If you are part of a Facebook Group, you probably realize how great they can be for connecting with people, sharing ideas, and conversing.
Maybe you are in a group for masterminding with real estate agents or a 90s band fan club. What you may not have considered, however, is creating a group for your target market to generate new business.
Take this group, Moving To Raleigh – Raleigh Life, for example.
This community has over 12,000 members, and many of them are looking to move to Raleigh and trying to get more information. Talk about the perfect group for a real estate agent to be in charge of!
It gives you a platform to promote your services, blogs, events, etc., and allows you to connect with people while making you known as a local expert.
You can also collect people’s email addresses and add them to a monthly newsletter list, further establishing your credibility. I recommend checking out GroupLeads.
Here is another successful group called Living North Phoenix.
This group has over 31,000 members and is very active, with 20+ daily posts. The owner/agent, Blair Ballin, uses this group to establish his local authority by posting real estate market updates, engaging with others, and supporting local businesses. If you want to learn from Blair yourself on how he created such a successful group, check out his book & course here.
If you want to create your own Facebook Group, just follow these simple steps.
A few things you want to ensure you have set up before you start promoting it.
- Create a high-quality Facebook banner for your group (ideally with your logo and the name of your group)
- Put together a clear description of what the group is about, so people know what to expect
- This is an example from Living North Phoenix.
- Create a section for rules
- Create a few posts so your audience has something to engage with
Once the group has been created, I recommend doing a few things to promote it:
- Invite all of your Facebook friends who live in the area
- Post a link to the group on your Facebook wall, asking people to join
- Send an email to your database (make sure it is segmented to the city or area your Facebook group is about) and invite them
- Asking your friends and family members to share it on their Facebook walls
Until your group is big enough, whereas you don’t need to post consistently for there to be activity, I recommend posting at least a few times a week.
Hopefully, that is enough to get you started! While it can take several months (or years) to build up your community, it can generate additional leads & business for you. It can also be a great opportunity to meet new people, support other local businesses, and give back to your community.