The organic reach of Facebook business pages has been destroyed, Facebook ads costs are getting higher and higher, so it is not a surprise that a lot of people are asking the question: is it still worth putting resources into Facebook marketing at all?
Although Facebook ads can still generate huge profits if we are doing it the right way, today one of the best marketing opportunities on Facebook is creating a Facebook Group or even multiple Facebook Groups for our business.
In this tutorial, we are going to cover:
- why is it worthwhile to create a Facebook Group?
- best ways you can leverage a Facebook Group for your business
- types of Facebook Groups
- How to create a Facebook Group step by step:
- creating a Facebook Group from our personal profile
- creating a Facebook Group from a Facebook Business Page
- next steps you should do after you have started a Facebook Group
Why is it worthwhile to create a Facebook Group for your business?
Before we would cover the step by step method of creating a Facebook Group, we just want shortly summarize why you should create a Facebook Group if you are running a business, or if you are responsible for the Facebook marketing of a company as an agency or as a freelancer and what kind of Facebook Group ideas you can think of.
Reach of Facebook Group posts
First off, it is important to add that currently if we want to promote our business on Facebook but we don’t have a significant marketing budget to take advantage of the massive opportunity provided by Facebook ads, then creating a Facebook Group for our business is the best opportunity to promote our business without spending a lot of money.
As it is well-known, the organic reach of Facebook business posts is almost non-existent. If our Facebook business page has plenty of followers, it is possible that the average reach of a Facebook post is less than 1% of all of our Facebook fans.
Of course, there are tricks to pump up our organic reach with Facebook sweepstakes, giveaways, asking provocative questions, posting funny memes, etc., but are these activities are triggering real engagement that helps our company reach its business and sales goals? The answer is that it probably doesn’t.
On the other hand with a well-run Facebook group, you can reach way more people and have way higher impressions. Facebook wants to drive people to join other Facebook Groups as people are more likely to engage there as it is a smaller community. (this can help Facebook in its goal to keep people on the platform as long as they can)
Based on this, if we want to have meaningful reach on Facebook for our business without paying a lot for Facebook ads then we have to start a Facebook group for our business. In the next paragraph, we are going to give you some ideas on what kind of Facebook groups you could create for your business.
Facebook Group Ideas for businesses
In a separate article about Facebook group marketing, we have laid out multiple ways how your business can leverage Facebook Groups provided by Facebook for absolutely free. If you are interested in the nitty-gritty details, check out our blog post on it:
- Facebook Group Marketing: Facebook Group Ideas for Businesses
In this tutorial we are just quickly going to mention the most frequently created Facebook Group types:
- Facebook Group for your Customer Service activities
- Facebook Group as a learning, or educational group
- Facebook Groups for building your personal brand
- Facebook groups for paid coaching or mentoring
- Facebook Group to collect customer feedback or get development ideas for your product or service
- Facebook groups to be basically a second Facebook business page
It is your decision if you want to have all of these activities going on in one Facebook groupat the same time or you would create separate Facebook groups for different business goals.
How to create a Facebook group from a FB business page?
It is essential to know that you can create a Facebook group in two ways. If you already have a Facebook business page, then you can create your FB Group starting from your Facebook page. But of course if you don’t have a Facebook business page, then you can create a Facebook Group with your personal profile as well.
We will show you both of these methods as actually only the first two steps are different. If you create a Facebook group for business purposes we would definitely recommend creating the FB Group starting from your Facebook page as then you can invite the fans and followers of your Facebook page to join your Facebook group right away.
Creating a Facebook Group from your Facebook Business page
Here is how you can create a Facebook Group from your Facebook page:
- Enabling the Facebook group tab on your Facebook page
By default, the Group tab is not available on your Facebook page, so first you have to enable it. To enable your Facebook group tab, do the following:
- Click on the Settings tab on your Facebook page
- Then click on the Template and Tabs page
- Scroll down until you see Groups and enable it
Right after you have enabled this, you can go to the Facebook home page and by clicking on the More link, you can click on ‘Groups’.
By clicking on Groups you will arrive at this page, where you can start creating your new linked Facebook Group or you can link Facebook Groups you have created before.
- Create the Facebook Group
Once we have arrived at this page, we can finally start creating our Facebook Group that is linked to our Facebook page:
- Click on the ‘Create Linked Group’ button
- It will take us to a new page where we will be able to create our Facebook group. First, we have to add the name of the group
- In the next step, we have to choose if the group will be public pr private (If we choose public, the posts of the FB group will be able to be seen by non-members as well.)
- As the last optional step, you can invite Facebook page fans as group members, so this is a free way how you can start growing your Facebook group right away.
- Click on the ‘Create’ button.
Create a Facebook Group with a personal profile
If you haven’t created a Facebook business page yet, then you can create a Facebook Group with your personal Facebook profile as well.
Although in this case, we would also suggest to create a Facebook business page first, and then you can create your Facebook Group from there. We will still show you how you can create a Facebook Group starting from your personal profile:
- From the Facebook newsfeed, on the left sidebar click on ‘Groups’
- On this new page, in the upper left corner click on ‘Create New Group’
- Here you will have to add the same information we have shown in the previous point.
Here is a step by step video tutorial on how to create a Facebook group:
Types of Facebook Groups
As we have shown, when you create a Facebook group, you can choose your Facebook group to be ‘private’ or ‘public’. If you are creating a Facebook group for personal reasons, it is usually obvious that you will want to create a private Facebook group. However, this is not that evident when you create a Facebook group for promoting your business on Facebook.
Private vs Public Facebook Groups
If you started a Public Facebook Group then anybody can see who the members of the specific Facebook Groups are, and all the Facebook posts. A non-member can’t comment, create a new Facebook post in the FB group. In a private Facebook group, only members can see the Facebook posts and the information about the members of the Facebook group.
Of course, these Facebook Group settings can also be changed after you have created the Facebook group. To change these visibility settings, all you have to do is go to the Settings section of your Group, then you can change the group from Hidden to Visible and then from Private to Public.
Visible vs Hidden Facebook Groups
If we created a Private Group we can also change the group visibility from Visible to Hidden. If we have created a Facebook group for business purposes then we obviously shouldn’t choose ‘Hidden’ option as then nobody would find us from the Facebook search.
Next steps after Facebook Group creation
As we have created the Facebook Group it is recommended to go through the following steps:
- Setting up and customizing the most important Facebook Group features and settings
- Developing a Facebook Group marketing strategy to increase the membership and the reach of the Facebook Group
If you Facebook group is not successful and you want to start a new one, then you can choose to delete the Facebook group or you can even archive or even rename the Facebook group. To get more info on these features, read the following guides:
- How to delete, rename or archive a Facebook Group?
Frequently Asked Questions – Create a Facebook Group
I can’t create a Facebook group from my Facebook Business page, why?
You can only create a Facebook group from your Facebook page, if you have enabled this in the Settings section of the Facebook page.
What is the difference between Facebook page and group?
The Facebook Group is more closed format in Facebook than a Facebook page. On a Facebook page, you can view any post and even comment to it, even if you don’t follow or like the Facebook page . In a Facebook group, depending on the settings of the group, you have more limited options if you are not member of the group. As the administrator of the Facebook group you can also customize the FB Group based on your personal preference.
Can I check who saw the post in a Facebook Group?
Yes, you can check it when the there is no more than 250 people in the Facebook Group. In groups bigger than this threshold, there is no way to check this. If you can still see the ‘Seen’ text, then you can click on it and check which members have seen the Facebook group post.
