This question is frequently asked when marketers decide whether they take the Facebook page route or stick to creating a Facebook group. The great news is that these choices are not respectively exclusive.
You can and should do both, and this is what this article will explain! But, of course, there are pros and cons to each. For example, where a Facebook page is weaker, a group is more robust, and vice versa.
What is your Marketing goal?
If your goal is to build a thriving Facebook group of like-minded people who will enjoy consuming your content and buying your products, you’ll need a Facebook group for that.
As a product vendor, you’ll be able to engage with your potential and current customers in your Facebook groups. You can get suggestions, recommendations directly from them.
Facebook groups are interest-driven, and the people in them are passionate about the niche and the group objective. So you can learn a lot about your target audience from them.
However, if you want to use advertising, you must have a Facebook page to serve as the face of the business. So, if you’re using paid ads on the platform, you’ll need a business page.
A Facebook Page is more business and brand-oriented
One of the limitations of groups is that you will be personally involved with them, and you will be the face of the business because all the members will be able to see your profile and know that you are the group admin.
Some marketers may prefer anonymity and contemplate using a fake profile similar to using a pen name. Unfortunately, upon this practice, Facebook will shut down your account if it discovers that it does not relate to a natural person.
If you are indecisive about letting people know that you are the business owner, you may stick to Facebook pages. Alternatively, you may link your page to your group and answer member’s questions in the group by using your page. In this way, it appears as if the business page is answering them rather than you personally.
The pros and cons
A Facebook page has more features and provides more data because advertisers need such information and tools. In addition, pages are there to encourage people to use the ad platform.
While people can like your Facebook page, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your page’s fans will see every post you make on your page. Many page owners report minimal reach with their posts, and they often suspect that the social media giant is throttling the reach so that page owners will pay to ‘boost their posts.
It's like paying to play. You need to pay to get more eyeballs on your page. You won’t have such a problem with your Facebook group. Most of the members will see your posts, especially if you mark them as announcements and pin them to the top.
When it comes to privacy, a Facebook page is visible to everyone, while a Facebook group can be kept private. So, if you wish to have an insider’s community, you’re better off with groups.
With a Facebook page, you can have a button that points to your site or store. However, you don’t have that option with a group unless you add a link in your group description.
Generally, Facebook pages make it easier to promote your business because there’s more flexibility to monetize it. But groups offer you more control over the members, posts, and comments that people make in your groups. For example, you can permanently remove and ban problematic members. Here you can learn also get to know more about the 10 common Facebook Group mistakes you should avoid.
Conclusion
The best way to know which is better for your business is to create both a page and a group and use them accordingly in your business. Once you get the hang of these two different types of features, you’ll know how to leverage them in the best possible way to achieve your business goals.
10 Common Facebook Group Blunders Bloggers and Content Publishers Should Avoid
A fantastic way to drive organic website traffic is through Your Facebook group. Furthermore, they are less complicated than discussion to create forums and build a growing member community interested in the very same niche.
However, several mistakes are easy to make when you're first starting. Below you'll find a list of the most common Facebook Group Blunders you should avoid.
Not posting consistently
Facebook is so habit-forming that almost everyone checks it many times daily, and some people even several times hourly.
If you have a Facebook group, it's best to post at least once a day to keep it fresh and ensure engagement. Neglecting the group will make members quit or forget about it.
Not Scheduling your posts
While your group needs fresh content daily or at least once every couple of days, that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to log in to the group to post. You can batch these tasks and spend a day creating 7 to 10 posts and schedule them to go out daily (1 post a day). Your group will have new content daily without you having to be on Facebook every single day.
Not personalizing posts
Instead of just posting links to blog posts and videos, write a few words to grab the members' attention. Having a sense of humor helps because people want to be entertained. If you can't manage that, at least say how the post helped you and what they can learn from it. This will encourage your members to spend some time on the post.
Too much selling
Everything online revolves around value. People visit websites for information. They look at YouTube videos to learn something, and they join Facebook groups for peer support, value, and a sense of camaraderie.
Too many bloggers and marketers try to do too much selling (overpromoting) in their group without providing enough value first. It would be best if you struck the right balance here. Too much selling will leave your members with a sour taste in their mouths, and they'll start leaving.
Overscheduling your posts
While the scheduling feature is excellent and something you should leverage to save time, try not to overschedule your posts. Scheduling one month's worth of content is unnecessary because you'll still need to check in on your group once every few days.
Neglecting the group
As the group admin/owner, it's important to communicate with your members and answer their questions. They're in the group for a sense of camaraderie. A group is about people and relationships. You have to be there every so often so that the members don't feel abandoned. Make your presence felt.
Posting repetitive content
If you have several Facebook groups or pages and have the same people in these groups, posting the same content on all your groups/pages will annoy many members who keep seeing the identical posts flooding their feed because they're in these groups.
Ideally, it's best to get people in one broader niche group and delete the other groups. You don't need ten small groups about the same niche when one big and a good one will do (Of course, if you're in different niches, you'll need other groups).
Not removing troublemakers
There will always be a few toxic people around who rub others the wrong way in any group. These are the usual complainers and whiners who get offended by anything and everything. They're usually the most vocal of the lot and will make everyone roll their eyes.
As the admin, you'll need to be firm and tell them to be positive and contribute to the group or stay silent or leave. If they insist on being problematic, remove them from the community immediately and mercilessly. Leaving them inside the group will create hostility and a bad vibe in the community.
Not allowing the opportunity for growth Depending on your niche, it's best to create a Facebook group that allows you room to grow. For example, creating a group about 'niche sites' will give you flexibility, and you can cover many topics.
However, creating a group that's only about keyword research will limit your growth. You can only cover this topic and will need to create a new group to do more. To avoid this problem, choose a topic that's niched down but not too narrow to create your group.
Not having other admins
Always give admin status to a couple of group members whom you trust. They'll help keep your group organized, and more importantly, if Facebook suddenly decides to block your account, you'll be able to create a new one and get one of your admins to add you back to the community instead of just losing the entire group.
Besides these ten Facebook Group Blunders, bloggers and marketers also commit a few other Facebook 'sins' such as adding people to their groups instead of inviting them. Some don't create rules for their groups; others make rules but don't enforce them, resulting in running rampant and annoying all the other members.
Not making the group private is another Facebook Group Blunders that allows people to join freely. The result is that dodgy members start spamming incessantly, and the entire place becomes a mess.
Conclusion So, keep these Facebook Group Blunders in mind and run a tight ship with your community. If you do it right, your members will find value in being there and look forward to the daily posts, and you'll also be able to promote your products and earn with them and build your list.
Facebook groups are one of the best free traffic generation methods available right now. Capitalize on them and reap the rewards. It doesn't get better than this.
Facebook groups are a distinctive way to drive organic website traffic to your internet homes. They're furthermore less complicated to produce than discussion forums and allow you the chance to build a thriving area of people interested in the very same particular niche.
Facebook Groups Guide: How To Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Group
Facebook Tools to Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Group
Today’s online marketer’s tasks are never-ending. They are constantly developing on strategies, and there’s never enough time. Running a Facebook group might be very time consuming if you are not efficient with it.
Thankfully, Facebook provides you with several tools and features so that you can engage with your group in the most efficient way possible. Let’s see what these are, in no particular order of importance.
Create rules for the group
You should use this feature to let new and existing members know the rules of the group. Generally, most groups do not allow members to spam the group with affiliate links or contact other group members.
The whole point of declaring rules is to ensure that people in your group act well with each other and use common sense. The rules make things clear because common sense is not a flower that grows in everyone's garden.
Schedule your posts
It would be best if you schedule 7 to 14 posts in your Facebook group. The Facebook scheduler will automatically post your content daily at the time you specify in the settings. This will ensure that there’s fresh content in your group daily.
The FB post scheduler will save you a ton of your work time. All you’ll need to do daily is spend 10 minutes looking at the notifications to ensure that your group is in order. You won’t need to make posts because the posting schedule will take care of it.
Enable notifications for your group
Ideally, it would be best to have notifications turned on for member's posts and member requests. This allows you to stay on top of things and approve new members quickly before they lose interest.
Turning on notifications will also help you keep your group free of spammy posts and spammers (whom you'll remove ASAP). In any group, there will be the occasional spammer or two. Being on top of things will help you weed them out.
Ask qualifying questions
One of the features of Facebook groups is that it allows you to ask members who wish to join your group a few questions before you approve them. This will enable you effectively separate the wheat from the unwanted chaff.
Many tire kickers around join hundreds of groups just for its fun and engage in none. By asking qualifying questions, you’ll be able to discern if someone is the right fit for your group. Try not to ask too many questions. 2 or 3 will suffice.
Make use of the description.
Write a description that uses a popular keyword or two to help with discoverability. You should also have a link pointing to your blog. Ideally, the link should point to a landing page where you giveaway a freemium to encourage people to join your list. It would be best if you always were building your list.
Use the announcements feature.
If you have new and important posts, you can mark them as announcements and pin the post to the group's top. This will ensure that all members who log into the group will see these pinned posts first. It helps to keep things fresh and relevant.
Check out your Facebook group insights.
Facebook provides a lot of data about engagement in your group, best-performing posts, and so on. Studying these analytics will help you understand your group better and know what the people want.
Then it is simply a concern of giving them more appealing content that suits their needs, and you’ll also know if there are any pending member requests and how many were blocked or rejected.
Link your Facebook page to your Facebook group
Linking your page to your group will allow you to reply to questions and comments on the page. This overcomes the limitation of a group where people know you’re the admin, and the whole thing may seem too personal for your liking.
With a Facebook business page linked to the group, you can appear more professional. Click on the preferred business page from (your profile home screen) to link the page to the group.
Once you get to the page, on the left side, you’ll see a column. Look down the column until you find the ‘groups’ tab. Then click on it.
The 7 Vital Steps to Increase Facebook Group Members Engagement
The progress or downfall of a Facebook group solely depends on a few factors. Still, all have a common denominator – the responsibility of making a group engaged and happy falls squarely on the creator of the group and the admins (to some extent).
Below you'll find some tips to heighten the engagement of your Facebook group so that you can manage your group info, entertain and create engagement inside your community. Once done right, people will enjoy being a member of your group and look ahead to receiving notifications of your daily posts.
Engage with Your Group Members
Social media, at its core, is all about engagement. If you want to succeed with your group, you must be engaged in it. Engage in discussions, reply to questions, like posts and comment, by providing advantages and value to your Group Members.
The engagement with your group members will help to forge not only loyalty but friendships. Do not build a Facebook group on the base to sell anything to people because selling should always seem like a reconsideration, not an overriding attraction.
Entertainment above all
Most people get on Facebook to be inspired and entertained; indeed, they are not on Facebook to learn or purchase anything. They want some exciting and fun stuff to amuse themselves. This explains the popularity of cat videos.
While your Facebook group is about a niche topic and you have lots of information to distribute, your goal should be to wrap the information with a dose of entertainment. Entertainment through providing the information is anywhere these days, so it is vital to give people what they want.
Quizzes, Questions, Surveys & Polls
Create polls, quizzes, and surveys, questions about topics that animate the discussion. People love contributing and giving their conclusions and advice. It makes them feel valuable.
By examining their input, you'll make them feel valuable and admired. This is one of the best ways to increase engagement.
Use different modalities
Different people prefer different types of content; some prefer articles while others prefer videos; some may love infographics, while some may like audio.
When making posts, try and offer content in different formats so that you appeal to a broader audience and there’s something for everyone.
Ideally, the primary purpose is to apply more visuals and less text. People love images and videos. Using quotes is another very effective method to grab attention and enhance engagement.
Ask the crowd to give the post a like if they agree with it. As foolish as it may seem to the more serious person, these engagement-styled posts work. Text Content can seem tedious and monotonous if the writing is not enjoyable to read.
It’s all about the value.
Always seek to deliver value by putting yourself in the members’ shoes. What do you think they want? What will help them in their journey?
Once you understand your audience and provide them helpful content, they will appreciate it and consequently love your group. You may also invite them to leave a comment below a post to tell you if they liked it or if they have any topic ideas related to the content. This will increase engagement.
People need to be Invited to engage. Please don't leave it to them to do it on their own. You must seek engagement proactively.
Welcoming new members
Most Facebook Groups do this, and it serves to improve engagement – but it’s not necessary. If too many members join, it can be a hassle to keep track and welcome them.
Posts welcoming new members often hardly get any likes, even when the members are tagged to the post. Most people mainly feel uncomfortable introducing themselves to a new group and prefer to hide around and occasionally engage until they're heated up.
So, it’s up to you if you wish to use this technique. You could give it a try and see if it works for you.
Storytelling
Applying storytelling in your posts is Extremely effective if you know how to do it properly. Everyone enjoys a good and inspiring story. You should lengthen a story if it's interesting – but it also can't be too long.
Next, format your text and cut up vast chunks of text. Learn how to tell exciting stories, and you will keep your members hooked.
These seven methods are effective and will increase engagement in your Facebook group if you do them adequately. Practice them frequently and analyze your Facebook group insights to know which posts your member love and to give them more of such posts.
Slowly but surely, you’ll build a tribe that’s on the same page as you and regularly engages in the group. Now you all can help each other to progress in the niche.
Conclusion: The features and methods mentioned in this article will help you run your Facebook group much more effortlessly and engage professionally with your members. Multiple marketers who create and run groups don’t even know about these features and methods, therefore they waste precious time and energy trying to keep it all together.
But you know better now. So, use the above tips to maintain a high level of engagement in your group and get the most out of it – while saving time and effort in the process.
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