Social Media Marketing

3 Tips on Using Facebook Groups for Business

June 4, 2018 by Deborah Leave a Comment

In the last two posts, we looked at the importance of Facebook groups for business and how you can start marketing your brand in Groups. Specifically, we dived down into how to select the right Facebook groups and the type of content you should share to build trust among your prospects.

Today, we are wrapping up this Facebook post series with 3 ways in which you can use Groups for your business. When you have a content strategy for your Facebook group marketing effort, things become easier on different fronts. Let’s check how to use Facebook Groups to market a small business.

1. Take advantage of stakeholder teams

Whether you have a small or medium sized business, you probably have more than one person marketing your business on social media. For many small businesses, prospective customers are on Facebook. Therefore, it makes sense to spend more time on the social network building your brand.

My client Shelly from Nurselly sells digital stethoscopes and wanted to branch out and increase her business’ presence on social media. I immediately suggested that she concentrates on Facebook as that is where most of her customers have.

But before you reach out to prospects, perhaps you should get everyone in your team onboard on Groups. You can use Groups for internal business purposes. For example, you may opt to use a group as a collaboration platform for your team. Imagine Groups as a private place for collaboration and project management. For instance, you create a group for your team to:

Discuss ideas found online to implement in your marketing
Share status and progress of current projects
Rely customer service requirements so that appropriate managers contact can respond
Release specific messages or graphics for managers in multiple locations to share within their own networks.

Nearly everyone is familiar with Facebook and your employees can easily start collaborating in Facebook groups. Using Groups can help save on email and members can search conversations for future reference.

2. Improve engagement among prospects

Most people will “like” your Facebook page to get information on discounts and special offers. You can reward these super-fans with personal attention to get them talking more about your brand.

Create a special group for your loyal fans, where they can become a happy family. Let the fans share in a personal way with each other as well as talk about their experiences with your product or service. You can also let members of the fan group share photos, videos or tips on using your products.

Creating such a group can help your super engaged fans to become brand ambassadors. These ambassadors can be crucial sources of information for your business. For example, they can help you:

Gauge potential successes of future product launches
Help you become aware of new competitors
Help you discover avenues for marketing your product or service
Help you discover other interests you can consider when targeting advertisements.

Make these members of the group feel special from time to time. For example, you can invite them to exclusive webinars, or offer coupons or prizes exclusive to them.

Having an exclusive Facebook group will give you the power to communicate with a select group of ambassadors or customers to know more about your market and offers. Your aim with this group shouldn’t be to make it the largest. You only want people that are enthusiastic about your product.

Group moderators should be in place to screen members before allowing them to join. The moderators themselves should be trustworthy.

You can use this group of super engaged fans as your ears and eyes on the ground. Rather than trying to guess what the conditions in your industry are like or what people think of your offers, why not get it from the horse’s mouth from these fans?

3. Generate leads for your Business

You can also use Facebook groups for lead generation purposes. Here, you want to join a number of groups that are relevant to your industry and start participating in discussions. When people see you are providing value in the group, they may want to add you or check out your profile.

Here is where the kicker comes in.

On your profile, have links to your website or the product you are promoting. Don’t sell anything in the groups. Let your discussions lead people to your profile, where you have link to whatever you are promoting.

Of course, the discussions you are participating in should be relevant to the links on your profile. The traffic coming from the groups is likely to be highly relevant and can help you get more leads and new customers.

Setting up Your Facebook Group for Business

You should have a policy regarding your Facebook Group for business. For example, you should determine beforehand whether everyone should be able to join you group or if you only want select users.

Also, keep in mind that Facebook is a large and active platform. Therefore, you should be wary of security issues. Anything related to customers’ passwords or sensitive data should not be shared in the groups. Rather, use other more secure channels such as telephone or email when relying information containing personal data.

When setting your Facebook group, you will have an option to decide whether you want the group to be Open, Closed or Secret. This is what the options provide:

Open. With this option selected, the comments and interactions of members can be seen all around Facebook, even by people that are not members of the group. Anyone can find the group by searching it on Facebook.

Creating an “Open” group will work if you are looking to build awareness of your company or product fast. However, keeping the group Open may limit discussions or interactions between members. When someone comments in an Open group, the activity will be visible on the timelines of his or her friends. Some people don’t like their activity being broadcast all over.

Closed. With this option, only members of the group can see the information and interaction within. Other Facebook members can search and find the group, and request to join.
Secret. This option also only allows members of the group to see the information or interaction within. However, other Facebook members cannot find the group on Facebook by searching for it. Only people with a direct link to the group can access it.

TIP: The Secret option is best for leads that are ready to be closed or for existing customers.

Facebook groups are one of the many social media marketing options you can use to market your business. Understand your customers and providing them with value is the building block of any successful social media marketing campaign.

Sources Mentioned: https://www.nurselly.com/electronic-stethoscope-review

How to Market Your Small Business on Facebook Groups

April 29, 2018 by Deborah Leave a Comment

Are you marketing your business on Facebook Groups? If not, you are missing a great opportunity to build your brand and make customers online.

There is a lot of advice online about using Facebook Pages to build your business brands. This is why the first thing business owners do when they get on Facebook is to open a page for their business. Pages are a great way for businesses to create quality content and interact with their fans.

However, the recent Facebook algorithm change may be driving brands to look for other ways to get the most out of the social network. This week, we saw one big brand, CopyBlogger, shutting down its Facebook page. There are also other notable companies that are no longer active on Facebook.

However, small businesses should not get off Facebook just because some authority blogs have done so. Keep in mind that these brands leaving Facebook are using other channels to reach their audience. They have large marketing budgets and perhaps the ROI they are getting from Facebook does not justify spending their time there.

Whether you have a hobby project such as creating 3D printed miniatures or are running a conventional mom-and-pop store, a business Facebook still remains a good avenue of generating traffic and leads. And with Facebook having changed its algorithm, effectively reducing the messages that users see from brands, Groups for business may be the way to go.

Find Facebook Groups

To get started with Facebook Groups marketing, you can either start your own group or join already established groups. I would recommend that you follow both avenues.

You want established groups since potential customers hang out there. On the other hand, your own business group will give you control on the content to share and can be used as a lead nurturing avenue for closing sales.

To start Facebook Group marketing, identify the Groups where your potential customers hang out. Assuming you already know your buyer persona, finding groups with relevant audiences will be easy. Here are some ways to find the groups:

1. Keyword search. Type and search a keyword that your target users are likely to be interested in. Keep the keyword short, preferably one to four words. When you search the keyword on Facebook, you will find a list of groups whose titles have the keyword.

2. Influencer data mining. Find an influencer in your niche and add them as a friend or follow them on Facebook. Under the influencer’s profile, check the list of groups that the person is a member of. Join the groups that are relevant to your business or customers.

3. Facebook Page Comments. Look for a relevant Facebook page with many followers and lots of interactions. On the page, be on the lookout for users that share links to pages or groups. These groups may be relevant to your audience.

4. Use your current customers. If you already have a Facebook page with some fans, ask them which groups they are in. You can get lots of suggestions of active groups that have prospects you can serve.

Select the Right Groups

Finding the right Facebook Groups is not difficult. The main challenge is getting groups with engaged members who are likely to turn to customers.

Make a list of Groups relevant in your industry. From the list, start filtering them to find the gems in the dust.

One thing you will immediately notice is that most online marketing/Internet marketing groups are spammed. You will be better off looking for niche targeted groups rather than general online marketing groups.

Here are some pointers that will help you determine whether you can get value from joining a group:

i) Check whether the group has a cover image. If there is an image, what is it written? The message on the cover page will give you a hint on what the group is about and what members are interested in.

TIP: Avoid groups that are simply advertising “make money systems” or home businesses.

ii) Scroll through the posts on the group and determine the content shared. If there seems to be no clear topic being addressed, the group is likely to be worthless for your small business marketing.

iii) Check the level of engagement in the groups. If a group simply has posts that no one is replying to, then it’s probably a spammer’s paradise. If there are comments, make sure they are relevant to the post.

iv) Auto-posting software is usually a sign of spam. Most spammers or marketers that are not keen on adding any value to the groups use auto-posting software to post their content. Check a few of the posts at the groups and see whether most of them are posted by auto-posting tools.

v) If posts are full of links, then it’s likely that the group is a haven for spammers. Ideally, you want to join groups that have meaningful discussions going on.

After filtering the groups, join those that seem legitimate. For groups that are “Closed”, you will have to request to join first to see the discussions on the wall.

If you have found a few groups that seem legitimate and that have meaningful discussions, you want to check the rules of engagement. Most quality groups forbid members from spamming other members with advertisements. Moreover, there may be restriction on the types of content that can be shared or discussions that can take place.

Reading the rules will save you time and help you know how to use the groups for the best benefit.

TIP: Check the groups and see if you can identify the Admin. If you can, send them a friend request. Befriending the Admins can help you down the road should you want to advertise your business on the groups.

Start Your Own Group

Sometimes, you may want to start your own Facebook group rather than joining others. Starting your own group has a number of advantages over joining other groups.

Perhaps the biggest advantage is that you can control the content on the Group. If you want, you can advertise your business and lead the group in the direction you want.

However, the biggest disadvantage of starting your own Group is that you do not have the audience to start going. You can however quickly build membership if you have a vibrant audience on other marketing channels such as email or blog.

Now that you have built your own group or joined a few where your target audience hangs out, it’s time to start marketing.

First, we will look at how you can market your business on Facebook groups owned by other people.

To be successful with Facebook Group marketing, think of it as a forum. You have to get noticed in the groups to attract any interest from other members to your business. The best way to attract interest is to be helpful in the groups.

Help people get what they want, and you will get what you want. This is a rephrase of a Zig Ziglar quote.

Basically, if you are helpful to other members, they will start noticing you and some will follow you. How do you become helpful? Simply participate in the discussions going on. Provide helpful answers and be honest in your interactions.

You can establish yourself as knowledgeable in your line of business from the answers you provide. Apart from answering questions, provide tips that other group members will find helpful. This is a quicker way of getting noticed in the groups.

In our next post, we will look at the forms of content you can provide to Facebook Group members to make a mark and start building trust.

Facebook Group Marketing: Content Strategy

December 29, 2017 by Deborah Leave a Comment

Last week, we looked at how to get started with Facebook marketing. If you haven’t read the post, I recommend you do so before continuing with today’s post.

In summary, we looked at:

How to find the right Facebook groups for your business
Determining which groups to join
And, starting your own group

At this point, I assume you have joined some groups and are ready to get started with generating traffic or leads to your website.

There is one simple secret to getting leads on Facebook groups. It’s so simple but most people do not put it into action. However, if follow the secret, you will get noticed and other group members will start trusting you. And with trust, getting leads becomes easy.

The secret to getting leads is: be helpful.

That is all you need. If you are helpful in the groups, other group members will start liking you. Soon, they will be asking you for advice on what to do.

Before you start posting or asking questions, scan the questions in the groups to determine what people are interested in. Make a quick note on the types of questions asked or information shared in the groups and determine the following:

What kinds of topics are being discussed in the groups?
What skill level do majority of the group members seem to have?
What are the common problems that members of the group have as can be determined from their questions?
What other information that is not related to the niche of the group is shared?

You should note down this information, preferably in your favorite spreadsheet. When researching information in the group, stick to those shared within the last 3 months. Depending on your niche, you may find that questions asked more than three months ago may still be relevant.

After answering the above four questions, it’s time to create a content strategy for your group lead generation efforts.

Creating a Content Strategy for Facebook Groups

Creating a Facebook content strategy is similar to creating a general online marketing strategy. The strategy should include content creation, promotion and measurement. Let’s go through these three basics of content strategy.

Content Creation

Creating Facebook content is easy when you know what the group members are interested in. You can create and post different types of content. Examples of content you can post include:

Snippets of important going-ons in your industry
Videos and/images content
Website links to important information
Industry statistics or research information
Questions or trivia in your industry
Case studies on different topics
Round ups or list posts of important links in your industry

You can use the existing content in the groups as a guide to content creation that will lead to high engagement and recognition.

Here is how you can expand your Facebook group content marketing:

i) High-Engagement Posts

Check the content posted in the group. Those that recorded the highest engagement in terms of likes, shares and comments are likely to have resonated well with the members. Copy down the posts and note the main topics they were about. The posts should give you ideas on topics that are likely to result in the best engagement with the group members.

ii) Case Studies

People love case studies, whether you are sharing them on your blog or Facebook group. Share a few case studies to provide a point. If you have written the case study on your blog, summarize it in the Facebook group and leave a link to the full post on your blog. This is a good way to bait targeted traffic from the group to your blog.

iii) Cross Promotion

Since the groups you joined are likely to be similar in terms of niche and audience preferences, you can share the same content across different groups. Contents like round up posts, case studies, photos and industry questions are bound to be well received in the various niche groups where you are a member.

iv) Build your List

Make a free resource such as an eBook or video and invite group members to opting to your list to get the content. Before you create the resource, make sure you have started to build a rapport on the groups. You will know you are building rapport when your posts get high engagement both in terms of likes and comments.

Content Promotion

The second step in your Facebook content marketing strategy is promotion. Now, creating content on the groups is not the same like on blogs. This is because the posts on groups are not searchable in a way that keywords are searchable in search engines.

To find a post, a user will have to scroll down past other posts up to the one he or she wants. However, there are some ways in which you can promote your content and make it more visible on Facebook groups.

The first thing is to make sure you post the right content. We have covered the types of contentin the previous point. Now, to improve engagement, you want the post to be visible on the group. Here are some tips to make your posts visible:

i) Post when most people are active in the group

In some groups, people are active during the morning hours while for others, late evenings record the highest number of people. Experiment with a few posts to determine the best times to post. You can also check the posts that have recently attracted more engagement and find out when they were posted. This will give you an idea on the best time to post.

ii) Ask an open-ended question

Engage other group members by ending your posts with a question. People love giving advice of their views on different topics. Give your opinion and then ask members to contribute to the discussion. Another option would be to ask questions using the Question feature in groups. To get more relevant answers, set the answers that members must select if they wish to answer the question.

iii) Link to previous posts in the group

Link to previous posts that you have contributed in the group. Make the conversation flow and highlight your previous posts by linking to them. When you link to previous posts, members that may have skipped the post may click to view it, hence increasing its visibility.

Note: Linking should only be done if the post you want to link to is relevant to the discussion you have.

iv) Tag influential members in your posts

When you create a post, request the input of a few reputable members by tagging them in the posts. Ideally, these members should be leaders in the industry and active on the group. For example, if you tag a member with 1000 friends, it is likely the person’s friends will be notified when he or she comments on the post you’ve made in the group.

Content Measuring

The final part of your Facebook group content marketing strategy should be to measure the impact of your content. You can measure different metrics to find out whether your content is resonating well with the members of the group and helping your business in the long run. Here are some metrics you can measure:

i) Engagement. Find out whether you comments or posts are getting Likes and Shares. This is usually a sign that members are interested in the content. Apart from this, find which type of posts are leading to the highest engagement.

ii) Traffic. Check how much traffic is being driven from Facebook groups to your website or optin page. Set up your analytics programs to find the sources of traffic to your website.

iii) Leads. Determine how many leads you are getting from the Facebook groups. You can set up a separate landing page to target Facebook group traffic and measure the leads. Alternatively, you can provide specific offers to members of the Facebook groups where you are a member.

The above is an overview of how you can create a content strategy for Facebook group marketing. Are you using Facebook groups for marketing? Let me know what kind of success you are having.

5 Keys to Small Business Online Marketing Success

September 24, 2017 by Deborah Leave a Comment

small-business-online-marketing-successMajority of my readers already have small businesses and are marketing them on the Internet. Some entrepreneurs know the ins and outs of running successful marketing campaigns while others are still in the trenches, learning. There are however a few business owners that are complete novices when it comes to online marketing.

Regardless of where you fit in the mastery of online business marketing, this post will give you some tips that will help you succeed. Let’s jump right into the details.

What Are Your Marketing Goals

Before you start looking at different online marketing methods to implement for your business, it helps to define your marketing goals.

Every business has unique problems that the owner may be looking to solve. For example, you may be looking to achieve one or some of the following:

Get more sales/revenues (sweet)
Get on top of search engine results for target profitable keyword phrases
Improve your social media following for brand enhancement
Generate leads from existing traffic on your online channels
Educate your target market on various topics to generate qualified leads

When you know what you want to achieve with your business in the short and long term, it becomes easy to determine which route to take with your online marketing.

Now let’s look at some marketing tips that are sure to guarantee you success with your small business.

1. Establish a Strong Online Presence

This is probably the most important way of marketing your small business. If you are not blogging, you should be on Twitter or LinkedIn chatting with prospects and sharing valuable content. The key thing is to add value to your clients and prospects. The secret to generating leads is to be nice to people and help them solve a problem they have.

You should have your online marketing strategy right from the start. Think about the people you want to help, what they like, where they hang out on social media and the information they are searching for.

You can use insight from your competitors to know what is working and to get jumpstarted with your campaigns. For example, you can check the topics that industry leaders are writing about and follow the same angle.

However, you do not just want to copy the topics being covered by competitors. Rather, you want to curve a unique angle that will help your audience. You can make a name for your business by creating great content and promoting it across the various online properties you have a presence.

Practice lean marketing for your business. Identify the online channels that are working best for your business and concentrate on them. If your prospects hang out in all major social media networks, follow them wherever they are.

You should establish a presence in the online channels your prospects hang out and dominate the field.

2. Use Online Channels Sparing

Limit the social media channels you are using for your marketing. This is especially true if you are running a one-person business or are not sure whether your target market uses the additional social networks you want to have a presence in.

Every channel you are using should help you achieve your overall business goal, be it creating brand awareness, generating leads, closing sales and so on.

To achieve all of these, you need to get prospects to trust and respect you. The way to do this online is to position yourself as a trusted source of information in your industry.

For example, you can create blog posts around your industry topics, curate content from thought leaders, network and connect with industry leaders, and address the subjects your audience interested in.

It’s easy to get into the trap of being “everywhere” online. However, think about the benefit that being everywhere will bring to your business. For the most part, you will realize you are spending time and resources to establish a presence on the additional social networks but have no ROI (return on investment) to show.

And this brings us to the next point…

3. Track your Marketing Efforts

You cannot improve what you cannot measure. Track your marketing efforts to see whether you are on track to achieving your business goals. You should do an audit of your marketing activities, perhaps 3 to 6 months, to see how your business has been fairing.

Here is a handy list of the important metrics that matter that should be on your list of things to track.

Tracking should help you in two ways:

Discover the marketing methods that bring results to your business. Any methods that do not bring results should be scaled down or tweaked for better performance. Methods that result in positive ROI can be scaled up for even better performance.
Identify new marketing techniques that are working for your business. Tracking can help you determine whether the marketing experiments you have been doing are working. If you find a winning technique, scale it up.

It’s important to define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for every marketing campaign. KPIs are simply benchmarks against which you will measure the results of your online marketing campaign to determine whether they were hits or misses.

4. Get Your Website Right

Your online properties, especially your website, are possibly the first interaction that prospects will have with business.

Have a professionally designed website for your business. Make sure your website speaks to the customer. Some potential clients will judge your business by how your website looks. You want to hook them the first time they visit.

Your website copy should be targeted to the visitors. The site should explain what your business is about, what you do and how you can help the prospect.

Make it easy for clients to find your business on search engines. This means your site should be designed according to the best SEO practices. For example, the site’s copy should contain the relevant keywords that you are targeting.

Conversion is another thing that the website should be focused on. Make it easy for prospects to connect with you by subscribing to your email list. If you produce great content that your audience loves, you can get leads into your sales funnel. You can nurture the leads to become customers.

5. Be Consistent

Consistency is the key to earning trust from prospects and moving your business forward. Many small business owners start online marketing with a lot of fire, only to get bogged by entrepreneur’s burnout and slowly fade into oblivion.

The worst thing is that just as the entrepreneurs are starting to fade off, that is when a prospect who has been following the business for months wants to make an enquiry that is a potential sale.

To be consistent with your marketing, you need a plan. An online marketing plan will act as your roadmap in your small business journey. It’s important to have a plan from the onset of your marketing. If you don’t have a plan, you are likely to be caught up in the trap of doing everything just to feel busy but in the real sense, you won’t be helping your business.

The above are five important tips that will help you improve your business. It’s time to get out of the shell and start making moves for your small business. Consistency is key to get your small business to the next level.