So, you made a Facebook group but there’s hardly anyone in it? Or maybe you made a group for a specific bunch of people, but can’t seem to get anyone to be active within the group? Or have you started a Facebook page and want to get some attention over there? What you need is a little marketing, a little viral magic and just enough push from you to get other people creating some of the content and keeping it alive.
Here’s a post for those of you who have, at some point or another, decided to start a group or a page to promote something you care about and get people conversing about the same topic. You obviously want to ensure your group or page gets the attention it needs and to keep it thriving once you’ve got a few people involved. So, here’s some of the best tips around.
Choose An Awesome Name For Your Group/Page
Seriously, put some thought into the name before you even begin. Make sure it’s catchy, fun and memorable – and then make sure there’s no annoying spelling mistakes or apostrophe abuse!
Make Your Group/Page Look Great
Find the best image possible to promote your group or page and make use of the layout you’ve got. A nice, clear, colourful user picture goes a long way as will regular links, photo and video updates on the wall. Colour is key.
Suggest/Invite/Add Your Friends To Your Facebook Group Or Page
Pages will let you suggest the page to your friends, while groups will let you add or invite people to the group. Whatever the method involved, you’re doing the same thing: letting a few selected friends know about your group or page and asking them to share it with their friends too. Make sure you send a personalised invite to the key people you think will be pivotal to your group or page’s early success. Ask them to get on board and offer them an official title within your group.
This is a really important way to kick off a new group or page, as it shows newcomers that at least a few people care already. You want to start with a bang and get the party started quickly. Choose the friends well according to what you think they’ll like and don’t overdo it. No-one likes a spammer.
Promote Via Similar Groups & Pages
You’re probably already involved in a few other Facebook groups loosely related to the one you’ve created. If not, now’s the time to join a few. Occasionally post something useful to these other groups and link back to a post, photo or the main page from your group. This will let other like-minded people know about your group while also offering them useful information. It’s important not to do this too often though as you’ll be seen as a spammer.
With pages, you also have the option of adding another page as a favourite of your page. Choose a few similar pages to yours and do this every now and then. Occasionally post useful content on their page while logged in as your page. Eventually they may decide to add your page as a favourite of theirs too.
Cross-Promote Your Group/Page Brand
Ensure that you’re promoting your Facebook group/page on Twitter, on your website, on YouTube, in social bookmarking, in email signatures, in any marketing materials that get made and more. All of these forms of communication are useful to different people at different times and therefore are equally important to promote so that people can join and follow as best as possible.
Keep Your Group/Page Active
All you need is a little bit of activity each week to keep people thinking about your group. Maybe the members will even contribute something to the group themselves! Try to vary the activity each time:
- A quick update with information
- Upload and tag some photos or video
- Start an event (virtual or in real life)
- Link to deals and competitions of interest to your group
- Tell a quick anecdote or joke
- Use Facebook chat to chat with the whole group
- Give something away
- Link to something useful
- Ask a question
Whatever you do, make it different to the last update to keep people interested in the group or page content. Ideally, you need to be encouraging other people to post content too.
Consider linking your Facebook page to your related Twitter account in order to keep content flowing on both at once. However, don’t do this if you’re very active on Twitter or you may overload your Facebook fans. This can’t be done with Facebook groups, sorry. Get Awesome Twitter Features On Facebook With This Neat TrickIn the world of social networks, there are two really big players: Facebook and Twitter. These are not the only players, not by a long shot, but with almost 150 million users on Twitter, and...READ MORE
Get creative if your members are quiet. Why not interview a member? Ask them their views in relation to your group and share the interview with the group (with permission of course). Don’t forget to tag the member so their friends see the post too. Ask for other people to give their views, decide the next big question to be asked and to nominate themselves for an interview sometime.
Whatever you do with your content, make sure that you’re creating something of value for the members/fans. Make it funny, interesting or useful – not just annoying!
Create Viral Content
Lots of groups have fun creating and uploading meme images and giving them a topical twist, then sharing the picture with their friends on Facebook. It subtly promotes the group to all the friends and friends of friends who see the image and think it’s funny.
Advertise Your Page Or Upcoming Promotion
Facebook have lots of options for pages to offer advertising to members and can be fine-tuned to focus on a particular area, age group, or other important demographic. Yes, this will cost you, but if you choose your market well it could be very effective. It’s also possible to promote individual posts from a Facebook page. To learn more, read Facebook’s guide to Advertising on Facebook and check out the Facebook Marketing Guide.
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