Promote your Facebook group
Another sure way to grow your Facebook group is by talking about it. Invite potential members to join your group, and encourage existing members to invite their friends.
The larger your group is, the more engaged it will be. Email Promote your group on other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other websites.
Since many people hang out on other social media platforms, the majority have Facebooks accounts and will join your group once you share your group link with them.
Sharing valuable insights in your industry that will raise the interest of others. Whenever social media users see that what you share is valuable, they will be keen to like and follow you because what you share is valuable to them.
5. Write a detailed description of your group
Your group description will reveal the purpose of your group, highlighting what reunites the members. New Facebook members will see this and decide whether it is a group that resonates with them.
6. Pin Important posts
Did you post information you feel is important for each member to see? Pin it! Pinned posts will help newly approved members to find the post and engage in it. It could be a post about where each member is from, or an Ask Me Anything Kind of post.
7. Keep your group active by regularly posting engaging content
Facebook group members will tag you on their posts, and you need to be active and provide valuable input. Members get frustrated and may leave your group when you take a long to answer their questions.
Add an additional admin or moderator to help you manage the group. They will help you clean spam posts, post engaging posts, answer members, approve posts, and approve new members Ensuring the group is always useful.
Are you about to launch a product? Schedule important announcements for your Facebook group
8. Modulate your group’s settings to ensure only quality content is shared
Monitor your group’s activity and remove spammy or inappropriate content. Ensure your content shared in your group is focused on business and networking. Members can be sneaky sometimes and may want to promote their Facebook groups, pages, or businesses or outrightly share content unrelated to the group.
Monitor your group to ensure that the content shared is relevant to your industry and that the discussions are respectful and constructive. Set your group’s settings to allow admins or moderators to approve member posts.
9. Choose a great profile image and cover photo for your group
Your group’s cover photo and profile image should relate to what your group is all about. It should be captivating and help members relate to it. You can use your company logo and product photo or create one from Canva.
10. Add questions to filter new members and bots
Questions will help you know who really needs to be in the group. Their answers will show if the new member is worthy of joining your group.
The group rules, which they must agree to, will filter out members. Use this section to ask members to leave their email addresses and then add them to your sales funnel.
11. Encourage group members to interact with each other
The whole point of a Facebook group is to encourage discussion. This is what you can do on a thread:
- Pose a question
- Share an article or resource
- Start a discussion or create polls, and give members opportunities to share their thoughts and ideas.
Also, encourage members to post because groups that only admins post will be boring, and members will leave immediately.
Ask members to post industry-related questions and have members in the group engage with each other. If a Facebook group post gets good engagement, supercharge the engagement by commenting every thirty minutes to push the post to the top of members’ feeds.
12. Get feedback from group members and make changes accordingly
Member feedback will help you know if your group posts are satisfying. Take them seriously and adjust accordingly to make sales, grow your community and provide value to existing members.
13. Create a catchy tagline for your group.
A catchy tagline should be simple and short, so anyone can remember it. Your tagline should represent your company or product. Brand your slogan with care so that it sticks in the minds of your members, making them buy your product.
Use the tagline consistently. You can do this by making it a hashtag (#) in all your posts. It should be timeless and speak to your target market so that it can convert.
How about asking members for input if you can’t come up with one? They will surprise you with great taglines, and members can vote for the best.
Managing your Facebook groups
Once your group is up and running, you can edit group settings to customize your group further. Hire virtual assistants to manage your group if you feel you are overwhelmed. The additional group admins will help share insightful posts and do other admin duties to keep the group useful. Schedule posts using tools such as Hootsuite or buffer or use Facebook’s own scheduling feature.
Have a weekly theme that will help group members know the group routine. Themes such as Thursday Market Day (where members can promote their businesses or products), Money Mondays(to talk about savings or related money topics), hiring threads, and more will help members look forward to these posts and save content to post on those days.
Final Thoughts
Having your own group page is a great way to engage with your own community. Invest your time to offer valuable insights that connect with your audience. Help them solve some problems to show them that you are an authority in your field to win their trust.
Don’t fear creating Private Facebook groups because once you win your members’ trust and show you know your craft, you will successfully turn them into your product’s brand ambassadors.
