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17 Comments

Start a Facebook Group, Before You Spend $ on Facebook Ads

Started

I recently started a facebook group around the topic of "Google Sheets".

Simply named it "I Love Google Sheets"

The simplicity of it meant that it attracted the right kinds of people for my product: a broad set of folks interested in Google Sheets.

And because it's on Facebook a bunch of people joined, that weren't customers, that weren't on my newsletter.

Where did they come from?

Facebook.

Facebook recommended them.

Facebook's algo kicked in, and sent me new members.

I spent $500

I spent $500 on Facebook ads before, on another product, and it was great.

But this was free.

What I did

I started the group.

Seeded the group with people who bought my product and joined my newsletter. only a few at the beginning, then a few weeks later a few hundred.

Then Facebook Stepped Up

Facebook did the heavy lifting. They recommended my group to people like those in the group.

The group is over 2k members now and gaining more all the time.

Next Steps

I can make fb ads for the group to increase the pace. They can get as low as 1 cent or maybe even less per member signup.

Then if I can figure out the conversion rates of those in the group to customers I can see if it's a good price to do ads and get some return on ad spend.

Excited

I'm excited to have discovered this and been able to pull off a few steps towards a wider and bigger audience who are interested in learning more about Google Sheets.

How Do You Do Facebook Groups?

I'd love to find out more about those managing facebook groups for their community or for their product. Recently tried hiring a community manager but I think I'll stick it alone for a bit longer.

  1. 5

    I own a FB group with 250K active members. I built the audience hoping to drive some extra traffic to my website. However it doesn't work as hoped. Reach is very very low.

    If you're doing this for personal branding or selling services, fine. But it doesn't work if you plan to build traffic to your website.

  2. 2

    This is a great idea. I've used facebook ads a bit, but they are expensive, and have not yet found much success.

    Even though I really don't like using facebook, starting a group might be the way to go. Plus, for my niche (languages), I think a lot of prospective members use facebook for joining language groups.

    The downside would be that moderation and content creation would be a time-sink. If I can automate that a bit/make it easier it might be worth it.

    1. 1

      Hi Mags, I wouldn't see the moderation and content creation as time-consuming, but rather as knowing my users as a normal product development cycle :)

      1. 2

        true, it would reap benefits if I put the time in. I'm saying it as I have a Discord group which requires moderation, so this would increase my workload a bit. I find it tricky to block out sections of time to get deeper work done already, so that's what I'm wary of. I'm definitely considering it, considering how active people are on facebook, it's just that I need to be careful of new commitments...

  3. 1

    This is great info. what do you mean "Seeded the group with people who bought my product." How did you do this?

    1. 1

      I emailed everyone and said "I started a FB group called "I Love Google Sheets" it's public and you can join now. here's a link."

  4. 1

    This is interesting, since I have been experimenting with "promoted posts "on FB.
    These are posts to videos or services on my website. I have noticed, that even though the number of likes or shares that I receive on my posts is very high. However the corresponding metric on my webpage is very low.

    For example, I had shared a video (hosted on YT) though there >560 likes on the post, there were just 2-3 views on the video. This I checked via the YT studio.

    I find that odd. So though FB seems to be a good idea for publicity. I have reservations on their conversion ratio (in terms of $$ in sold services)

  5. 1

    Nice sharing.
    What do you mean by "I can make fb ads for the group to increase the pace" ? you buy facebook ads and you pay per fb group signup ? I'm not aware about this kind of fb ads, and I would love to know more about that

  6. 1

    Awesome journey. I am wondering how's your regular group facilitation looks like? What's work & what's not?

    1. 1

      I have done some moderation, meaning if something else is super promotional or doesn't add value, I'll delete it. But first I'll message them and ask to add context or delete it themselves.

  7. 1

    Thats awesome Andrew!

    How would you angle an FB group for our service?

    1. 1

      Who uses link building the most? is it agencies or solo founders or startups? you can name a fb group: "SEO for Startups"
      What does link building provide? better SEO? You can name a group as the effort or emotion: "I Heart SEO". or "I want Better SEO!"

      you can try one, or all of them. start them all as groups and see which one takes off.

      1. 1

        Thanks for the feedback, Andrew!

  8. 1

    Sounds like a good idea, thanks for sharing.

  9. 1

    This sounds like a great suggestion. I've been thinking about creating an "insiders" group for my negotiation newsletter. Can I join yours to see how you run it?

    1. 1

      You can join, I can also say I don't "run" it as one should. I've left it to it's own devices for a while. Struggled to figure out what I should do, tried to hire a manager, decided against it. Still struggling to pay time and attention to it. But it's growing and I post there some youtube videos and projects I do for the course I sell from time to time

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