Create a Facebook Group

How Facebook Groups differ from Facebook Pages

A Facebook group is a Facebook space in which users can join as members to engage with the brand and others frequently about common interests.

To illustrate the value of Facebook groups, I will discuss them with comparisons and contrasts with Facebook pages. Pages are more formal and always public. They can be likened to a slightly more interactive 'About us' profile page or, in more human interaction terms, to your home's front yard. Using the frontyard analogy, it is visible to the public, to anyone on the street. As the owner of the home, you are the only one hanging decoration for Christmas or a new baby on board and so on. You may likely have posted short public details like your house's lot number and name on the wall facing the road. In short, what you show the world from your front yard (FB Page) has a generic tone. It is focused on general news updates to the general public who may or may not share your interests (like your target market would).

  

Passersby may choose to react, to say 'I like that decoration', perhaps to take photos of your Christmas tree to share them with their friends to encourage them to visit this place with a beautiful tree. A passerby might even show a photo and say, 'look at my tree'. However, since this is afterall your frontyard, people won't normally think to call other passersby to start decorating for and discussing Boxing Day (a holiday celebrated in the British Commonwealth).

Conversely, Facebook groups can be likened to your backyard, ie a more informal and intimate space where you invite closer family and friends to relax and chat in family gatherings. Being a more intimate settings, your guests may raise the topic of Boxing Day or any other topic. Unlike general public, your group is an already very keen and engaged audience. They are in your sales funnel, you are in their buying / purchase funnel. You and your guests may have detailed discussions about Christmas, Boxing Day, etc that you only mentioned in passing in the frontyard. In otherwords, your backyard is designed for more intimate interaction among like-minded people.

Given the more intimate nature of your discussions, you must decide the extent to which the public can observe your backyard activities. You may select to leave your backyard within 'public' view, ie by not using barricades to prevent passersby on the main road from eavesdropping on your family activities. If you wish however, you may build a wall that completely blocks the ongoings of your backyard from view to make your activities 'private'. Allowing persons into your private space is a matter of knowing that they share your values. To this end, you might even ask them questions before allowing them in. In other cases, you might configure your backyard in such a way that it is so 'secret' that the passing public on the road does not even know of the existence of your backyard. They can only be invited by someone within your intimate group.

In summary, here are some key take away points about Facebook groups.

• Facebook groups are ideal for customer engagement and retention marketing in the sales funnel. They are a marketer's dream come true: they are a group of self qualified leads whose membership signals their engagement readiness. 
• Group members are more active than page visitors. Unlike page visitors that only react when brands post, group members are allowed the voice to initiate discussions.
• Brands can develop deeper insight into the target market's profile beyond just the product needs. This is because Facebook Groups encourage posts that are about anything. It is common for small business groups owners and members to ocassionally post about their children or pets. In reality, groups offer less demographic analytics than pages because pages are designed for advertising to the general public. However, the type of analytics provide such deep insight that they can help you to improve your connection. 
• By allowing group members to initiate discussions and the fact that they are truly interested, groups are sustainable (ie in contrast with FB pages that usually get responses only when the brand generates content). It is really just a matter of setting the stage for group members.
• Groups provide better organic reach (than pages). Since group members have used their membership to essentially opt in for notifications, they receive all of your notifications. In contrast however, Facebook relies on its algorithm only to determine whether to allow posts from pages to the public. Specifically, the public is likely to continually see your content only if they actively interacted with past posts. If not, your content simply disappears from their feed.

Depending on privacy settings, this communication is more personalized and intimate which may motivate even internet-shy group members to post. For instance, your leads can ask questions, current customers can respond and also showcase how they are receiving value from your product. In short, you can create a sense of community in which you can nurture leads more and for extended periods simply because your leads will continue to receive notifications for your new posts. Facebook group communities even allow greater company responsiveness as you can involve members in decisions.

Tips to boost group member / customer engagement & QUALITY of engagement

1. Make the group private and qualify entrants with questions. Facebook allows groups to ask 3 entry questions. Be selective! Do not worry about quanity but quality of membership as this will encourage active and meaningful engagement. (Some marketers collect email addresses as part of the 3 questions and then add the address to mailing lists as a means of ensuring they can always reach members).

2. Use the fact that your group is private with specific entry requirements to boast about membership being exclusive for the sake of guaranteeing quality experience.

3. If you have a faithful following on other social media platforms, incentivize them to also tune in to Facebook by making certain types of content exclusive to Facebook. Since they already know and like you on one platform, you are likely to also get high quality engagement from them on Facebook. You can also leverage the audiences of other publishers. For instance, provide quality content in the form of responses to other publications. Subtly encourage others to know what you do. You can also do collaborations with non-competing publishers whose target market is the same as yours. 

4. Establish a very clear and specific theme. For instance, if you target a certain niche in the market, let that me very clear.

5. Have an onboarding process (tailored for the role, new customers, employees, etc). This may include a welcome video. Be sure to with the core values, expectations, the benefit to members (like a UVP), instructions to configure notifications settings to receive all posts. Consider incentivizing actions like adjusting their notification settings.

6. Provide consistent content. Create schedules for live videos, stories, etc. This should include having a tentpole calender planned for the entire year in advance. 

7. Ensure all content has calls to action. Be sure to respond. Afterall, 2-way communication lets the Facebook algorithm rank your group highly. The section immediately below briefly discusses formats for content.

Facebook offers many of the same 'Story' features, including hashtags that I discussed otherwise for Instagram. 

Always pay special attention to super engaged people, ie people who respond with full sentences and developed thoughts versus single-word responses or emojis. In this section, I will discuss some engagement ideas. 

• Involve your group in your decision-making process. You can use polls for this type of close-ended question. The option allows checkbox or multiple choice settings. Example(s).
• Which version of this label do you prefer?
• Ask for opinions. You can use open-ended questions. Example(s).
• What other element(s) would you love to have in product x?
• See more comprehensive set of examples in my other discussion on Instagram stories. 

How to create a Facebook Group

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• Log in to your Facebook account
• In the left column section named 'Groups', hover over the word groups. The word 'more' will appear. Click the 'more' link. You should be directed into a groups page (with different options like 'suggested groups', 'friends' groups', etc). 
• Click the green 'Create Group' button in the top right corner of the page
• In the dialog box (pictured below), enter details like the group name, privacy settings and so on. 
• Members: 
• You can add current friends
• Privacy:
• Public: anyone can see the group, join at will and post (once they have joined). Beware: public groups have a reputation of generating spam (ie unwanted commercial correspondence).
• Closed: anyone can find the group and its members but can not see the posts. This may be useful for groups that have paid services. These groups are more likely to generate content that is more personally valuable to members, especially if they are segmented. Furthermore, these groups give some level of comfort as it relates to privacy of discussions.
• Secret: only members can see the group, its members and post. Only invitees can become members and see the group. These groups are more likely to generate content that is more personally valuable to members, especially if they are segmented. Furthermore, these groups provide maximum privacy regarding discussions and even membership.

               

• In the top banner, select 'upload photo' to add an image. The image should be 800*200 px. Another option for uploading a photo is by selecting 'description' under the banner and then clicking 'add a photo'.
• Below the banner section, select 'description' to enter group description information
• Since you have admin person, you will see an option to 'add new members' the middle right section of the screen
• From this point, members will be able to add content to the timeline by selecting any of several options (write post, add photos/videos, create poll or add a file). Unlike a classic forum, Facebook pages are not very static once members post content. This is so because new content pushes older content down and, eventually, out of sight.   

• You will also be able to post events for the viewing of only group members. Events are useful for activities like webinars. (Read about the webinar sales funnel). To create an event;
• click 'events' in top menu below the banner
• click the 'create an event' link
• enter event details like an image, event name, start and end times and a description of the event

     

• You will also be able to upload documents (PDF, MS Word documents and so on) that can be shared among all members.
• DOs
• To get started and generate content, you may need to find and invite members of other groups that are frequent and valuable contributors. This is a necessary evil since most average members do not contribute at all or much, which increases your individual burden as the owner to generate all of the content.
• Use your Facebook group like a focus group. For instance, seek feedback on (new) products, ideas and so on from members.
• Use your Facebook group to nurture members with free resources with the use of the document upload feature.
• Facebook groups can get out of hand if not set up and managed correctly. For instance, people may enter the group and start spamming. Plan the group well based on a clear unique value proposition. The unique value proposition will inform many things like who is allowed to become a member, participation rules and so on.

CONTENT RELATED TO CREATING A NEW FACEBOOK GROUP

• Retention marketing & the hour glass sales funnel
• Third party video instructions for creating a new Facebook group
• Facebook pages are not obsolete. They may work well in conjunction with Facebook groups in that they are useful for the earlier (stages of the) sales funnel
• Enhance the success of your Facebook group by basing its plan on a clear unique value proposition
• Facebook advertising setup
• Social media 101
• Instagram 101
• Facebook Groups
• WhatsApp Business
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Chatbots
• Tawkto

Retention Marketing & the Hour Glass Funnel

The Hour Glass Funnel is an advanced stage of the sales funnel. Just to recap, the sales funnel strategically manages key touch points, ie points at which marketers respond to a customer's level of buying readiness with stage-appropriate motivators. Since previous posts did not delve beyond earlier touch points, this post covers a more complete list of customer touch points which are awareness, engagement, conversion and retention. In short, the purpose of the hour glass funnel deals with retention marketing, ie to retain and convert your main product customer into a loyal / repeat customer and sales generating fan / sales ambassador. Essentially, retention marketing aims to extend the customer life value (CLV), aka life time value of customers. 

Goal 1: loyalty or repeat sales

Remember, it is many times cheaper to convert an existing satisfied customer. In fact, loyal customers are highly likely (roughly to 70%) to refer your business to friends. Furthermore, loyal customers are 10 times more valuable than new ones as it relates to revenue. Remember then 80-20 rule? It applies. Stats suggest that loyal customers can account for as much as 80% of a company's revenue. Businesses use many techniques that include loyalty programs. Imagine, you may even include a loyalty pipeline in your CRM.

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Goal 2: evangelism
Unlike the work of a paid sales team, marketing evangelism involves the promotion of a brand not for the promoting person's self interest but for a third party, the brand. Evangelists have a genuine believers in your brand (as opposed to going through the motions in a lack lustre transaction of sales pitch for remuneration). These very valuable customers contribute to the customer acquisition efforts of your business. Naturally, the product must add real value to convert someone into a marketing evangelist. The value should extend beyond the single benefit narrowly associated with the product. For instance, your customer becomes an evangelist when his experience is holistic because, not only was the product very valuable on many levels but so too were the different aspects of his experience like customer support. Furthermore, the passion can be developed by the product's ability to help people to accomplish something that supports larger dreams, political or social will and so on. For instance, kitchen gardening products may be associated with empowering people with healthier lifestyle (something they dream of within the context of genetically modified food and the associate health risks). Marketing evangelists essentially widen your sales funnel in that they reach more leads. They offer social proof which is highly persuasive. In fact, it is more persuasive and therefore more effective in converting prospects into customers than your self praise. See case studies of how companies encouraged evangelism by implementing ambitious referral programs.   

  

Summary of the major stages of the sales funnel

• awareness (make prospects aware you exist)
• engagement (educate the researching lead)
• conversion (make a sale by promoting product value to leads on the verge of buying)
• retention / referral (encourages customers to be loyal, ie to buy again and or evangelize your products and business to others)

Retention Marketing DOs (for loyalty)

• consistently deliver quality goods and service
• be responsive to their (changing) needs
• respond to understanding and resolving problems of dis-satisfied customers. Use what you have learnt as a new FAQ item
• create value like useful content

Retention Marketing DOs (for referrals to others / widening the sales funnel)

• use loyalty programs that encourage customers to engage with your brand in exchange for rewards. (It is also useful to implement that simultaneously increases customer acquisition through referral programs that are designed for loyalty. See the FreeAgent case study.)   


• encourage the customer to interact with your community
• use social media
• for forums, give clear instructions / calls to action regarding where and how to start. 
• Example: encourage members to create a member profile
• encourage the customer to evangelize your products and business via
• product reviews. This involves videos and images. In fact, the latter is useful for lookbooks
• company reviews
• encourage the customer to recommend your products
• using your affiliate program

Retention Marketing Tools

• Facebook groups (not Facebook pages). Allow prospects and customers to be members. Encourage the customers, especially the satisfied and successful ones who can showcase the success they enjoy as a result of your products and or services, example they could post some record of earnings / savings per month.  Company reviews and video interviews can also be posted when customers have positive things to say. Additionally, your prospects can ask questions to the more experienced buyers.
• Wedding registries

Other Retention Marketing DOs

The process is not necessarily linear in that a customer may skip past stages within this and even the basic sales funnel. You must therefore be mindful of their path through the stages and communicate appropriately. For instance, someone using your wedding registry jumps from the top of the basic sales funnel all the way to the bottom of the hour glass funnel and is not necessarily ready for your webinar sales funnel communication.  

 

CONTENT RELATED TO RETENTION MARKETING WITH THE HOUR GLASS SALES FUNNEL

• Brand awareness & brand awareness srategy 101
• Loyalty programs are still relevant that use forms of emotional marketing are more likely to succeed with modern consumers than 'earn & burn' programs.
• Tiered loyalty programs
• A sure way of converting customers into evangelism is customer experience that not only meets customer needs holistically but exceed expectations. This encourage customers to tell a story which essentially translates into building your brand awareness & brand awareness srategy 101
• After deciding on this new funnel, create the tasks in a retention / renewal sales pipeline and or evangelism pipeline in your CRM program for your sales representatives. For instance, the renewal pipeline can include elements like loyalty cards.
• Sales funnels. There are several types of sale funnel. Here is a great introduction
• Using brand storytelling for evangelism
• Broadcast email campaigns: an Amazon case study
• Facebook groups for retention marketing