Written by ContentPowered.com
So, you’ve just put the finishing touches on your Facebook group, and now you’re ready to fill it with people. Your next step is to add a bit of character, promotion, and potentially viral content to help your group reach success. This guide will help you create an engaging Facebook group that will automatically attract members and keep them coming back for more great content.
Optimize the Group Name
Your first item of business in quickly getting people into your Facebook group is taking some time to perfect the name. Even if your group is titled after your company name, it might be wise to add the city and state it’s located in afterwards to offer users a bit of relevance when they read it.
If you have the option to be creative and fun with the group name, take some time to brainstorm before slapping a title on it. Come up with several good ideas, write them down, and edit them to omit typos and grammar mistakes. Look over the list for your best choice, and don’t hesitate to show your close friends and family in an effort to get their opinions. After all, the name will be the first thing that your members notice about your group. It’s your job to make it as inviting/catchy as possible.
It might also help to compare the Facebook group name to other names in the same niche on Facebook. Look for what works for other groups, but don’t directly copy. You don’t want a user confusing you for a competitor!
Encourage Members to Invite Their Friends to the Group
After you’ve perfect the name of your group, it’s time to encourage your existing members to invite their friends and family to the group. It’s likely that they all have friends with similar interests, and this is why this tactic often works. For example, a group focused on weight-lifting tends to attract people that like to weight-lift. It’s likely that they have friends and family that are also interested in weight-lifting, which makes it a great idea to invite them.
Usually, asking just once is enough to get the ball rolling on gaining public attention for your group. Don’t continually nag your group members to invite their friends and family after you’ve already asked once or twice. The truth is that after one request for your members to invite their friends and family members in their networks, your group should begin easily receiving attention if it is interesting enough. The content that you share and use in your Facebook group should be enough by itself to keep your group afloat. You shouldn’t have to rely on continually inviting people to your Facebook group after its initial launch.
If you find that the rate at which new members join dramatically decreases long after your members have sent their invites, it could be time to start focusing on the content that is posted in your group.
Add Content that Has the Potential to Go Viral
Getting people to join your group is one thing, but keeping them there and interested is an entirely different ball game. To keep your members interested and engaged in your group, it’s up to you to post “share-able” content that has the potential to go viral. In order to achieve this, it’s a good idea to keep multiple content creators on hand that are familiar with current internet and social networking trends.
Memes are an exploding trend on Facebook right now, and it’s important that you find out how to tap into that so that your Facebook group benefits. Scroll through your personal news feed and look at posts that have thousands of likes and comments on them. What is it about those posts that have attracted so much attention?
Rather than uploading just any content that you think will go viral, try to keep it in relation to the subject of your group. For example, if your group is designed for the tech crowd, only upload potentially viral content that is related to the tech world. You can easily find great content for your group by searching, “tech memes” or “funny tech pictures.” Remember that this isn’t a bonafide recommendation; this is just an example.
Advertise Lots of Promotions
Nothing gets Facebook users more excited than promotions that offer them potentially free stuff just for being involved with a group. Whether it be a free product or service from your company, or just a mention or cash reward, this is another great tactic for ensuring that your members stick around for the long haul.
If you happen to run a business, consider running a Facebook-only promotion that offers a free product/service from your company in return for a “like” or “share” of a post in your Facebook group. Because it doesn’t take long to simply click a button, the post could likely get massive exposure in a relatively short period of time; which means exposure for your business as well.
If you run a Facebook group that is meant only for fun, a great way to hold promotions is to just host fun contests. For example, a creative group might host a contest for the best drawing of a particular subject. Whoever wins could receive a cash reward or another incentive. People like entering contests and the potential to win prizes; use this to your advantage when trying to get more people to quickly join your Facebook group.
Recognize Why Large Groups are Successful
Lastly, it never hurts to analyze and study what other groups are doing to attract and keep such high volumes of members. One thing that they are likely to have in common is that they offer interesting content in frequent intervals.
Current events are currently big news on social networks. If something significant happens and is covered by the media, it’s likely that you will read about it on Facebook either in the form of a news article or a funny photo post. You can easily replicate these types of posts by keeping up with news in the niche of your Facebook group, and subscribing to many pages that offer interesting posts centering around that same niche. These posts can then be shared with your group, which in turn, provides interesting content for your users.
Additionally, heavily screen the content that you decide to post in your Facebook group. If you develop a pattern of posting uninteresting content, your members will gradually begin to associate you with boring content and eventually either become inactive in the group or leave it altogether. Make sure the content you post in your Facebook group is on par with other popular Facebook groups’/pages’ content. This will help with ensuring that your content will be well-received by your group members.
Overall, keep your members engaged, and give them reasons to come back and check into what your group is doing. If you merely invite people to your Facebook group and never follow up or post content, it’s likely that your community will be dead, and people will often join and then quickly depart from your group. Keep your group interesting and fresh with relevant news and potentially viral content to keep the engagement and interest high.
