5 Exciting Social Media and Marketing Trends to Know in 2017 – Noah Kagan [SSM055]

What if you could predict the future and gain access to the latest social media and marketing trends that will eventually make a huge difference in your business?

And what if you could take that knowledge and prioritize the channels and networks of tomorrow, today?

You’re in luck! The social media and marketing trends that once seemed like science fiction are quickly becoming a reality for marketers everywhere. Now, it’s just a matter of identifying which channels and trends to embrace in your overall marketing strategy that will have the greatest impact.

Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo at Sumo.com and AppSumo.com, and his team have been successfully experimenting with emerging marketing technologies and channels for the last several years – giving him unique insights into which ones are truly worth your time and effort.

In episode #55 of The Science of Social Media, we explore the top 5 social media and marketing trends that all marketers should consider in 2017 and examples of how you can get at started with each today.

Let’s dive in!

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5 Exciting Social Media and Marketing Trends to Know in 2017

“The bar has been raised across the industry. The only way to stand out is to put out higher quality content than the rest.”

– Noah Kagan

1. Optimizing outreach on multiple mediums

You might have heard of the saying, “owned vs. rented land” in marketing – referring to producing and sharing content on platforms that you do or do not own. For example, posting content directly through Facebook would be considered “rented” because you don’t necessarily control the outcome of that content, whereas, blogging regularly on your website would be considered “owned” because you have full control over that content.

Over the last several months, Noah has seen a 10% drop in email open rates from his newsletter at OkDork.com. And although 10% doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s resulted in a decrease of about 15,000 people reading his content.

In 2017, it’s important for marketers to develop multiple mediums through which your business can speak and connect with customers. That way, if a big change happens on any one medium, like a significant decline in organic reach on Facebook, you will still have other viable options at your disposal.

Multiple marketing mediums might include:

• Facebook Groups
• Messenger Bots
• Browser Notifications
• Slack Communities
• Email Lists
• SMS Marketing
• Blog (Organic Search)
• Facebook Ads

In other words, you’re hedging your communication channels against any major market changes.

2.  Customizing one-to-one marketing communications

The perfect message, to the right person, at the perfect time. That’s what many savvy marketers hope to achieve through their one-to-one marketing efforts. But delivering the perfect message without seeming intrusive or sneaky is a fine line to walk in a time where consumer information is seemingly endless.

Source: Tom Fishburne – marketoonist

When done right, however, one-to-one marketing can reduce marketing costs and increase the effectiveness of your campaigns. Harvard Business Review reports that personalization can deliver five to eight times the return on investment for marketing spend. Talk about important marketing trends!

For example, Facebook and Facebook advertising might help bring people to your restaurant, but imagine bringing someone to your restaurant and each person gets their own customized dished (based on profile information) that they’re in love with. That’s the power of one-to-one and marketing personalization.

Technology that will help you get to one-on-one communication:

• Marketo
• HubSpot
• Pardot by SalesForce
• Clearbit

The companies and marketers that can begin to utilize these technologies sooner will have a significant advantage in their marketing.

3.  Utilizing the power of marketing bots

One of the most exciting frontiers in marketing is the rise of marketing bots.

Source: Illustration by Gabriela Zurda

What is a “bot” exactly? According to Wikipedia, “An Internet bot is a software application that runs automated tasks (or scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.”

As a marketer, the thought of bots can be a bit intimidating on both the job perspective and implementation side. But there are tons of positives that come with automation. Eventually, sure, bots will be able to do a variety of tasks that humans currently do like write blog posts, create graphics, deliver tailored content to users, send emails, schedule social media posts, and respond to user questions. 

But just like the computer automated handwriting and Netflix automated the movie industry, we will adapt and evolve into the next stage of social media, technology, and marketing, just like we’ve done throughout history.

For now, you’ll be well-ahead of the game by experimenting with basic bot functions like communicating with website visitors, implementing a Facebook messenger, or Slack bot, or conducting research –  just to help you get a feel for what they can do.

4. Tapping into customer network opportunities

One of the more uncommon marketing trends in 2017 and beyond for marketers to consider is the idea of untapped networks or channels.

“When thinking about untapped networks for rapid business growth,” Noah explains, “it’s important to identify where large amounts of your customers or audiences are hanging out and work backwards from there.” Your business might take advantage of communicating with people on Meetup.com or tap into the massive resource that is Reddit within specific locations or demographics.

The best part is there are untapped network opportunities in almost any marketing vertical. A good place to start might be within the top digital marketing trends of 2017.

One specific example of this in recent history is the tactical use of Quora as a marketing channel for businesses. Once marketers discovered that people were using Quora to ask specific questions about products or challenges they were having, they quickly began providing answers. And when those answers were useful, it meant thousands of views every month.

Today, Quora has more than 400,000 topics and 100,000 million unique monthly visitors, giving marketers a unique opportunity to tap into a massive resource.

5. Setting a higher bar for quality content

Creating quality (content) over quantity is something that we talk a lot about here at Buffer. In the last few months alone, it seems like more and more brands are putting out incredible content across digital platforms. Everyone from small businesses to big enterprises is prioritizing and investing in quality content, and it’s paying off big time in awareness and sales.

But producing quality content isn’t necessarily a new trend to many marketers – quality is something built into everything they produce. What is a marketing trend, however, is creating quality content within emerging mediums such as video, podcasting, and social media advertising. 

Then, when you’ve created a quality piece of content, the next step is to stretch it as far as it can go. For example, if you’ve worked hard to create a quality 4,000-word blog post, that blog post deserves a little extra love when it comes to promotion. You might create an infographic, a podcast episode, a short video, send it to all of your newsletters subscribers, pitch it to major publications, post it to various communities, and lots more.

I find it helpful to remember the classic 80/20 rule in digital marketing:

With so much content being published every day online, it’s no longer enough to simply post and hope for the best. More effort is required than ever before.

Awesome Mentions in the Show

• OkDork.com – Noah Kagan’s Blog About Marketing and More
• Sumo Blog – The Best Tactics to Grow Your Website
• How Tony Robbins Generated 1,000,000 Website Visitors Per Month
• Noah Kagan Presents [Podcast] – LIVE business challenge, case studies, and unique interviews
• Noah Kagan – LinkedIn
• Noah Kagan – Twitter
• Where Social Media Is Headed in 2017: The Biggest Trends to Watch For – Buffer Blog

More Great Moments from the Show

• “The point here is that you need to hedge your communication channels and mediums to be able to contact your customers and not be at the mercy of these other businesses.”
• “For people considering personalization in marketing, figure out how you tailor each individual message to customers. Make it so customers feel like you’re talking directly to them.”
• “In marketing, there’s always a sort of evolution. As technology evolves, people will go on and find bigger, more important things to do with their time. That’s the great thing about the industry.”
• “You have to ask yourself: Where are there large networks of people and my customers that I can potentially tap into and work backwards from there.”
• “The bar on the quality of content has been raised across the industry. Everyone has a funny title, interesting graphs, memes, and GIFs. The only way to differentiate is to put out even higher quality content than the rest.”
• “Your content doesn’t have to be 60 pages. It can be one page. But that one page has to be really good.”

How to Say Hello to Us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

• Hailley on Twitter
• Brian on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast Homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About the Show

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing strategies from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 10,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank 5 Exciting Social Media and Marketing Trends to Know in 2017 – Noah Kagan [SSM055] for first publishing this post.

A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager: How to Spend Time on Social Media in 2017

One of the questions I get asked most as the social media manager here at Buffer is:

How do you break up your day in order to get the most out of social media? 

Up until recently, I hadn’t really thought about it much. A little bit of content creation, curation, audience engagement, emails, outreach, and some Buffer scheduling.

I kept wondering, is there really a social media manager formula for success? How are other social media professionals spending their time during the day? Do we share the same tasks?

In search of an answer, I tracked every hour of my day for an entire week and scoured the web for top tips and resources from other social media marketers.

Here’s what I found out about the best ways to make the most out of your time as social media manager.

Inside a social media manager’s schedule

Being a social media manager can mean a seriously busy day of work. To prove just how packed it can be, Curalate put together an inside look at Mario Moreno’s daily schedule. Mario is the Global Social Media Manager for one of the world’s largest retailers:

Can you relate to a schedule like Mario’s? Perhaps you do more. Or perhaps you perform different tasks on a daily basis. That’s the beauty of being in this industry!

Here’s a quick look at my day and how I spend each third:

Morning: 

• 7-7:30am: Breakfast & coffee
• 7:30-8:30am: Email & voicemail
• 8:30-9am: Check-in on all social media platforms
• 9-9:30am: Measure social results and add to spreadsheets
• 9:30-10am: Respond and engage with community
• 10-10:30am: Schedule new content to Buffer
• 10:30-10:45am: Break & more coffee (much needed!)
• 10:45-11am: Read and learn
• 11am-12pm: Content creation (podcast, writing)

Afternoon:

• 12-12:30pm: Lunch
• 12:30-1pm: Emails and voicemails
• 1-1:30pm: Respond and engage with community
• 1:30-2:00pm: Curate content
• 2-2:30pm: Read and learn
• 2:30-2:45: Break
• 2:45-3pm: Schedule content to Buffer
• 3-4:30pm: Content creation (video, graphics)
• 4:30-5pm: Emails and voicemails
• 5-5:30pm: Check Buffer queue

Evening:

• 5:30-6:45pm: Gym
• 6:45-8pm: Dinner with my wife
• 8-9pm: Learn (programming, video making, etc.)
• 9-10pm: Relax and watch TV
• 10-10:30pm: Read
• 10:30pm: Sleep and repeat!

The most important and productive times for me throughout the day are when I have the opportunity to create content, engage with the community, and learn.

The social media industry is one where there is a sharp learning curve to becoming an expert (and even then there’s still learning to do). That’s why Dennis Yu, CTO at BlitzMetrics, spends at least 3 hours learning every single day like so many other professionals.

I intentionally build learning, creating, and engaging time into my day so that I can increase the effectiveness of Buffer’s social media over time. Focusing on one single task (instead of multi-tasking) has helped me to make the most of the hours spent learning, creating, and engaging.

Ready for another view on the social media manager job description?

Here’s an interesting infographic from Meltwater that shows all of the tasks that a social media manager might perform in a given day. That’s a lot!

The role of social media manager has evolved so quickly and dramatically over the course of the last 17 or so years. What was once a fairly straight-forward job of posting content and responding to the community has morphed into one that requires of a variety of soft and technical skills.

Social media managers are starting to look more “T-Shaped” than ever before.

On any given day, a social media manager might be responsible for setting the strategy for an upcoming product launch, creating a video, analyzing data across platforms, designing viral GIFs, coordinating messaging with PR & Communications, runnings paid advertisements and lots more.

It’s no wonder these jobs are in such high-demand!

Making the most of your time as a social media manager

What do you do when you have to juggle all of the tasks above?

Perhaps the biggest challenge for social media managers is figuring out which activities to prioritize that will have the biggest impact on their brand or organization.

Daily and weekly to-do lists are handy as well as understanding what has moved the needle in the past on social media.

But I’d love to share two different ways of thinking about prioritization and making the most of your time that has helped me tremendously in my time as social media manager.

Coca-Cola’s 70/20/10 Content

Coca-Cola has, for a long time, been a leader in the content marketing and social media space. Their 70/20/10 Rule is a huge inspiration for us on the Buffer marketing team. It’s mainly intended for budgeting and content development purposes but can assist in the social media process as well.

70/20/10 Rule in action

Now: 70%

This is the “bread and butter of your marketing activities.” For social media managers, this might mean activities like creating videos, engaging with your community, and curating content. In other words, low-risk activities that make a moderate-to-high impact on a day-to-day basis.

New: 20%

The 20 percent category is saved for iteration and innovation (new) on things that worked in the 70 percent bucket. For social media managers, this might mean an improvement on the overall quality of videos (or a different type of video completely). It might also mean the launch of a Facebook Group or private Slack community. In the 20 percent category, returns on investment aren’t necessarily immediate.

Next: 10%

This is your “high-risk, high-reward content.” The ability to strategically identify and experiment in up-and-coming channels or mediums is an important skill for social media managers to develop and usually comes over time with experience. For example, you might launch a new Snapchat advertising campaign or install Facebook Messenger chatbots on your web assets. 10 percent bucket activities are meant to pay off big dividends down the line.

Determining “ICE” Score

Another one my favorite ways to prioritize social media activities is to think of each in terms of “ICE.” ICE, developed by Sean Ellis, CEO at GrowthHackers.com, stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease.

Start with a list of all of the things that you would like to do or accomplish on social media within a given time frame.

Once you have a complete list, assign each task a score between 1-10 (1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest). After you’ve assigned each task a set of three scores (I, C, & E), take the average of all three and that is the total ICE Score. The higher the score the greater the potential. 

GrowthHackers has an easy-to-use ICE Calculator that you can try for fun today.

Here’s a quick example of ICE in action. Let’s say that these were some of my weekly social media activities:

• Curate content (I=6, C=7, E=6)
• Create marketing videos (I=10, C=8, E=2)
• Write new blog post (I=7, C=7, E=4)
• Engage with community (I=7, C=7, E=7)

Based on the total ICE scores, I might prioritize these activities in this order:

1. Engage with community (Total ICE Score = 7.0)
2. Create marketing videos (Total ICE Score =6.7)
3. Curate content (Total ICE Score =6.3)
4. Write new blog post (Total ICE Score =6.0)

The great thing about the ICE method is that it can be applied to a variety of industries, goals, and situations.

Now let’s quickly take a look at the 10 high-impact tasks of a social media manager job and what they each entail. This list is adapted from my own experiences at Buffer as well as conversations with lots of marketers around the world.

10 high-impact tasks of a social media manager job

1. Strategizing

There are so many goals we could potentially focus on as social media managers – like brand awareness, engagement, traffic, and signups, to name a few. There’s also the challenge of figuring out how to make sure your social media goals are aligned with your overall company goals. That’s where a having a solid social media strategy comes into play.

2. Engaging

Along with creating and curating content, cultivating a happy and engaged audience is a high-impact task for any brand. This helps to create a community of loyal followers who will eventually help to spread the word of your product or service on social media.

3. Creating

At the heart of every social media manager role is the art content creation. Content is the life blood of your social networks and what keeps your audience reading, engaging, and interacting with your brand. It’s important to learn how to create all sorts of content from videos to GIFs to infographics and more.

4. Curating

Depending on the various types of content you share on social, curating can have a huge impact on your overall social media results. Discovering and sifting through content from others involves having a deep well of sources to read—as well as the time to read it all and determine the best fit for your brand.

5. Scheduling

Planning ahead and scheduling content is another high-impact task that makes a world of difference for your brand. We’ve often found that our posts perform best early in the morning, in the evenings, and on weekends — so choosing a social media management platform that allows you to post even when you’re not online can make your life a whole lot easier and improve your results.

6. Listening

I’m always amazed over the awesome things that I find when I have my ear to the ground – searching and listening for conversations around Buffer and similar terms. There are so many opportunities for marketers and brands to proactively seek out and build relationships with potential customers in your community. But choosing the right listening tool is crucial for finding relevant terms and conversations in your industry.

7. Measuring

Once your posts are scheduled and sent out to social media it’s time to analyze their performance. How many clicks did they receive? How many likes, comments, and shares? How did it impact the bottom line? Then, taking a step further, how can you use those stats to help make informed decisions in the future. That’s where great social media managers thrive!

8. Helping

The use of social media as a customer service tool has skyrocketed over the last few years. Customers are no longer relying only on 1-800 numbers for answers to their questions – they’re turning to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Whether folks are reaching out to you with a question, comment, concern, or complaint, it’s a social media manager’s job to figure out the best plan of action to help that person.

9. Learning

Becoming a student of the trade and learning as much as you possibly can has both a short and long-term impact on your brand or company. Like I quickly mentioned before, there’s a steep learning curve to becoming a great social media manager and building the skills it takes to succeed all stars with learning.

10. Experimenting

We love experimentation here at Buffer. In our experience, the more we experiment the more we learn about what works and what doesn’t on social media. We’ve tried all sorts of things from five Facebook Live sessions in one day to creating a Tumblr account to starting a podcast. Experimenting ties directly into all 10 high-impact tasks of a social media manager.

A social media manager checklist

A big takeaway from all of this is that there are so many different day-to-day schedules of a social media manager. The same holds true for day-to-day tasks!

That’s why I’d love to leave you all with a giant social media checklist for each individual network. Hopefully, this will help to shed some light on what other marketers are doing daily and inspire you to create your next big social media hit.

Finally…

What does it look like to be a successful social media manager?

I really do believe it’s one of the best jobs out there. What’s better than engaging with awesome people on social media and creating content that people love?

The big challenge is that full-time social media managers take on a huge number of tasks every single day, and the time involved can grow exponentially along with the scale of the strategy. That’s why it’s important to constantly work on prioritizing tasks by using the methods and strategies above.

How much time do you spend with social media management? 

I’d love to hear what your days look like. Please do share in the comments!

Kevan originally published a version of this post in 2014, this version has been fully updated for 2017. 

Thank A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager: How to Spend Time on Social Media in 2017 for first publishing this post.

The Complete Guide to Facebook Groups: How to Create a Group, Build a Community and Increase Your Organic Reach

Facebook has recently launched Groups for Pages, enabling the 70 million+ Pages on Facebook to create their own unique communities and feeds.

This update provides new ways for brands to boost engagement and could go some way to countering the decline in organic reach Facebook Page owners have been experiencing for the past few years.

More than 1 billion people around the world use Groups. And more than 100 million people see Groups as the most important part of their experience on Facebook.

Facebook Groups are the place to connect with other like-minded people and are becoming increasingly important for brands and businesses aiming to cultivate a community.

So how do you create a Facebook Group? And more importantly, how do you build an engaged community in your Facebook Group?

Let’s get started!

What you’ll learn in this guide

Here’s a brief look at what will be covered in this Facebook Group’s guide. Feel free to click on a section heading to jump to the respective section.

— Facebook Groups vs Facebook Pages
— How to create a Facebook group that is “on brand”, attractive, and easily discovered
— How to build an engaged community in your Facebook group

Facebook Groups vs Facebook Pages

A common question on this topic is: “Should I have a Facebook group or Facebook Page?”

And it’s a tough one because Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages are increasingly becoming more similar.

For example, an advantage that Facebook Pages used to have is the Page Insights, which allows social media managers to understand how their Page and posts are performing. Now, Facebook Groups include built-in analytics, too — Group Insights.

Here’s a quick overview of the positive features for each:

Facebook Page

• Built-in analytics (Page Insights).
• Call-to-action button (e.g. Sign Up, Book Now, Learn More) on your Facebook Page.
• Boost your Facebook Page and Page posts with Facebook ads.
• Like and comment as your Facebook Page.
• Add apps and services to your Facebook Page, so that your fans can easily order a product, make a booking, get a quote and more.

Facebook Group

• Built-in analytics (Group Insights) now.
• Set your Facebook group as private (Closed or Secret).
• Post documents, create polls, and even buy and sell in your Facebook group.
• Group chat with your group members.
• Members recieve notidications about new posts to the Group.

Now that you can link your Facebook groups to your Facebook Page, maybe the answer to the question above is actually both.

In this post, we’ll focus on creating and managing a Facebook Group. If you wish to read up on Facebook Pages, you might like our guide on how to create and manage a Facebook Page for your business.

How to create a Facebook Group

Creating a Facebook group is very straightforward. Let’s run through the important steps here:

1. Choose your Facebook Group name and privacy setting

To start, click on “Group” under the “CREATE” section at the bottom of the left sidebar on Facebook.

You can also find the same option under the drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of any Facebook page:

Next, fill out the basic info in the pop-up:

• Choose a name for your Facebook group (You can change this later.)
• Enter the names of friends you want to add or email addresses of the people you want to invite to your Facebook group (You have to add or invite at least one person.)
• Select the privacy setting of your Facebook group (Public, Closed, or Secret)

Here’s a quick overview of the differences between the three privacy options:

For example, a public or closed Facebook group could be suitable for a community of your customers while a secret Facebook group could be great for exclusive groups such as VIP customers or beta testers.

If your Group is public it’s also worth noting that anyone can see the posts and comments in your Facebook group without having to join. If you want to protect the privacy of your members, a closed or secret Facebook group will be more appropriate.

Once you’ve decided on the privacy options, hit “Create”.

You’ll be prompted to select an icon for your Facebook Group. If you don’t have a preference, Facebook will default to the generic Group icon ().

Now, you’ve set up your Facebook Group

But there are still a few more things we could do to make your Group more attractive to join, and easier to discover…

2. Fill out your Facebook Group’s info

Head over to your Group settings, by clicking on the three-dots button below your cover photo and then choose “Edit Group Settings”.

A best practice is to work your way down the list of and fill each out accordingly. Here are the key things to do:

1. Add a cover photo. The ideal photo size is 820px wide by 462px tall.

On the desktop, Facebook will crop the cover photo a little from the top and bottom. On mobile, your Facebook group name and details will overlay your cover photo. You can see an example and grab a template here.

2. Select a group type to help people understand what the group is about.

Here are the group types available:

• Buy and Sell (This group type has additional features.)
• Close Friends
• Club
• Events and Plans
• Family
• Neighbors
• Parents
• Project
• School or Class
• Study Group
• Support
• Team
• Travel
• Custom

3. Write a description to tell people what the group is about in more details. You have up to 3,000 characters for your group description. (And yes, you can use emojis. )

It is common for group admins to use this space to share information that they want the entire group, especially new members, to know such as the dos and don’ts of the group.

Here’s an example from CMX Hub Facebook group:

4. Add (up to five) tags to help people find your group. For example, when I search “social media” on Facebook, Facebook groups with the “social media” tag will show up.

Once you start typing, Facebook will offer some suggestions such as this:

5. Add your location if you are a local Group. It makes it easier for people who are looking for Facebook groups in your area to find your Facebook Group.

You can add multiple locations if your group is present in a few places:

6. Customize your URL. Using an easy-to-remember URL makes it easier to share your Facebook group with others during meetups and conferences. You have up to 50 characters but I would try to keep it short.

3. Add or invite friends and promote your Facebook group

Yay! Your Facebook Group is now ready to share, the next step is to invite more people to the group.

Add or invite people using the ‘Add Members’ field on the right of your Facebook Group.

To add a friend, enter their name in the field. Your friend will join the Facebook group automatically without having to accept any invitation.

To invite a friend or customer, enter their email address. If you want to add a personalized note on the invite, click on the tiny blue icon on the right.

Here’s an example invite note:

If you are certain your invitees would love to be part of your Facebook group, you can go ahead and add them. Otherwise, I would recommend inviting them and letting them decide if they want to join.

Tip: Share (or Buffer) your new Facebook group to your personal social media accounts and your Facebook Page, so that your close friends and customers know about your new community.

There’s a “Share” button just below your cover photo for you to share your Facebook group to different parts of Facebook (e.g. timeline, Messenger, and Page.)

You could use the Buffer extension (or your preferred social media scheduler) to share Facebook group across your relevant social media accounts.

4. Link it to your Facebook Page

One great way to grow your Facebook Group is to link it to you existing Facebook Page.

Here are the advantages of linking your Facebook Group to your Facebook Page:

• It’s easier for your Facebook Page fans and visitors to find (and join) your Facebook group.
• You can post, Like, and comment as your Page in your Facebook group.
• Your community can have a separate space to interact and build relationships with one another.

This is how it looks on HBO’s Facebook Page:

To link your Facebook group to your Facebook Page, click on “Groups” on the left sidebar of your Facebook Page.

If you don’t see the “Groups” tab on your Page, go to “Settings” > “Edit Page” and add the “Groups” tab to your Page.

When you click on “Groups”, you’ll be prompted to link a group to your Page. Hit “Get Started”.

(If you have not created your Facebook Group, you can click “Create Linked Group” to start a brand new Group.)

A pop-up will appear for you to select the groups you want to link. Hit “Link” and then “Link Group”.

And you’re set!

Woohoo! Your Facebook Group is all set up and successfully linked to your Page. Now let’s look at how to build an engaged community.

How to build an engaged community in your Facebook Group

Having an engaged community can help strengthen your community members’ relationship with your brand. This brand equity can then influence their decisions on purchasing from you.

Besides branding, a community can contribute to many areas of your business such as customer support, acquisition, and product innovation, according to CMX Hub’s research.

Here are some tips you can use to build an engaged community in your Facebook group:

1. Engage with your members regularly

Initially, when the community is small, there might not be many posts from your community members. It can be helpful to seed some relevant, helpful conversations on a consistent basis; perhaps two to three times a week.

For example, David Spinks, Founder of CMX, welcomes and invites new members to introduce themselves every Monday. He also regularly initiates discussions on topics in the community-building space.

(CMX Hub Facebook group is a great group to join if you are hoping to get help on community building. Facebook Group Admins Facebook group is another great one.)

A thoughtful way to go about this is to plan your posts in advance; perhaps with a calendar (you can grab a template here). For example, you could welcome your new members every Monday, initiate a discussion on every Wednesday, and invite members to share their achievements on Friday.

Most importantly, I would recommend commenting on every post and answering every question in your Facebook group (at least initially). This helps to make sure your members feel heard and that they are getting value from the group.

This is a strategy that solopreneur, Daniel Di Piazza, used to grow his Rich20Something Facebook group to more than 17,000 members.

“I purposely create conversations all day on Facebook and I pretty much respond to everything. I do miss some for sure, but even if it’s something as small as an “awesome” or a ‘Like’ – That totally makes a huge difference,” he explained on our Science of Social Media podcast.

To free up more time to reply and engage with your community, you could schedule posts to your Group with Buffer or by using Facebook’s own scheduling feature. ve

2. Use analytics to inform your strategy

Once activities in your Facebook Group pick up, you might want to know how your community-building strategy is performing and how to improve it.

Here’s some great news for you: Facebook is rolling out Group Insights (Facebook Group analytics) to Groups with more than 250 members.

Group Insights can be accessed by clicking on “Group Insights” on the left sidebar.

Here, you can find out insights such as how your Facebook group is growing, when your members are most engaged, and who your most engaged members are.

Here are the metrics and insights you can get from Group Insights:

Growth details

• Total members and members growth
• Membership requests

Engagement details

• Posts, comments, and reactions stats
• Active members stats
• Popular days and times
• Top posts

Member details

• Top contributors
• Age and gender breakdown
• Top countries and cities

Use these metrics and insights to inform your community-building strategy. For example, you could post on days and times when engagement is high, track active membership growth, and thank top contributors.

3. Host regular events

Hosting events is a great way to get community members involved (and maybe even attract inactive members back to the community).

In-personal meetups help to reinforce the connections made online, making the relationships more meaningful.

Here are some online and offline events you could host:

• AMAs (Ask-Me-Anything) with a community member or industry expert
• Q&As with someone from your company
• Talks and panel discussions
• Mastermind sessions or community discussions
• Casual get-to-know-each-other gatherings such as brunch, picnic, dinner, etc.

Once you have planned your event, create an event in your Facebook group and invite members to attend.

To create an event, click on “Events” on the left sidebar and then “+ Create Event on the right”.

Fill out the basic information of your event to let your members know what the event is about and when it is happening. You can send an invitation to all your members (for groups smaller than 500 members) by selecting the option “Invite all members of (your group name)”.

After you have created the event, you can invite more friends by clicking on the “Invite” button.

If you would like to learn more about engaging your event attendees before, during, and after your events, here’s a guide on event marketing on social media by Eventbrite.

4. Form a group chat

Sometimes, you might want closer communications within your community. Posts in Facebook groups are good for asynchronous discussions but less suitable for real-time, back-and-forth chats.

For example, you might want to discuss a particular post with the other admins and moderators. Or you want to let the group know you have reached your event’s meeting point.

You could form a group chat using Facebook Messenger for real-time, quick chats.

This is generally more appropriate when you have a small group (and intend to keep it small) than when you have hundreds to thousands of members. Alternatively, you could form a group chat just for the admins and moderators.

To create a group chat, click on the three-dots option below your cover photo, and then “Send Message”. Select the members for the group chat (or “Select All” to select every member) and click “Start Chat”.

5. Set guidelines and moderate discussions

Here are some of the things you can do to keep your Facebook group conducive for your members:

Set up guidelines. You can either write them in your group description, create and pin a post, or create a Facebook document. You can include things such as the actions that are encouraged or should be avoided and the names of admins and moderators.

Edit your membership and posting settings. In your “Group Settings”, you can set permissions for new membership and posting. For example, you can set permissions such as if only an admin or a moderator can approve a new member and if all posts must be approved by an admin or moderator.

You can also learn more about new members by requiring them to fill up a short questionnaire before joining. You can ask up to three questions, and they’ll have up to 250 characters to answer each question.

Remove posts that violate the guidelines. You or your moderators can remove posts and comments on posts. I would recommend stating clearly in your guidelines the type of posts that are not allowed such as self-promotion and hateful posts.

You might want to consider removing and blocking repeat violators from your Facebook group.

Share your Facebook Group with us!

And that’s it! Those are the things you can do to create a Facebook group for your brand and build an engaged community.

We are excited for you to create your Facebook group and would love for you to share in the comments section below a link to your Facebook group and a brief description about your group.

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Image credit: Unsplash, CMX Hub

Thank The Complete Guide to Facebook Groups: How to Create a Group, Build a Community and Increase Your Organic Reach for first publishing this post.