I’ve been pushing Facebook Groups a lot lately, and if you don’t already have one, let me tell you why I like them so much!

Let’s start at the beginning.  If you have a Facebook Business page (the following stuff is what currently is, FB can change it at any time), when you post on it, only between 3-6% of your audience will even see it.  So if you have a 100 likes on Facebook, about 5 of them are seeing your posts.

Things can help raise this number, for example adding a picture to the post, or doing a live video.  Also, you can do things to not make that number worse, like don’t post using an outside source (use FB’s scheduler), and don’t post links to outside pages in your post.  FB doesn’t want you to leave FB!

But more than that, let’s talk about a couple things that will really help.

Let’s start with a sidebar…

Are you sending out a weekly email?  Most people are getting at least 8-10% open rates on emails.  And with a warm list, you should be getting at least 20%.  That’s way better than 4% on FB.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t do both, what I’m saying is that you should absolutely be doing both!

Okay, now to Groups – the whole reason you started reading this article to begin with!

Let me give you the top three reasons to start a Facebook Group –

1. People always want to feel a part of something.  They want to be a part of a community.  Put VIP or Members as part of the name of your group.  Something like that to show that they are a part of something.

2. You get (or more importantly they get) notifications when someone post in the group.  Very few people will see what your business page posts (unless you are paying for ads), but the entire group should be seeing what is posted on the group page.

3. It makes you the guru.  It gives you that celebrity status.  With a group you can post polls, pose questions to the group, do live videos that are exclusive for the group members, do a live Q&A, the possibilities are endless!  Running a group lends you more of that know/like/trust.  It helps you to build relationships with your tribe.

So now you are asking yourself if you even need to have a business page.  YES.  Absolutely YES.  People will still search your business on FB just like they would Google.  You need to have and be actively posting on your business page.  Plus that where you are going to run ads from.  I know it feels like more work, but trust me, it’s worth it!

One more thing, this group should be a closed group.  You don’t want anyone to be able to see what is in it.  You want it to be special.  They can always request to be added.  A closed group not only makes it more special, it gives people a safe space to ask questions and interact.