Facebook Groups can get more engagement that boring old business pages.

More engagement = more potential customers.

If you’re a Facebook user, chances are your either a member of or have been invited to be a member of a Facebook Group.

Groups are communities of Facebook users created to discuss a specific topic – there are literally millions of groups for every topic you can imagine – gaming fans, football fans, movie fans – and then more niche groups such as Mario Kart players, money saving tips, fashion bargains.

What Facebook Groups contain is people all interested in the same thing, and well managed groups have admins that ensure conversations stay on topic and are void of spammy adverts, negative behaviour or foul language.

They can be some of the most popular places within the Facebook app for users, with some users opting to ignore the traditional News Feed page altogether, and solely using Groups.

Creating your Facebook Group

If you are a business owner, consider starting your own Facebook Group.

The trick here is not to just create a clone of your Facebook business page.

You’re going to build a community of people around a specific topic.

Therefore when it comes to naming your Facebook Group, don’t give it the same name as your business.

For example, if you’re small business accountant, don’t call your group Mr T Accountancy, you call it ‘Accounting Tips and Help for Small Businesses’.

You’ll need to invite some people to join and post in the group regularly with some actual tips, but persevere daily and with some encouragement people will soon find your group and start posting their own questions or tips.

This is the start of your accounting community – a group of people all interested in hearing accounting tips with you there to answer as many as possible.

Eventually some of these people are going to need an actual accountant to do some of the work for them and again, you’ll be front of mind thanks to all the useful advice you’ve been dishing out over the previous months.

Groups don’t have to stick to just work chat either, you can ask people’s opinions on certain topics or ask fellow business owners about other subjects but remember why the members are there in the first place.

The other golden rule is to avoid spamming the group with your own ads. That’s a sure fire way to make people leave. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional ad or offer for your services but keep it to around once a month.

Don’t want to build your own group? Join someone else’s.

There are lots of Facebook Groups you can join as yourself or (if the rules allow) as your business page. Once a member, you can offer the same advice, comments or post questions yourself that you need help with.

The same rules around advertising apply. Don’t wade in there posting about the services your business offers – you’ll usually get yourself blocked. What you’re looking for is to be helpful and/or engaging enough within the group that other members proactively come to you about potentially using your services.

This stuff all takes time and don’t expect immediate results within your first week but it’s a viable strategy that can bring you new customers without having to resort to advertising or hard selling.

Get out there, network and be social.

Got a question about starting or running a Facebook Group? Contact us here or send us a message on Twitter or Facebook.