Facebook is one of the most effective channels for gathering an audience for your business.
According to statistics, the audience of Facebook during the first quarter was ~1.88 billion active daily users. Facebook ranks first among other social networks.
In this article, you will learn how to properly set up your Facebook Group, so that you can attract an audience of your dream clients from these billions of people!
How to create a Facebook Group
Step 1: Choose your Facebook Group name
The first step is to create a proper name for your group using keywords. Why is this so important? You should understand that the name is the first thing that identifies your Facebook Group that the person actually sees in a Facebook search. Depending on whether they like that name or not, they decide if they want to join your group. You should learn all about your target audience to know what they are interested in.
Before naming your group, think of a couple of keywords. They should convey the general meaning of the community you want to build.
Try to point out the group’s purpose in its name. In this case, visitors will know exactly what they will find in your Facebook Group once they join. When the name contains keywords that you can be found by – this is an obvious advantage. So you increase the chance that the others will be able to find you through the Facebook search system.
If you can’t think of your group name yet, don’t worry, it is okay at this point. A temporary name is always an easy solution, and you can always change it later. That is until your group reaches 5000 members then you will not be able to change the name according to Facebook rules. If you want to learn more about Facebook regulations on changing the Facebook Group name, here’s the response from their Help Center.
Step 2: Add your first Facebook Group members
The next step you would want to do is to add a couple of people to your group.
Your mom and a couple of your good buds would probably like to support you and be the first members of the group. That will get some new bodies into your Facebook group and get the party started! It’s a good idea to create a welcome post for your new group members as well.
Step 3: Adjust your Facebook Group settings
The next step is to make your group Private.
Why would you want to do that? The primary reason for that is that you would not want to let just anybody into your group without deciding if you want to have them in your group in the first place.
The point of creating your Facebook Group is to find your dream customers. Not everybody is the right fit for your group, and it is necessary that you choose who can get into it. Remember to keep your target audience in mind.
Now your group is private. But it should be left Visible. You might be wondering how a group can be both – Private and Visible – at the same time?
A Visible group means it is searchable and “findable” by people. It is crucial that they will be able to find it through the search bar on Facebook.
And being Private means that not just anyone can join the group without your approval.
From here leave all settings as is and press done.
Congratulations, you have created your group!
Step 4: What settings to choose
Next, go to “Manage Facebook Group” and “Settings”. Now you will choose what basic settings you need.
Then you can choose your group type. For now, we recommend choosing it to be a Social Learning group. It has some awesome extra features. They provide you with opportunities to teach your audience more information. Also, you will engage the group members by letting them interact with that information while they are waiting for some new content that you are going to post.
As for the group description, write it to be as enticing for your future audience as possible.
On the location part, you can choose to set your location if that is of importance for your group. If your target audience is not located in a certain area, you can omit this part. But, if the location is important to you – setting it up helps your group to be more searchable.
For your group tags, think of the keywords your audience is searching for. Include up to five tags related to your group.
You can skip the “App selection” part for your group for now.
Change the colour scheme according to your taste. Think about what colour you would want your group to be associated with.
Step 5: Choosing the right web address
Next on the list, create your group’s web address. Creating a branded subdomain will make the group more searchable. You can also postpone making this decision until you are one hundred percent sold on your group’s name.
If you want to add Badges for your Facebook Group, so that certain members get those pictures next to their names, do so. At this point, the only choice you have to make is whether you want it or not. Later on, more of the Badges will be available.
By default, you will have the “Post topics” setting turned on and it is recommended to leave it as is.
Next, you would want to turn on the “Social Learning Units” setting.
Enabling that will let you collect certain topics in units. Your audience will then better find the necessary information and interact with it.
If you are feeling overwhelmed so far, do not worry. You are almost done!
Step 6: Learn how to handle membership requests
Don’t forget that only admins and moderators should be able to approve new members. That way you will avoid people adding some spammers into the group without you knowing about it.
Why do you need to set up questions for membership requests in your group?
Because then you will be able to pre-screen people that are coming into your group.
How to select the questions you will ask?
First, create questions that will help you learn more about your audience.
Second, to know which content you should create to solve their problems.
Don’t forget to ask them to consent to group rules and regulations. You wouldn’t want people to post inappropriate stuff in your Facebook Group space, right?
Third, get their email to maintain the connection with the target audience you are building. Facebook might decide to delete your group tomorrow. But if that happens, you will still have your audience contacts saved.
Ask your Facebook Group members a question or two about themselves. Make it simple and easy for them.
For membership requests, you would only want to accept applications from real people. Facebook pages may spam and not interact with your Facebook Group content.
Leave the “Pre-approval” setting on.
That way, you will be able to check the incoming group members according to your standards for dream clients profiles. The “Post approvals” setting isn’t necessary though. You may want your group members to create posts without the administrator’s approval.
You might want to ask, how to record all this information you ask your new members?
The answer is GroupDoorman. Otherwise, those answers and the precious emails you collected would be lost the very moment you press Approve or Decline.
You can also change the cover photo for your group. Learn more about the required dimensions for the cover photo here: https://www.facebook.com/help/212144952271305/.
Don’t stress over this step. Pick a photo, a name for now, and get the group going.
Remember that creating a group isn’t enough on its own. You need to customize it and promote it on a regular basis.
Now start developing your Facebook Group – add discussions, polls, photos, and videos.
Good luck and check out other relevant posts from GroupDoorman!
