4 Easy Ways to Grow Your Facebook Group with Your Ideal Clients
Today, we’re sharing 4 simple and easy-to-implement ways for you to grow your group, but before we share the strategies, we want to point out that having the RIGHT people in your group is critical if you’re using your group as part of your marketing strategy. You don’t just want anyone joining your exclusive community, right? You only want people who are interested in your area of expertise and who could become a client at some point. It’s easy to get hung up on the number of members you have but focusing on the quality of your group is the most important thing, so you have a group people who want to return to it every day and some of them will become clients.
One way to get the right people in your group is by screening them before you approve them. In the area in your group of requested members, you can screen people there since it will tell you how many groups they belong to, where they work, etc.
Here are a few tips on how to do this, so you can avoid adding fake or spammy accounts:
- Only approve people who have a profile photo.
- Look at their profile information – do they look legit (or does their profile look suspiciously salesy, spammy or questionable in some way)?
- I don’t recommend approving people who belong to hundreds of groups, and you can see the number of groups someone belongs to (and the names of some of the groups) when they request to join your group. This is up to you, but when people belong to over 100 groups, the chances of them even seeing your content is pretty slim, but it’s totally up to you.
- If your group is only for women, don’t approve men (and vice versa). For example, maybe your group is about menopause, so it doesn’t make sense to let men into the group. It’s your group and your rules, so you get to decide who you let in. You want to protect your members and the integrity of your community.
If you aren’t sure about approving someone to join, you have the option to message them and ask them a question. I’ve done this before where I’m not sure if they are really a health coach, but it seems like they might be but there is something that seems off, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and I’ll message them something like “thanks for requesting to join my Health Coach Biz Support Facebook group – you didn’t answer if you were a health coach, so I wanted to reach out and see where you went to school. Thanks so much.” I’ll give them a couple of days to answer, and if I don’t hear back, I delete the request. They can always request again if they want.
Let’s dive into 4 ways to grow your group with your ideal clients, so you can build a cohesive community that looks to you as the expert.
- Social Media: There are several different ways to use social media to invite people to your group, and you can switch these up each week to have some variety.
When you’re promoting your group, be sure to include who it’s for and what’s in it for them. Do you do monthly or weekly live demos, trainings or something else? Be sure to mention that if you do, to give people an enticing reason to join.
Here are 4 ideas to get you started:
- Use Instagram stories and instruct people to click the link in your bio to join your group or include the link right in your story by using one of the story stickers.
- Use your Instagram BIO – or use linktree for multiple links you want to display, including a link to join your group
- Static image posts – You can do this to invite people to a livestream you’re doing in your group, so there is some urgency to join, so they don’t miss out.
- Reels – This can be done to highlight a topic you are covering in your group and a call to action to join to learn more.
Get creative and test different formats to see what works – have fun with it!
2. Use your follow-up email series. After people opt-in for your free offers, include an invitation to your group in the first email that goes out to your new subscribers. Your new subscriber has just taken a step to learn more from you by signing up for your free resource, so this is a great opportunity for them to connect with you on a deeper level in your group.
3. Email your subscribers when you are going live in your group – either a training or demo on a topic, a live office hours Q and A or a guest. I’ve tested this and here’s what I have found to work best for me: I send an email 3-4 days before I’m doing my live office hours, I send email #2 1-2 hours before I go live, and then a 3rd email right when I’m going live. I know people get busy and have other things going on in their lives, so these reminders have made a big difference in the number of people who show up live. At first, I wondered if it was the time I day I chose, but once I added in the reminder right when I was going live, attendance increased.
4. Put a tab on your website that says “Join my Facebook Group” or “Facebook Group” and link it to your group, so people see it when they go to your site (just make sure your group opens in a new tab, so visitors can quickly get back to your website). This is a great set it and forget it strategy that can be working for you behind the scenes, 24/7, so whenever someone goes to your website to read a blog post or check out something you have to offer, they’ll see you have a group. Maybe they aren’t ready to work with you just yet, but by joining your group, they have the chance to get to know more about you and how you may be able to help them.
There are many ways to grow your Facebook group, and the more you can build a community of people who get to learn from you and connect with you on a regular basis, the easier it will be to turn some of those members into clients.
If you would like more proven strategies that work really well, Grab my FREE CHECKLIST with 10 Free Ways to Build Your Facebook Group, so you have even more options for growing your community.
If you want a step-by-step blueprint for setting up, growing and running a FB group that leads to paying clients, check out my Group Accelerator mini course. I walk you through everything you need to know, including how to set up your group the right way, how to increase engagement, how to grow your email list inside your group, how to get clients, how to not give away too much for free in your group and more. The great news is that it’s 50% off right now. If you have a FB group and you aren’t happy with your results, you need this mini course. I’ve audited dozens of health coach groups, so I have some inside scoop on common mistakes and what to do instead to make sure your group isn’t just a destination for people to hang out, but that it also leads to people enrolling in your programs.
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