The business potential of Facebook Groups

And how to use Facebook's business potential through groups is what you'll find out below.

We'll cover how to:

• gather the right target audience
• find out what your audience expects;
• build your image;
• grow sales with groups;
• use the tools available there.

What is a Facebook Group?

It's a space inside Facebook, set up by a user to gather a community interested in one specific subject in a single place. A Facebook Group can be open (available to everyone) or closed (access only once the group admin approves you). A group lets you interact with people who share your tastes, trade experiences and pass on expert knowledge. It opens up enormous room for effective communication and for selling. Let's start with the fact that Facebook Groups split into:

pros — public (open)

• generates the biggest organic reach, because members' friends see when they do something in the group, and are then more willing to join it themselves
• the member count grows faster, which makes the group look more prestigious

pros — private (closed)

• building a precisely defined audience (there is a far better chance its members will become your customers than with a public group)
• getting opinions from people who care about your industry, so you understand their needs better and sharpen your offer
• members will feel singled out for belonging to a closed group
• it is much easier to minimize the risk of hate comments

cons — public (open)

• drifting away from the group's main subject,
• plenty of spam and hate, which can damage the company's image
• no control over what your audience publishes there (unless you have switched on the setting that holds comments for admin approval), which makes it impossible to run consistent content and work on building the business's image

cons — private (closed)

• it is not visible to members' friends, so it is harder to reach new audiences and, in turn, new customers
• no way to share posts

Want to see why it's worth investing the time to make real use of the business potential of Facebook Groups? Here are five steps that will help grow your business's potential.

Gather a valuable audience and get them talking

What does that mean? First, gather people who are genuinely interested in your company, because they are the only ones you will build long-term relationships with. And those relationships will show up in your sales numbers. The more precisely you define the audience you want, the better the results you'll get.

• It's worth linking your company fan page to the group and inviting the people who are already among its fans. That's how you get the group's first members.
• • Importantly, every one of them gets a notification about a newly published post. So there is far less risk that they'll miss it among all the other content.
  • On top of that, the organic traffic your audience generates will also reach new users on the platform – namely, their friends. They'll see activity from someone they know (if the group is public), and they'll be far more willing to read the post and join the group. To keep people there for good, you have to give them extra value for belonging. They need to feel singled out and appreciated, and to see real benefits, before they finally decide to buy!

TIP:

Once the group is up, it's worth announcing it on your fan page and using the option to promote the post with paid budget. Don't do that with the “boost post” button, though, because it will be shown to completely random users who probably have no interest in what the company offers. To win new and valuable members you need Ads Manager in Meta Business Suite, so you can target the right people.

Learn what group members expect – they're your future customers

Focus on deliberate communication that helps you get to know your customers better. You'll understand what information they need, what they expect, what problems they have, and what remarks or suggestions they have about your brand. A Facebook Group can work as free market research. Running one opens up the chance to walk through the sales process from the customer's point of view. All it takes is watching closely and drawing conclusions from what people leave in the group. How do you do it? Ask questions, encourage people to trade experiences and opinions. That is how you learn what matters most to your audience, what innovations you could introduce, and what to do to improve your products or services. As a result you'll get ahead of your competition, gain an edge over them, and give customers what they really need. Groups are a genuine treasure trove for business owners, because they are more intimate places where it's easier for people to open up and give an honest opinion – something that happens far less often, and on a much smaller scale, on a fan page.

Build your image

Let your audience get to know you! Show what values drive your company and what sets it apart from the rest. Does it care most about: the environment, smooth 24/7 customer service, how things are made, or people and the workplace? It doesn't matter whether you're in cars, hair, cosmetics or construction – every one of those industries has its own differentiators, and you should be underlining yours in your communication. What's more, they are exactly what makes a brand more unique and more trustworthy in consumers' eyes. So if you want more conversions and more customers – you have to write openly about why people should buy from you and not from someone else. Transparency and closeness to the consumer can be a powerful differentiator and a real asset for a brand.

Use the sales opportunities

A group is a place where members – so, potential customers – often raise their problems. Communication run properly, underlining the brand benefits that solve a specific problem, can translate directly into sales. One direct way to present products is a contest, for instance, which you can run inside your group. Giving people a chance to get to know the brand and rewarding the members who make the group what it is. A third way to support sales through a group is looking after the culture inside it. Let it be a relaxed space for trading ideas and making contacts. Over the long run that brings customers closer together and builds their trust in the brand.

Use the available tools to hit your goals

Facebook Groups come with plenty of different features that help build a strong, engaged community. The most important ones are:

• handing out ambassador roles to people who become the company's leading representatives while also being among its fans. They are the ones who'll cover different subjects with genuine substance, present specific products or services, and get the other members active.
• awarding badges of various kinds. They show up next to a person's name. Gamification is worth introducing, because it lifts engagement
• creating polls. Filling one in takes hardly any time, so users are more willing to take part, because it doesn't demand much effort from them.
• the option to add thread topics and featured content to the group lets you organize the issues being discussed and, as a result, keep things tidier.
• adding group experts, meaning people with deep knowledge of that group's subject.

EXAMPLE:

The KontigoClub group, run by our agency Social Lama, is mainly there to:

• share news about the cosmetics you can find in the range at Kontigo, a Polish beauty retail chain,
• support each other when one of the members is looking for a product or a skincare tip.
• promote specific brands available at Kontigo
• build a community and, with it, loyal customers
• keep our knowledge of the target audience, its expectations and any problems up to date
• reward the most engaged brand ambassadors (they are chosen from among everyone who makes up the group)

The upsides of the KontigoClub group:

• a large circle of engaged members;
• support for brand-image work
• support for sales work
• a growing number of ambassadors encourages people to interact in the group;
• a large number of valuable comments makes newcomers feel they've landed among professionals, where the subjects raised are anything but random;
• engaged customers
• a source of market knowledge

A group, like everything worth having, needs looking after. Remember that somebody has to be keeping order in it day to day.

Facebook Groups offer enormous room to grow a business, even though their potential often goes unnoticed and underrated. They are how you:

• gather an audience interested in a specific subject who can become potential customers.
• improve your company's recognition.
• reach potential customers organically (it doesn't cost you a thing).
• get honest feedback from your fans. You can use it to improve your products or services so they meet customer expectations even better.
• gain an edge over the competition and introduce innovations they don't have.
• grow your revenue

If your brand is already on Facebook and you're running its communication, it's worth considering widening that with a topic-focused group. And if you have more questions about groups, get in touch.