Facebook groups are a popular way for people with common interests, goals, or affiliations to connect and share information. However, did you know that you can also use your Facebook group to make money?
Whether you are looking to turn your group into a profitable business or simply earn some extra income to offset the cost of managing your group, there are many ways to monetize your Facebook group.
In this article, I’m sharing six effective ways to turn your Facebook group into a money-making machine. From sponsored posts to digital product sales, you’ll learn how to make the most of your group and start generating revenue. So, if you are ready to monetize your Facebook group, let’s dive in!
Sponsored posts and product reviews are one of the most popular ways to monetize a Facebook group. They are forms of paid advertising where a business or brand pays a content creator to promote their products or services.
In the case of Facebook groups, the content creator is typically the group owner or manager. A sponsored post is a post that explicitly mentions the sponsor and promotes their products or services. This can be in the form of a text post, image, or video.
On the other hand, a product review is a detailed evaluation of a sponsor’s product or service by the content creator. This can include the features, benefits, and drawbacks of the product or service.
In both cases, the sponsor pays the content creator a fee for the promotion, which can be a fixed amount or a commission on sales made through the promotion. Sponsored posts and product reviews can be a lucrative way to monetize a Facebook group and can benefit both the sponsor and the group’s members by providing valuable and relevant content.
To make the most of this monetization idea, it is important to be transparent about your sponsorships and only promote products or services that are relevant and valuable to your group’s members.
With effective sponsored posts and product reviews, you can build a profitable and engaging community that benefits both you and your audience.
Where to Find Sponsors and Products to Review
There are several ways to find sponsors or products to review for your Facebook group. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Reach out to brands or businesses you already know and love, or that your group members know and love. If you know your group members well, you should have a good idea of what will appeal to them. You can contact the company via email or social media to pitch your sponsored post or product review idea.
Ask your members! Find out what products or services your members are curious about and send a pitch to those companies.
Attend industry events or conferences related to your group’s niche to meet and network with potential sponsors or product partners.
Remember to choose sponsors or products that align with your group’s values and interests and provide value to your audience. This will ensure that your sponsored posts and product reviews are well-received and beneficial to both you and your group’s members.
Though sponsors tend to favor large groups for sponsored posts and product reviews, don’t underestimate the power of a highly engaged group with a defined focus. Most advertisers understand exposure to 500 ideal clients in a highly engaged group is going to yield better results than a group of 50,000 with very little activity.
How to Charge for Sponsored Posts or Product Reviews
The amount you should charge for a sponsored post or product review in your Facebook group can vary depending on several factors, including the size of your group, the engagement rate of your audience, the niche you’re in, and the type of content you’re creating.
The group owners I know and work with usually offer packages for sponsored posts or product reviews according to the factors mentioned above. Two posts and a video usually run $300 to $500, and the package rates climb if they include mentions on high-traffic websites or podcasts. For product reviews, you may want to consider charging a higher fee since it involves more time and effort to create detailed evaluations of the product or service.
Some sponsors won’t pay for reviews but will give you an affiliate link that allows you to make a commission on sales that come through your promotion (also known as affiliate marketing). I’ve seen commission ranges between 2% for high-end sewing machines to 50% on software services.
Ultimately, the amount you should charge for a sponsored post or product review should be fair and reasonable based on the value you’re providing to the sponsor and your audience. It’s also a good idea to do some research and see what others in your niche are charging for similar content in similar-size groups to get an idea of the going rates.
Idea #2: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another effective way to monetize a Facebook group. It involves promoting products or services related to your group’s niche and earning a commission on sales made through your referral links.
Affiliate marketing is considered a performance-based marketing strategy because you only get paid when someone makes a purchase. This strategy is appealing because it doesn’t require you to create your own products or services to make money.
To get started with affiliate marketing, you can join affiliate networks such as Amazon Associates, which offers a wide range of products and services to promote. You can also approach individual brands or businesses and ask if they have an affiliate program you can join.
To be successful with affiliate marketing, it’s important to choose products or services that are relevant and valuable to your group’s members, and to promote them in a way that is genuine and not overly salesy. Nothing drops the value of a Facebook Group faster than overwhelming the feed with affiliate promo posts.
How I Use Affiliate Marketing in My Facebook Group
In The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, my free Facebook group, I have a subtle resources page with a variety of affiliate and non-affiliate links for products and services I know and love that are relevant to my community members. For example, we have affiliate links to:
We also have non-affiliate links to other social media schedulers and software tools. It adds value to the group by providing members with a centralized location for my recommendations while providing an additional revenue stream for my business. With the right approach, affiliate marketing can be a lucrative and passive way to generate income from your Facebook group.
The key to successful affiliate marketing is to choose products or services that are relevant and valuable to your audience and to promote them in an authentic and genuine way. You should also be transparent about your use of affiliate links and always disclose that you may earn a commission from any resulting sales. With effective affiliate marketing, you can earn passive income from your Facebook group while providing value to your audience.
Idea #3: Group Membership Fees
Another way to monetize a Facebook group is by offering a membership fee for exclusive content, resources, or perks. This idea is different from using Facebook as the exclusive home of a membership program or the community component of a membership program.
With this monetization idea, you offer a premium experience to your group members that goes beyond the free content and discussions that are available to everyone. The membership fee can be a one-time payment or a recurring subscription, and it can provide access to content such as premium articles, videos, or webinars, as well as personalized support or discounts on related products or services.
The idea here is that everyone can join the group for free but those who pay the fee get access to content free members do not. For instance, the Women Helping Women Entrepreneurs Facebook Group is a free community with 661,000 members. For $97 per month, though, members can get featured and promoted in the group as part of the Stand Out Online upgrade.
This is a great idea if you’ve been considering a paid Facebook Group but don’t want to manage multiple groups. Instead of leading a free group AND a paid group, you have one group with two or more tiers of benefits. You’ll have the added investment of creating the premium content but you won’t have the additional overhead of managing a second community or hiring help to manage the community for you.
To make the most of this monetization idea, it’s important to provide real value to your paying members and to promote the benefits of the membership fee in your group. You need a clear line between what is free and what comes with the fee, and there should be a big enough gap between the two to justify the added investment.
You can also use this opportunity to build a more engaged and dedicated community within your Facebook group. Membership fees can be a reliable and recurring source of income for your Facebook group while providing additional benefits to your most dedicated followers.
Idea #4: Digital Product Sales
If you want to make a business out of your online community, digital products are another popular way to monetize a Facebook group. These can include ebooks, self-study courses, webinars, templates, or any other digital product that is related to your group’s niche or interests.
The advantage of digital products is that they can be created once and sold repeatedly, making them a scalable and semi-passive source of income. This monetization strategy requires some technical skill to deliver. Though you can promote the product(s) in your group, you’ll need a sales page on your website and automation for delivery to make the process as seamless as possible for you and your consumers.
In Team EBG, Lizzy Goddard promotes all of her self-study courses and resource bundles, among other things. In Clutter Free Academy, Kathi promotes all of her decluttering books and ecourses. In the Working Homeschool Mom Club, Jen promotes her printables, planners and ecourses.
How to Promote Digital Products in Your Group
If you already have digital products for sale, promoting them in your Facebook Group can be an effective way to monetize the group without too much effort on your part. Here are some steps you can follow to promote and sell digital products in your Facebook group:
Choose the right product — Make sure the digital product you are promoting is relevant to the purpose of your group and valuable and helpful to your members.
Create a sales page — You need a point of sale beyond the posts in your group. Create a landing page on your website that promotes your product, provides all the relevant information, features, and benefits AND has a BUY button so people can make the purchase.
Create a promotional plan — Too much promo in a group wears members down quickly. Develop a promotional plan for your group to space out product promotions between periods of value-focused content. Use a calendar to ensure you’re selling often enough throughout the year to meet your goals while still having space to nurture members through non-sales content as well.
By following these steps, you can effectively promote and sell your digital products in your Facebook group, which can help you monetize your group and provide value to your audience.
To make the most of this monetization idea, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of only promoting digital products that are relevant to the purpose and needs of your group. With effective digital product sales, you can turn your Facebook group into a profitable and sustainable business that provides value to your audience.
Idea #5: Services
Promoting your services in your Facebook group can be a lucrative way to monetize your group while providing value to your audience. Services can include coaching, consulting, or freelancing. The advantage of promoting services is that you can leverage your expertise and knowledge to help your group members achieve their goals or overcome their challenges.
For most business owners, services are their highest-price offer, which is why I consider this to be the most lucrative option when it comes to monetizing your group.
To promote your services in your Facebook group, you can share your expertise and insights through valuable and relevant content, such as articles, videos, or webinars. You can also offer limited-time discounts or promotions to your group members to encourage them to work with you. It’s important to be transparent and clear about your pricing and availability and to provide excellent customer service and follow-up to ensure the satisfaction of your clients. With effective promotion and delivery of your services, you can turn your Facebook group into a profitable and rewarding business that helps you build a loyal and engaged community.
Promoting Your Services Without Being ‘Salesy’ or Weird
Promoting your services in your Facebook group can be a delicate balancing act between providing value to your audience and not coming across as what my friend Molly Mahoney calls a “salesy weirdo”. Here are some tips to promote your services in your Facebook group without being pushy or annoying:
Provide value — Focus on providing value and building trust with your group members by sharing useful and relevant content, such as articles, videos, or webinars that are related to your niche or area of expertise. This can help position you as an authority and someone who genuinely wants to help others. In The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, for instance, I host weekly live workshops but I usually only make offers during those workshops once a month.
Be authentic — Be yourself and show your personality and passion for what you do. This can help you connect with your audience on a deeper level and build relationships that can lead to future business. GroupTrack CRM co-founder Jenna Larson hosts a weekly product tutorial in their free group each week and usually promotes services monthly to help members get more from their product.
Tell stories — Use storytelling to convey the benefits of your services and how you’ve helped others achieve their goals or overcome their challenges. The best sales come from case studies, where you take the time to help people understand the practical application of the services you provide.
Provide social proof — Share testimonials or case studies from satisfied clients to provide social proof and demonstrate the value of your services. Do this regularly, not just when you’re trying to sell.
Avoid being pushy — Avoid constantly promoting your services or asking for business in your group. Instead, focus on building relationships and providing value 80% of the time. Don’t sell more than 20% of the time.
By following these tips, you can effectively promote your services in your Facebook group without coming across as salesy or weird, while making your group a profitable and rewarding business.
Idea #6: Merchandise
If you have a group with a strong culture or sense of community identity, selling merchandise might be a fun way to monetize your Facebook group.
Selling merchandise can be a lucrative way to monetize your group as it allows you to leverage your brand and community to promote your products. Though some group leaders like to send free swag, you’d be surprised by how many members would pay for t-shirts, mugs, or stickers that identify them as a member of your community.
The best example I’ve seen of this is Jen Hatmaker’s #The4500, which wasn’t even started by Jen. #The4500 references the 4,500 applicants who were not picked by Jen’s publisher to be on the official launch team of her book, For the Love. One person took matters into her own hands and ended up being the leader of the rogue launch team and is now forever BFFs with Jen as well. Today, Jen’s branded merch includes everything from socks and shirts to journals and stickers.
Though you can create an online store on your website using a service like Shopify to sell your merchandise, companies like CustomInk and Bonfire allow you create limited-edition campaigns that drive up interest without requiring long-term maintenance or oversight.
To make the most of this monetization idea, it’s important to create high-quality products that are relevant and appealing to your group’s members. You can also use this opportunity to build a deeper connection with your community by creating products that resonate with their values and interests. With effective merchandise sales, you can turn your Facebook group into a profitable and sustainable business that showcases your brand and provides value to your audience.
Quick Summary of Facebook Group Monetization Ideas
To recap, here are six monetization ideas for your Facebook Group:
Sponsored Posts and Product Reviews — Businesses pay you to promote their products or services in your Facebook group.
Affiliate Marketing — Promote relevant products or services and earn a commission on any resulting sales made through your unique referral link.
Group Membership Fees — Charge a membership fee for exclusive content, resources, or perks in your Facebook group.
Digital Product Sales — Create and sell digital products such as ebooks, courses, webinars, or templates related to your group’s niche.
Services — Promote your services, such as coaching, consulting, or freelancing, to your Facebook group members.
Merchandise — Sell physical products such as t-shirts, mugs, or stickers that are related to your group’s niche or interests.
By using one or more of these monetization ideas, you can turn your Facebook group into a profitable and sustainable business that provides value to your audience. Monetizing your Facebook Group doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. The key is to choose monetization ideas that align with your group’s niche and interests and provide real value to your members while maintaining transparency and authenticity in your promotions.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Wondering whether you’re doing your best to post engaging content for your Facebook Group? Unsure of whether anybody sees or cares to see your posts?
If you want an engaged community or Facebook Group, you have to give members something engaging to respond to — so they can have direct two-way conversations with you and with each other.
But to do that, you need a plan. Not just any plan either. You need one that meets the needs of you and your group. You deserve to feel good about what you are doing and confident you’re doing the right things at the right time.
As the owner of Team Kubo, an online community management agency, I help people design highly engaged groups and train others to do the same. It also means I plan A LOT of content for A LOT of groups. If I seem better at it than you, it’s not because they taught this stuff in college. It’s because I’ve done more of it for a lot longer than you have. With practice, comes progress.
In this article, I’m sharing what I’ve learned over the years about how to plan content for groups to drive engagement and get results.
How to Plan Engaging Content for Your Facebook Group
If you want to plan content in a way that’s efficient and effective, you need a foolproof system that includes the following steps:
1. Get a mechanism to collect your ideas
Ideas of what to share with your community can strike any place and any time. Figure out how to collect ideas when they come now so you don’t find yourself with a great idea and no way to remember it when it’s time to write. The easiest low-tech solution is to carry a notepad and pen in your purse or pocket to jot down ideas that come up when you’re on the go. If you’re someone who’s never too far from your phone, though, a voice memo or notes app might be more convenient.
2. Pick one method for writing your posts
Routines support consistency, so pick one method for writing your posts and stick with it. I prefer a Google Doc because it’s easy for me to use either from my computer, phone or tablet, and I like the document interface. If Google Docs don’t work for you, you can use Word Online, Dropbox Paper or a note-taking app like Evernote.
What’s important is not losing track of your best ideas.
3. Commit to a scheduling system for your content
Community engagement comes down to value. To make sure you’re delivering the value you’ve promised to your group members, I recommend planning your content schedule in a place where you can evaluate each post in the context of what else you’re publishing that week, month and over the quarter. A social media scheduler sort of does that, but doesn’t make it easy to move posts around as needed.
I prefer to sketch out my content schedule (what I’m posting and when I’m posting it) in a Google doc that makes it easy to copy and paste into the group. You might prefer using a spreadsheet or productivity application, such as Airtable, Notion, Asana or Trello. Whatever tool plays nicely with your brain and is easy for you to use consistently is the tool you should use.
4. Know what you want to say and what your community needs to hear
Once you have mechanisms in place to collect your ideas, write out your posts and plan them out, it’s time to figure out what you actually should say to your community.
To truly grow your group and get results, you need to share content that connects with your members. Even members who only visit the group a few times a month will notice if the content doesn’t align with what they expect from the community.
If you aren’t sure what to post, here are some ideas:
Revisit your group’s purpose and promise — everything you post should complement the reason your group exists and what you’ve promised to deliver to your members.
Review members’ most frequently asked questions — even the simplest questions can be answered in a variety of ways, and it doesn’t hurt to reinforce your key messages.
Examine all facets of your group focus — brainstorm the “who, what, when, where, how” questions about your topic.
How to Create Content That Connects with Your Members
Every group is different. The secret to planning engaging content for your group isn’t figuring out what works in other groups. You need to only concern yourself with the content that performs best in YOUR group.
To figure that out, experiment. In every group I lead, we are always testing content to figure out what connects and resonates with members. We test, test and test again.
If you’re not sure where to begin, start with content that lends itself to facilitating connection between strangers online:
Polls — Polls work well to drive engagement in groups because they are easy to answer. Most polls are multiple-choice questions. It’s easy to click the response that fits best.
Video — Even one-way livestream broadcasts feel engaging to members. If your video offers the solution to a problem members want to solve, they’ll show up for it.
Questions that encourage connection — Meet-and-greet posts, icebreaker questions, invitations to promote offers or post needs are all examples of questions that encourage members to connect with each other.
Scheduling content in communities or social media can be controversial. Some experts say scheduling reduces your reach, which will negatively impact engagement. Others say scheduling is the only way to ensure consistency.
For what it’s worth, I’ve never experienced negative effects of scheduling content in the communities I lead. I also haven’t seen evidence of decreased reach or engagement when scheduling to any social media platforms.
Rumors aside, scheduling content in your Facebook Group or online community has its pros and cons — like most things in business.
Arguments in favor of scheduling group content
Scheduling content allows you to ensure consistency in providing valuable content to your group. You won’t neglect your group for days, weeks or months if you’re scheduling content regularly.
Posting on the fly, or when the mood strikes, doesn’t usually lend itself to making sure you’re covering the full scope of what your members need. Groups do best when they have content covering education, networking, entertainment, and available offers (if applicable). But when you’re posting when the mood strikes you, you’ll likely default to the one or two content types you personally prefer.
Practically speaking, the best reason to schedule your community content is so you can work ahead. If you have a few weeks of content scheduled, you can take time off or hyper-focus your attention in a different aspect of your business as needed.
Arguments against scheduling your group content
Depending on the focus of your community, you might need to pay attention to the relevance and timeliness of your content. Make sure to review scheduled posts to decide whether they are still appropriate based on current events and member priorities.
No system is perfect. Every automation fails from time to time. Scheduling content isn’t a perfect “fix it and forget it” system for ensuring the proper care and feeding of your group. You have to monitor the group regularly to make sure the posts are published according to the schedule you’ve set.
The main reason people shy away from scheduling content in groups is concern over how to manage the schedule during conflict or crisis. The only solution is to have a documented process for pausing the schedule or pulling down all scheduled posts when crisis or conflict demands it.
How to Tell What’s Working with Your Content Plan (and What’s Not)
Group leaders and even professional community managers rely on their instincts too often to gauge whether group members are responding positively to the content they publish.
“The group seems healthy,” they’ll say. Or, “ugh…it’s all crickets. I’m just talking to myself.”
Either could be true in any group at any time but there’s only one way to know for sure: dig into your data.
I’ve long said successful online community management is equal parts art and science. This is true.
The key part of that statement is one that sometimes gets lost: EQUAL.
What do the numbers tell you?
The art or instinctive side of online community management must be informed by data. They are two sides of the same coin when it comes to giving your community what it needs to yield the results you — or your business — needs in return.
Feelings are not facts.
No matter what your feelings tell you about your group or your member engagement, you need to look at your numbers regularly. Don’t be afraid to look at your numbers, and look at them often. Monthly best.
Data is neutral. It’s neither good nor bad. And it empowers you to make evidence-based decisions.
Here are the data points I track in the groups I manage each month:
Growth — number of members gained and lost
Engagement rate — number of active members divided by total number of members in the group.
Most engaged members — The members who react to posts, comment and create their own posts each month.
Most popular posts — The posts that get the most engagement each month.
I document these data points and look for trends to emerge quarterly. Doing so helps me to see what’s working and what’s not. I also look to see if I can connect any shifts in the data to things we’re doing from the management side.
Putting Together Your Own Engaging Content Plan
A plan for engaging content in your Facebook Group or online community isn’t hard to create, now that you know the steps required.
Whether you use a notepad and pen or phone app to collect thoughts and ideas while you’re on the go, it doesn’t matter. The best plans start with a dedicated method for getting your ideas in a single place. Having all of your ideas in a single location makes it easier to focus on what you want to say when it comes time to create your content. You can use any writing system that works for you, but don’t underestimate the powerful simplicity of a simple Google or Word document.
Once you know how you’ll get your writing and content creation done consistently, it’s a matter of figuring out what to say, the best way to say it (video, polls, etc.) and when you’ll be posting.
From there, you’ll want to be sure to gather and evaluate your data monthly and quarterly. Then you can be confident you know what’s working and what’s not.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Have you considered starting an online community but aren’t sure if you have the stamina to keep it going? A pop-up Facebook Group is a way to test how it feels to design, develop and manage an online community without the pressure of a long-term commitment.
A pop-up Facebook Group is a temporary group created for a specific purpose or event. The group is usually closed after the event or purpose ends. The group allows people to communicate and share information about the event or topic, and is typically accessible on an invitation-only basis.
Most pop-up groups are open for fewer than 90 days, though some might last longer. You’ve likely participated in pop-up Facebook groups offered in conjunction with an online challenge, product or book launch, or a short-term course or program. If you think for a moment, you’ve probably enjoyed some experiences with pop-up groups more than others.
Wonder why?
In this article, we will explore the benefits and potential drawbacks of using pop-up Facebook groups in your business, and how to effectively navigate and participate in these dynamic communities.
Benefits and Challenges of Pop-Up Facebook Groups
For any community to capture attention, it needs to immediately make a difference in people’s lives. For most people, that means saving time, money or energy, or by providing a sense of belonging to prove they are not all alone in this big, wide world.
Groups that do best have a specific focus and clearly identify who they are designed to serve. This is where pop-up groups excel. But like a duck calmly floating across a pond, there is a flurry of activity required under the surface to make any community thrive. And in the case of a pop-up Facebook Group, which is temporary by design, that flurry of activity has to happen quickly with little room for error.
Pop-up Facebook groups feel like a double-edged sword. Everything you expect to be great about them usually holds true. You also find that each benefit has a shadow side that can take you by surprise.
Benefits
The benefit of pop-up groups is they are focused and temporary. You can do anything for a short period of time, right? By designing a group to be temporary, you free yourself from the worries of long-term maintenance, engagement and member retention.
You have the freedom of making in-the-moment decisions because you don’t have to worry much about living with the long-term consequences of those decisions or feeling like you’re setting a precedent for the future.
The temporary nature of a pop-up group also allows you to narrowly focus your content and topics discussed. Rather than scratching the surface of general conversations, you can choose to have a group that goes deep into a specific facet of a big topic or issue.
In addition to using them for challenges and student support, pop-up Facebook groups are great for helping you gauge interest in a topic or offer you think will resonate with your audience. We’ve all made the mistake of building pretty castles nobody else wants to live in (i.e. creating complete offers nobody buys). A pop-up group allows you to validate a concept, so you know whether it makes sense to invest in creating an offer around it.
Challenges
The benefits of hosting pop-up Facebook groups are also challenges. Because they are focused and temporary, pop-up groups are intense to manage.
These groups usually experience explosive, rapid growth as members invite their friends and family to join before the group closes or is paused.
Onboarding members is an intense experience because you are letting several — sometimes hundreds — of people into the group each day. If you don’t have screening measures in place, you might unknowingly accept requests from fake accounts or individuals with a desire to troll or spam members.
Not cool for the members who are in the group for the right reasons and not fun for you as the person who now has the added responsibility of removing bad actors and repairing the damage they’ve done to the community and its culture.
The temporary nature of pop-up Facebook groups means you don’t have the luxury of a gentle onboarding process to ease members into the community.
If your group is only going to be open for a few weeks, you have about four days to ensure everyone is properly oriented to the group and that the members start to gel with one another toward the shared purpose or goal of the group.
A pop-up group is like speed dating, amplified.
If you don’t make the time to onboard your members thoughtfully and quickly, you run the risk of members tapping out before the group even gets off the ground. This is the main cause I see of pop-up groups with poor engagement.
Organization of content is another challenge. When you’re building a permanent or evergreen Facebook Group, you have time to figure things out as you go. If the initial way you organize your group content doesn’t work, you can rearrange it according to member needs until you get it right.
With a pop-up group, the content needs to immediately make sense to members and you have to support their orientation experience quickly so you don’t lose them before they have a chance to see the value in the group.
The biggest challenge, though, with pop-up Facebook groups is your own capacity of time and energy. It is your job to actively moderate the group, or ensure it is being actively managed by someone else. You have to set clear guidelines, care for your group members and promote engagement to have a successful pop-up group.
No matter how you choose to fulfill your obligations as the leader of a pop-up Facebook Group, energy management is important.
How to Manage Your Energy When Hosting a Pop-Up Facebook Group
Whether you’re managing a pop-up Facebook Group for yourself or for someone else, energy will be your most precious limited resource. No matter who you are or how you live, you don’t have more than 24 hours in any given day. And you have to reserve some of those hours for meeting your own basic needs of sleeping, eating and day-to-day living. Th
If you want your pop-up Facebook Group to thrive, here is what you have to do:
Embrace the mindset of a sprinter. It takes a lot of time and energy to make a community out of strangers from various time zones, cultures and backgrounds. Evergreen communities eventually sustain themselves after a few months. But pop-up groups require your full attention from the time they open until they close. Plan a one- to two-week period of rest after your group closes to recharge your batteries.
Create a solid structure for your group. To feel safe participating, your members need to clearly understand your group’s rules of engagement. Make them clear in your group description, community standards and how you facilitate conversations.
Onboard your members with intention. First impressions matter more online than they do in face-to-face situations because you don’t have the context of facial expressions, gestures, or vocal tone to convey your meaning. Show members they matter from the moment they enter your group by warmly welcoming them and inviting their participation. Video is a great way to accomplish this by showing members your personality in real time, but it’s not a requirement
Get people talking to each other. Carrying the burden of conversation is exhausting. Lighten the load by tagging folks in comments to meet each other and invite them to share their thoughts and experiences to foster richer discussions.
Have a sunset plan. Sudden stops are jarring, even in communities designed to only last for a short period of time. Plan a cooldown period for your pop-up group, where you tie up loose ends and let members know how to stay in touch if they’d like to continue the conversation when the group closes.
Get help. If all of this sounds overwhelming to you, consider hiring a professional to manage your pop-up community. You can negotiate a scope of work that allows for the proper care and feeding of your community while giving you the opportunity to focus your own efforts on the aspects of the project that you find most enjoyable.
At the risk of sounding trite, the lasting impression of you and your pop-up Facebook Group won’t be in your dazzling graphics or polished branding. It’ll be in how you made members feel. Take the time to make people feel known and loved, and they’ll return the favor with grace and loyalty.
Resources to Support a Successful Pop-Up Facebook Group
If you want to go a step further in caring for your community members during a temporary or pop-up group, check out these resources:
Creating a Facebook Group and setting one up that positions you – and your members – for success are two different things. Use this checklist to think through every step required to start and sustain a successful online community, even if it’s only going to be open temporarily.
Want to inject your personality into your online conversations, no matter where they take place? This video shows you how to create GIFs, so group members can see and feel the intent behind your comments and responses.
Responding to emails and answering questions in groups involves a lot of typing, much of which feels repetitive. TextExpander saves hours of time by allowing you create templates activated by a few simple keystrokes. This is also a great tool for anyone who struggles with pain associated with repetitive stress injuries
Feel like your group doesn’t have much engagement? An Australian researcher has spent years studying Facebook groups and found there are six types of healthy group members, not all of whom actively post even when they find the groups to be highly valuable. Learn the types and how they contribute to healthy groups here. Rather than beat yourself up over who isn’t part of the conversation, accept the reality that some of your audience is choosing to be invisible.
Want to learn the ins and outs of running successful pop-up groups that actually have value and won’t suck you dry? Check out Eli Trier’s Community Magic program. Eli is a heart-centered business owner who understands the art and science behind connecting on a human-to-human level. She’s the antithesis of the dude-bro marketer. Her programs are friendly and accessible to neurodiverse individuals, and she encourages participants to do business in a way that respects their boundaries and capacity limits.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
In the world of online business, social media marketing has become synonymous with “pay to play” tactics. But even now, in 2023, you CAN successfully grow your online community (and business) through organic means on Facebook™️ and other channels. For realz. Every visible Facebook™️ Group has three prime pieces of real estate — I call them “billboards” — that, when leveraged appropriately, will provide Facebook™️ the information it needs to promote your group. Those billboards are your group description, your group name and your cover image. I see these group features as “billboards” because anyone on Facebook™️ can view them. They even show up in Google search results! And since we both know that social media is rented land, we have to do our part as responsible business owners and community managers to make the most of our rental properties on Facebook™️. In this post, I’m going to cover everything you need to know to leverage your group billboards to help Facebook™️ advertise your group for free. By the end, you’ll know more than most community managers about increasing the organic growth of your group. Let’s get started.
Understand the Power of Your Group’s About Section
Also known as your group’s description, the About section of your group is critical in helping potential members understand the purpose and promise of your group. When I work on community strategy with a client, this is the first area I evaluate. Working on your group description is an easy way to figure out if there is anything out of sync between your community, your brand, and your business.
Four Things Every Facebook™️ Group Description Should Accomplish
1. Clearly state the topic of the group
By explicitly stating the topic of your group in the About section, you’re increasing the chances of it showing up to the right people searching keywords on Facebook™️, Google or other search engines. A clearly defined group purpose also minimizes the chances of the wrong people joining your group by mistake.
2. Define who the group is designed to serve best
Every online community should be designed and developed around an ideal group member. Whether you are targeting parents, coaches, consultants, business owners, or people living in a specific location or with a specific health condition, making that clear in your group description helps Facebook™️ decide who should know about your community. The platform’s algorithm will promote it to users accordingly.
3. Tell prospective members what they can expect when joining the group
Few people wake up at 2 a.m. thinking they need another Facebook™️ Group in their life. Telling them what to expect in your group can make the difference between who clicks to join and who doesn’t.
4. Provide a way to find out more information or contact you OFF of Facebook™️
Not everyone wants to join a new Facebook™️ Group. Sometimes, they just want more information or to connect with you in a different way. It’s important for your group description to provide an alternative way — off of Facebook™️ — for users to experience your work. This is as easy as offering an email address, sharing a link to a free resource or lead magnet, or sending them to your website or podcast.
Does Length Matter?
As a former journalist, I recommend a group description that says what you need it to say in as few words as required to say it. My private Facebook™️ Group, The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, has a 74-word group description. Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy, a group I started for a client in 2016, uses 255 words in its description. In both cases, every word is needed. In my group, people need to know that our community is for both professional community managers AND people looking for support and best practices in managing their own groups. It doesn’t take many words to explain that. In Clutter Free Academy, overwhelmed people need to know there are various free and paid resources available to them depending on how fast they want to declutter. Making sure members know Kathi is a published author and active podcaster helps to establish her as a decluttering expert. Because cluttery types get overwhelmed easily, we also want them to know the group focuses on one specific method of decluttering. Not only is the group NOT the place to talk about the latest decluttering trend on TikTok, it’s also a safe haven for those who want to escape decision fatigue and receive focused resources. It’s not easy to distill all that information in a couple of sentences.
Evaluate Your Group Name
At its most basic level, a Facebook™️ Group name needs to tell people who the group is for and what it’s about. This is a place where it’s better to be clear than clever. Sheila’s Stupendous Sewers might sound cute to you, especially if you love alliteration, but it can also be confusing. Are we talking about a group for people who sew or to showcase amazing conduits for wastewater? My opinion of your group name isn’t nearly as relevant as the reaction of your ideal member. Ask yourself whether your name is one that will attract the right people to your group or not:
Is it a name people are going to want to associate with themselves?
How will they feel about others knowing they are in a group with that name?
Will they feel uncomfortable if their kids see the group pop up on their phone?
In my experience, people tend to be more attracted to aspirational group names that paint a picture of their desired future state or outcome instead of ones that focus on the problem they are trying to solve. This is why the full name of my Facebook™️ Group is The Secret to Thriving Online Communities: Grow Your Groups; Get Results and not Kill the Crickets. Kill the Crickets would make for a cool band name, though. Sure, most people who join our group do so because they want more engagement in their communities and they’ll usually describe their group engagement using the word “crickets” to indicate a lack of posts or comments by members. But they don’t usually want to kill or cull their lurking members; they want to draw them out of their shells and get them to actively participate in the community. Group name comparisons to consider (real and fictitious):
Facebook™️ doesn’t place a lot of limitations on group names so long as they don’t violate the platform’s terms and conditions. Though you aren’t married to your group name and can tweak it as needed over time, you can’t change the group’s name more than once every 28 days. All members receive a notification when a group name changes, which naturally boosts your engagement by reminding them your group exists.
Create a Scroll-Stopping Cover Image
Saving the best for last here… it’s time to talk about your group cover image. Realistically, your cover image is what stops a user from scrolling through Facebook™️ mindlessly and investigating your group further. But you can’t create an effective cover image without first deciding on your group description and name. And that is why, when I work with community strategy clients, we focus on their cover images last. Personally and professionally, I like cover images that are engaging and evoke the emotion conveyed by the group name and description. If a group offers simple solutions, I want to see a minimalistic design. If the group says it’s high-energy, I want to see that energy in the design of the image as well.
Which Elements Should a Facebook™️ Group Cover Image Contain?
Name of the Group
Considering that the prime function of a Facebook™️ Group Cover Image is to catch a user’s eye and stop them from scrolling so they will tap or click to find out more information, your group name should always be part of your cover image.
Picture of the Group Owner
People connect with other people (i.e. real, live humans) faster and more deeply than brands or logos. Instead of making your logo or corporate seal the focal point of this prime piece of real estate, highlight a picture of you, your team or your community. This is critical for founder-forward brands (e.g. Team EGB’s Party Pad or Working Homeschool Mom Club) and negotiable for customer support communities (e.g. GroupTrackCRM or Canva Design Circle).
Group Value Proposition
Putting your value proposition, or the purpose and promise of your community, on the cover image allows a Facebook™️ scroller to instantly know whether they should investigate your group further. Is your group the “best place for entrepreneurs to learn about creating courses” or is it for “empowering women to regain control of their health”? Whatever you promise to deliver should be part of your cover image. By the way, those phrases can be found in the cover image of the Online Coaches and Course Creators Community and Courology Fitness groups.
Additional Tips for Creating an Effective Cover Image
Depending on the group and its content, other elements can add value to the cover image of your Facebook™️ Group. The cover image for The Secret to Thriving Online Communities showcases our most engaged members and the schedule of live workshops for the month. Some group cover images will list the company’s website or promote a free resource or subscriber link. You might also want to use the cover image to promote a sale or special. The important thing is to think about the purpose of your cover image in capturing someone’s attention and helping them to understand what your group is about.
Using Canva to Design Your Cover Image
These days, many people will design their cover images in Canva or similar web-based design app. Applications like Canva are great at helping non-designers, myself included, create professional-looking images. Unfortunately, these web-based design applications can make users lazy as well. Canva is known for its robust library of design presets and “Magic Resize” tool, which allows you to resize an image for a variety of purposes with just a few clicks. The problem is that the presets are rarely accurate, especially with Facebook™️ Group cover images and event cover images. It’s not Canva’s fault — Facebook™️ frequently changes how it displays cover images based on a user’s device and operating system. In some cases, your Facebook™️ cover image will be cropped tightly from the sides into a square. In other cases, a big chunk is cropped from the top and bottom to make a very horizontal image. I always defer to Hootsuite’s image-size guide for the latest measurements. I like how Hootsuite specifies minimum vs. optimal vs. display sizes for just about every social media platform imaginable. I’ll typically use the measurements from Hootsuite’s guide as a starting point and then I try to concentrate as much of the action of the image to the center so that even if it’s cut off at the ends, it won’t look too terrible. Alternatively, you can buy Canva templates from a designer who stays current with changes to image sizes. Finally, when I replace the image, I spend time positioning it so that words or elements aren’t awkwardly cropped. It’s not a perfect science, and I don’t always get it right but I make the effort and I think you should, too.
Caption Your Cover Image
Given how long I’ve been managing online communities, nothing should surprise me. But I am always shocked when I click on a Facebook™️ Group cover image and find…nothing. Not including a caption or image description with your group cover image presents both an accessibility issue and a missed opportunity to further your relationship with the person who clicks on the image. As of right now, there is no way to search the text included in an image and screen readers only pick up the alt text embedded in the image, which many of us either forget to do or don’t understand how to do correctly. By adding a description to your cover image, you are allowing the text to come up in search, be picked up by assistive technology software AND you have another highly visible place where you can include an important link or two.
Follow These Tips to Increase Your Group Engagement
One of the biggest challenges every group owner and community manager faces is getting group members to see the content you post. When someone joins your Facebook™️ Group, their notifications are set to “highlights only” by default. This means they only see about 15% of the content posted in the group and because out of sight is out of mind, they often don’t even remember they joined your group in the first place. Facebook™️ sends a notification to every group member when the name, cover image or description is changed. Though I don’t recommend abusing it, replacing the cover image regularly and updating the name and description as needed are great ways to remind folks your group exists. If member participation is a challenge in your group, check out this article for recommendations on posts that drive engagement.
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Are you looking to increase interaction in your Facebook™️ Group? This article offers 30 posts designed to increase engagement in your group WITHOUT useless clickbait tactics. No posts about brussels sprouts or cilantro— promise!
Whether you have a free group or a paid group, the fun of being a community leader is in the conversations that take place. But you can’t lead if nobody is following. And if you’re the only one posting or commenting in your group, it’s like trying to play catch all by yourself.
The very definition of a community is connection. Connection between members and their leader (you). Connection between members and the content (what you talk about). And connection between members and EACH OTHER. Yeah, we’re yelling … because member-to-member connection is most important.
The Difference Between Engagement and Connection
When it comes to Facebook™️ groups and online communities, you hear a lot of talk about engagement: engagement strategies, engagement posts, engagement rates, engagement tactics … argh! You get the idea.
Tracking, measuring, and analyzing engagement is important. When our online community management agency, Team Kubo, works with clients on strategy or management, we collect and report engagement data each month. But engagement rate reports don’t tell the whole story in a Facebook™️ Group.
Your group engagement rate is the measurement of active group members divided by the number of total group members. If you have a group with 1,000 members, 300 of whom are active each month, your group engagement rate is 30 percent.
Experts talk a lot about engagement rate because it’s a concrete metric that you can track over time, but not all engagement is good engagement. An engagement spike might come as a result of several new members joining your group in a single day, or it might come as a result of conflict in your group. Because data is neutral, it can’t tell the difference between what’s good and what’s bad. It only measures what is.
Connection, on the other hand, is always positive. Connection is what makes communities thrive. Where engagement is all about action, connection is a combination of thoughts, feelings, experiences, and actions. It’s nuanced, which is why it’s harder to track and measure.
It’s worth figuring out how to measure connection in your group, so you can track it over time. An easy way to measure connection is by surveying your members. Depending on the focus of your group, asking questions about how many friends they’ve made in the group or how many group members they consider to be offline friends might help you to tell how connected members feel to each other.
30 Engagement Post Ideas to Increase Interaction in Your Facebook™️ Group
Now you know connection means more than engagement for engagement’s sake. So what can you do to increase connection among members while also keeping those engagement rates in the ideal range of 40 percent or higher?
We’ve gathered 30 Facebook™️ Group engagement post ideas designed to increase connection among your members while also driving action that can be tracked, measured, and analyzed.
The posts are organized into five major categories known to drive engagement and interaction in online communities:
With six posts in each category, you can mix and match them to suit your industry or niche, and the unique needs of your group. They are general enough to apply to your group’s focus while being specific enough to trigger action among your members. As with any post template or prompt, keep in mind that these are guidelines, not laws. You know your community best. Tweak these post ideas to fit your group, its purpose, and your members.
Category 1: Conversation Starters
The easiest type of engagement post in a Facebook™️ Group is the conversation starter. Like the name implies, the purpose of this type of post is to get members talking — talking to each other and talking to you.
When thinking up conversation starters, it’s important to keep in mind that the intention here is for members to participate in the conversation by leaving a comment. Open-ended questions foster higher quality conversations compared to yes-or-no questions, but they also take more time and energy to answer. You might find fewer responses to some of your questions if they are deeper, but that’s not a bad thing if the comments you do get come from your ideal members or provide valuable perspective.
As the community leader, your job is to facilitate the conversation happening in the comments by responding to them in a meaningful way. You can leave the conversation at the surface level or bring it deeper with those participating. It’s all up to you.
Reliable conversation starters to get members talking
1. What are you working on this week?
2. What are you reading?
3. What’s for dinner tonight/this week?
4. What podcasts are your favorites?
5. Show us a picture of the best part of your day.
6. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received about [group topic]?
Category 2: Polls
Polls are a great way to drive up engagement numbers because the barrier to participation is low. All members have to do is click or tap the option they like best. Some will comment, but most will vote on the poll and keep scrolling.
You can make group polls as serious or lighthearted as you wish. You can create fun question games for your Facebook™️ groups, conduct market research, or use polls to help members get to know each other better.
Facebook™️’s polling feature makes creating polls in your groups easy. You don’t need to pick a photo or create a graphic.
Create a poll in your Facebook™️ in 4 easy steps
1. Select the “Poll” content type when you create your post.
2. Choose your response options.
3. Customize your settings to indicate whether you want to allow respondents to select multiple options or add their own.
4. Click “Post” and you’re all set.
By the way, you don’t have to stick to boring ol’ text polls. Facebook™️ lets you spice things up and stop mindless scrolling in its tracks by adding images and GIFs to your polls. Use these options to get creative, show off your brand personality, and encourage engagement.
Poll ideas to engage members of your groups
1. Where do you spend time online?
2. What is your favorite way to consume online content?
3. A great morning starts with ________________.
4. Do you regret your decision to [insert topic]?
5. How did you discover this group?
6. What do you love/like most about [insert topic]?
Oh, and a word of warning… The success of Facebook™️ polls depends entirely on two things: 1) asking the right questions and 2) not overwhelming members with too many answer options. Your questions should be specific enough to be easy for members to understand and answer quickly. More than five answer options will reduce your response rate. Choose both your questions and answers wisely.
Category 3: Icebreakers
Icebreakers aren’t for everyone. At a live, in-person event, icebreaker time is when you see me running to the restroom or out to the parking lot to retrieve something I fake forgot in my car.
Small talk, surface-level conversation, and trading elevator pitches grate on the nerves of introverts and analytical personalities.
But when it comes to online community dynamics — especially in Facebook™️ groups — they are critical to establish the emotional safety and security required for members to connect with each other. Seth Godin famously describes culture as the manifestation of “people like us do things like this.” Icebreakers serve to illustrate that definition of culture by helping your members see how they fit into the group and confirm they belong there.
Icebreakers to increase engagement
1. Who are the pet parents here? Show us a picture of your furbabies.
2. What part of the world do you call home?
3. What TV shows are you binge-watching right now?
4. What podcasts are you loving?
5. What books have you read recently?
6. Favorite movie of all time?
By their very nature, icebreakers are surface-level conversation starters. They allow people to tiptoe into the group by answering a question without revealing too much about themselves or feeling too vulnerable. Don’t discount their value in your group content strategy. Consider icebreakers to be the first step to building lasting trust among members of your group.
Category 4: Meet-and-Greet
Facebook™️ groups allow people to connect over shared interests, experiences, or desires. Drawing from in-person examples for comparison, they are the online equivalent of a large-scale conference’s breakout sessions, a megachurch’s small groups, or a large organization’s affinity groups.
Even groups as large as Instant Pot® Community with more than 3 million members feel small compared to the billions of people who are active on Facebook™️ every day. And yet, no matter the size of your group, it takes intentional effort to get and keep members engaged.
One way to increase activity in your group is by taking responsibility for facilitating connection between members. Remember, true community comes from members connecting with each other as much as they connect with you and the content you produce.
The most successful way to facilitate these connections is by offering networking or meet-and-greet opportunities for members and yet. However, we rarely see group leaders use this tactic to drive engagement. That means you can set your group AND yourself apart by making meet and greet posts a regular part of your content strategy.
Like any engagement tactic, a little goes a long way. Offering meet-and-greet opportunities weekly is the max frequency in most groups to motivate members to connect with each other in ways that make sense. More often than that and you run the risk of the posts being ignored or viewed as noise in the group.
1. Hiring? Looking for work? Post #hiring opportunities below. If you’re open to work, comment on the opportunities that interest you.
2. Where are my [insert tool or service] experts?
3. Calling all [insert topic] veterans. What one piece of advice would you give beginners?
4. What has been your costliest mistake in [insert topic] so far?
5. When it comes to [insert goal or objective], what tool or service can you NOT live without?
6. Meet your neighbors! Post your location to see whether you have any [insert community name] friends nearby.
Category 5: Trends
One way to make a Facebook™️ Group indispensable to your members is to become known as the go-to source of current and credible information related to trends in your topic or industry.
You don’t have to be the first to break the news. It’s often better if you aren’t the first to share about a trend. You can afford to wait until you have a sense of the trend’s potential and effects on your industry or niche. What members will value most is your take on a trend that’s relevant and customized to their specific needs.
In our free Facebook™️ Group for community leaders and professional community managers, for instance, I am rarely the first to announce a new community platform or change to the Facebook™️ platform. I am, however, the first to provide context to Facebook™️ updates or emerging platforms under the lens of what matters most to people who manage online communities. Our members know that, when the Internet is up in arms over a glitch in the Metaverse, they can count on me to tell them whether the sky is actually falling and what to do about it.
Trend posts to drive engagement
1. Three [insert industry] trends to avoid and why.
2. Do you hate [insert trend]? Here’s what to do instead!
3. What do you think about [insert trend]? Love it or hate it?
4. Want results like [insert celebrity or influencer]? Try this hack!
5. Trend alert: [insert trend] How are you applying it to what you do?
6. Have you noticed [insert trend]? Here’s what we’re doing about it.
How to Use These Facebook™️ Group Engagement Posts
If you want to increase engagement in your Facebook™️ Group, these posts will give you the boost you need. However, you need to use them wisely.
The key to driving true connection and bolstering interaction in your group is what you do with reactions and comments. Use the comments for conversations by asking deeper questions, connecting members to each other, and facilitating the development of real relationships within the group.
Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. And use that knowledge to inform what you post in the group moving forward. Your group members might love polls but not icebreakers. It might take trial and error to figure out which conversation starters are more interactive than others. You’ll learn a lot about your community in the process if you’re open to learning and applying the knowledge you gain to your content strategy.
Which interactive post ideas will you use to grow engagement in your online community?
Need Help with Your Community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Facebook’s Communities Summit 2022, held online last week, was filled with feature announcements, case studies and community manager spotlights. If you’re unfamiliar with the Facebook Communities Summit, it’s an annual event hosted by Meta to inspire community builders, hear from Facebook leaders, and learn about new products and features to help users build, grow, and support their groups.
The first hour of the event was accessible to the public with an additional two hours of content reserved for members of Facebook’s Power Admins Group and Community Learning Labs. After spending all three hours at the event, I’m certain of one thing: This is the Year of the Community Manager.
At prior summits, Facebook has revealed features and shared best practices focused on member experience over community manager experience. This has grated on the nerves of some admin teams who felt skewing features to what members want made admin responsibilities hard on community managers. From my perspective, the pendulum is swinging more to the center this year.
Most of the groups and group leaders featured at this year’s summit either started during the pandemic in 2020 or had exponential growth during the pandemic, which highlighted both the blessing and curse of managing large, active communities.
I took some notes on a few things I learned that I think you’ll find helpful in making intentional plans for starting, managing and leading your community or community management business in 2023.
Here they are:
Leadership Drives Community Culture
Whether a community thrives or languishes comes down to management and governance, which can be a challenge for group leaders who lack training and experience related to online user behavior and group dynamics.
In 2023, Facebook will be testing new tools to support admins in managing and promoting group culture. Expect to see new ways for admins to highlight top contributing members, such as awarding points for engagement-driving actions and having those points lead to special badges. One upcoming example is the Socializer role, which will allow admins to recognize the members that are most hospitable to new members.
Smart community managers pay attention to when new features are added to their groups and think through how to leverage those features to improve the effectiveness of the communities they host. Stay open-minded when considering these new features and flexible, knowing that it’s not unusual for Facebook to cancel features that don’t perform as well as expected.
Admin Assist Gets a Human Touch
Admin Assist is a feature that debuted in 2020 with the goal of automating some aspects of group governance. You could set up rules in your group to automatically flag or reject posts with links, videos, certain words and more. For some groups, Admin Assist is like having a full-time community manager on staff. It saves that much time. But it’s not perfect and can be hard to manage, especially when there is nuance to your group policies.
Daily Digest will now give group admins a daily summary of actions taken in their group so they can see whether the feature is doing what they expect. Flagged by Facebook is my personal favorite update here. It will give admins of eligible groups to allow content that might otherwise be flagged for removal as bullying or harassment. In testing this feature, Facebook found a comment calling a fish “fatty” was flagged in a group of fish tank enthusiasts. With this new feature, admins of that group could override the automated rejection and allow the comment in their group.
Smart community managers will set up Admin Assist and other automation tools with the purpose and practice of their groups in mind. If your group is busy, flagging posts according to some criteria can make more work for you instead of less.
Content Connects Communities
A new engagement-driving content type is coming to groups. Not fully rolled out yet, Reels in groups will allow admins and members the ability to create highly customized short videos to connect with each other. Facebook is also testing the ability to share a public Facebook event for your community to your stories on Instagram, which will bring greater visibility to your community.
Smart community managers know that you can’t blast your group with push-type notification posts and expect it to thrive. Content that inspires and rewards two-way, direct communication fosters connection faster and more effectively than when admins act as gatekeepers.
Chat Links Admins to Their Members
Remember the days when you could send direct messages to group members, bypassing their group notification settings and ensuring they are aware of important community updates? Though well-loved by admins for its efficiency, this feature didn’t sit well with community members who felt spammed by over-eager group leaders who messaged all the time about all sorts of random things
Facebook has been testing a variety of options with chat tools to strike a balance between meeting the needs of group leaders and group members. Community Chats allow group leaders to create chat channels, audio channels and event chats to facilitate real-time conversations around shared interests for group members. View-only chats are being tested as a way for community managers to push out information without having to manage responses and admin-only chats give leadership teams a way to collaborate in real time.
Smart community managers know there is a fine line between caring for your group and ensuring members are aware of important information affecting them and spamming them with overly promotional messages. Think of your group interactions as a courtship and don’t go proposing marriage on the first date, or like a casting call in 90-Day Fiancé.
Self-Care is Total Care for Community Managers
Well-run communities can become deeply personal for members and their leaders, even when the group focus isn’t sensitive in nature. A panel featuring founders of communities focused on mental health and domestic violence highlighted the importance of ensuring admin teams have the training necessary to appropriately support group members and an understanding of how to care for themselves in the process.
Smart community managers know that just because social media never sleeps doesn’t mean they can’t. Have a plan in place to prevent admin burnout, support the emotional needs of your leadership team, and establish systems to support harmony between group management tasks and personal health and well-being. You might need to schedule shifts for your team so there are clear boundaries between work time and personal time.
Communities Foster Brand Loyalty and Business Results
When effectively managed, corporate communities can be gathering places to support new customers, foster brand loyalty and put decision-makers in direct contact with their ideal clients.
Marriott discovered several Facebook groups run by Bonvoy members wanting to maximize their loyalty points and recognized they should be the ones helping their members make the most of their program benefits. By creating the Marriott Bonvoy Insiders group, the hotel and resort company has created space for more than 146,000 Bonvoy members to gather to share their tips and tricks while helping the company understand what members like and dislike about the program to improve the experience for everyone involved.
Canva’s community manager shared how their design group has changed over the years and how how the members have informed product changes as well.
Smart community managers know the business case for community is increased revenue, customer/client retention and fewer customer service issues. Your role is a frontline position requiring equal parts customer service, hospitality, product development and tech support. Know your product inside and out, address member concerns directly, embrace ideas for improvement, and make sure you understand your role as community advocate when talking with company leadership. It’s your job to help organizational leaders understand the dangers of neglecting your communities. If shifting priorities or staffing changes prevent you from effectively managing your organization’s groups, you’re better off archiving them than allowing neglect to turn it into a cesspool of humans behaving badly.
Community Management is Growing as a Profession
You don’t have to spend long browsing the job listings on LinkedIn to see community management as an emerging professional focus. Companies are finally moving away from dumping community management responsibilities on the nearest or youngest staff member under “other duties as assigned” and seeking out professionals with skills and experience in online user behavior, group dynamics and people management.
Community management roles are still varied in design. They might sit in marketing, operations or product fulfillment departments. They might be highly administrative, working mostly behind the scenes, or be positioned as the “face” of the organization online. Pay is varied, too. If the role is focused in customer service, pay ranges between $40,000 to $60,000 per year. If the role focuses on strategy, growth and effective management, you’ll see salaries range from $60,000 to $100,000-plus. Though community management is an online role, many companies require employees work on-site and attend or host in-person events.
Smart community managers know how to apply their skills to a variety of products and services. Take a look at your skills and experience and position yourself accurately according to what you know your super-powers to be. Are you a growth strategist? A membership retention specialist? Can you tie thousands of dollars in revenue to your group management practices? No matter what your skills are, don’t be afraid to package and promote them accordingly. If you’d like to manage communities full-time for a brand or organization, pay attention to job listing details you know whether the role is remote or on-site and how much travel is required.
Need help with your community?
Team Kubo specializes in online community development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
Group name comparisons to consider (real and fictitious):
