An online marketer’s job is never done. You’re constantly juggling tasks and there’s never enough time. Running a Facebook group might be another time suck if you’re not efficient with it.
Thankfully, Facebook provides you with several tools and features so that you can engage with your group in the most efficient way possible. Let’s see what these are, in no particular order of importance.
Enable notifications for your group
Ideally, you should have notifications turned on for member’s posts and member requests. This will allow to stay on top of things and approve new members quickly before they lose interest.
Turning on notifications will also help you keep your group free of spammy posts and spammers (whom you’ll remove ASAP). In any group, there will be the occasional spammer or two. Being on top of things will help you weed them out.
Schedule your posts
This is a big one. Ideally, you should schedule 5 to 7 posts in your Facebook group. The Facebook automation will post your content daily at the time you stipulate in the settings. This will ensure that there’s fresh content in your group daily.
Batching this task will save you time. All you’ll need to do daily is spend 10 minutes looking at the notifications to ensure that your group is in order. You won’t need to make posts because the posting schedule will take care of it all.
Ask qualifying questions
One of the features of Facebook groups is that it allows you to ask members who wish to join your group a few questions before you approve them. This will enable you to separate the wheat from the chaff.
There are many tire kickers around who join hundreds of groups just for the fun of it and engage in none. By asking qualifying questions, you’ll be able to discern if someone is a right fit for your group. Try not to ask too many questions. 2 or 3 will suffice.
Create rules for the group
You should use this feature to let new and existing members know the rules of the group. Generally, most groups do not allow members to spam the group with affiliate links or try to contact other members of the group and so on.
The whole point of having rules is to ensure that people in your group play well with each other and use common sense. The rules make things clear because common sense is not a flower that grows in everyone’s garden.
Make use of the description
Write a description that uses a popular keyword or two to help with discoverability. You should also have a link pointing to your blog. Ideally, the link should point to a landing page where you giveaway a freemium to encourage people to join your list. You should always be building your list.
Use the announcements feature
If you have new and/or important posts, you can mark them as announcements and pin the post to the top of the group. This will ensure that all members who log into the group will see these pertinent posts first. It helps to keep things fresh and relevant.
Check out your Facebook group insights
Facebook provides a lot of data about the engagement in your group, best performing posts and so on. Studying these analytics will help you understand your group better and know what the people want.
Then it’s just a matter of giving them more content that suits their preferences and you’ll also know if there are any pending member requests and how many were blocked or declined.
Link your Facebook page to your Facebook group
Linking your page to your group will allow you to reply to questions/comments as the page. This overcomes the limitation of a group where people know you’re the admin and the whole thing may seem too personal for your liking.
With a Facebook business page linked to the group, you can appear more professional. To link the page to the group, click on the preferred business page from (your personal profile home screen).
Once you get to the page, on the left side, you’ll see a column. Look down the column until you find the ‘groups’ tab. Then click on it. You’ll be presented with the option of linking the page to your group. Easy peasy.
To conclude, the features mentioned in this article will make running a Facebook group much easier. Many marketers who create and run groups don’t even know about these features, and waste precious time and energy trying to keep it all together.
But you know better now. So, use the tips in this article to maintain a high level of engagement in your group and get the most out of it – while saving time and effort in the process.
