Getting Your First Members
You’ve set up a Facebook group and you're in the right mindset to succeed-- it's time to get your first members. I suggest you start adding value to your group first. Start to get conversation topics in there, include graphics, helpful links, free reports, and more. Including these items gives people something to do once they join a group. People like to see lots of activity and lots of different things to look at – even when a community is brand-new.
One of the first things you can do is tell your current contacts about your new group. You might ask close friends to help spread the word to help make your job easier. Tell people you trust and that you've already networked with so they can join and help get the conversation going. Seeding your group with people who will help get the conversation going can really help at first since people can be really shy when they first join a group.
Then, you can start to tell your current contacts. You can make announcements on your blog or website. Tell your social media contacts. Send an email out to your list and ask friends if they will mail their list. Of course, you should do something to reciprocate, even if you aren't asked to. You can also put links to your group in all of your books and products. I've mentioned this already, but this is all I really do to promote my group. Facebook does a fantastic job with all the rest.
Remember to network with and contact potential people who can help to get the word out. Consider potential co-admins. You can also join relevant groups and pages. Start to join in on the conversation there and become known in your niche. This is especially important if you have not yet already made these contacts. Of course you don't want to poach other groups' members, but you do want to form relationships and start to develop those contacts.
Keeping the Conversation Going
As the members start to flow in, you'll want to keep the conversation going to get them to stick around and tell others about the group. I like to do that by posting daily topics. It’s something I haven’t seen in many other groups but has been really, really effective when it is implemented, like in my IMIT Facebook group.
People are really interested in new groups – it's getting them to stick around and take a look at the conversation daily that can be tricky. That's why it's so important to have daily topics. Talk about and even link to interesting things every day.
You can also share great daily photos. You can encourage questions. You can have other admins ask daily questions or share great things if this is not something you can commit to every day. You can encourage other people to share success stories.
Another thing you can do is be very open and honest about your own ups and downs. People love a great case study. If you share what's going on with you, that's something your group members will be very interested in. People will be a lot more likely to stick around if this is the kind of environment you create.
Remember to always share value in the form of contents, downloadables, and more. The idea is to get people into the habit of coming back. You want your Facebook group to feel like home. You want them to get into the habit of checking in every day.
Everyone has a daily routine of websites, blogs, and groups they visit. It can be hard to break into someone's daily routine even though that’s exactly what you should aim to do. If you do it the right way, you can get into that daily rotation for your group members. Make that your mission.
The Marketing Connection
As much as you will enjoy the members of your group, you're not running this group out of the kindness of your heart – at least that's not the only reason you're running this group. You're running this group to build your brand and expand your reach. You want to build your business to new levels. You hope this will help you earn more money and make more sales.
With that said, you absolutely are not building a Facebook group so you can spam your members. You're not going to post links to your offers every day. You're not going to just talk about your products all the time. You're the admin, but you have to put the focus on your members, not on yourself.
It's fine to talk about projects you're excited about and things you're working on. It's fine to link to your freebies and to build your list from your Facebook group – in fact, that's a very smart thing to do. Whatever you can do to drive traffic from Facebook to build your list is a very smart idea.
But your focus has to be on building trust and providing value. If your members like you enough and if you're a good enough leader, they'll seek you out.
Many of them will want to find you away from Facebook and some of them will want to buy everything you have. You have to focus on value and relationships above all. Your goal should be mainly to get people to know, like, and trust you.
Most importantly of all when it comes to getting new members, they’ll start to share news of your group with others. Word of mouth is, in my opinion, the best possible way for you to get members for your Facebook group.
This is a long game and not a short game. Be in it for value and relationship. Focus on the people of your group and get those dollar signs out of your eyes. I hardly ever market directly to my Facebook group – yet it has done amazing things for my business.
Automatically Getting Facebook Group Members
One of the best things about Facebook is that they do a fantastic job of advertising groups for you. You can’t directly advertise a group via ads, but it’s sort of okay because of the way this works.
Facebook shows people groups their friends are members of. This sort of social proof can net you a lot of members you otherwise wouldn’t have had.
Facebook also shows related groups. They want people to stick around their site so it makes sense for them to get people to join as many groups as possible.
Make sure your group isn’t secret, or none of this will work, by the way. Also, make sure you name your group something catchy, have an appealing picture/cover, and a great description that invites people to join with open arms.
Other Ways to Get Group Members
Tell your current contacts that your group is set up. Email your lists and get friends to email theirs (you can barter with them so they’ll do this).
Write about your group on your blog or website.
Post about it on Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and more.
Basically, make sure people know about your group and have a solid reason to join (or example, the free content and strategies you share).
Work Out a Plan to Get New Members Consistently
Figure out a plan for getting members that will work for you. I recommend you actively work on getting new members every day, at least in the beginning. At a certain point, the group sort of grows itself.
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