In this video, you’ll learn how to use Facebook groups to increase your referrals and retain your best clients.
Hi, I’m Harvee from Inspire and stay tuned.
How to use Facebook groups to grow your business and referrals, and retain your best clients? This is a really passionate subject of mine because I love Facebook and so too does the world. It’s probably one of the platforms that had the most active users on it, but it’s also about tribes. I love tribes, too, because we’re from New Zealand and everyone has a strong identity to the tribe they come from.
Now, in the world of small business, tribes relate to the people that you wish to do work with or the people that you want to hang out with, and in the Facebook world, this looks like groups. If you’re interested in any topic, if you love CrossFit, if you love cooking, if you love traveling to South America, then there’s definitely going to be a tribe or a Facebook group for you. Here’s some tips about how to maximize Facebook and groups to be able to return your best clients and to be able to grow your business.
1. With Facebook groups, the first thing you need to do or I’d recommend is to start participating in other people’s groups.
In Facebook, you can do a search for groups and you can start putting in keywords for the types of things that you’re interested in. Let’s say I was interested in boxing. I could type in ‘boxing’ and see what type of groups there are around me. Once I find them, you can add yourself into the group.
2. Now that you found the groups that identify you and your likes or your business interests, the next step is to participate in these groups and there’s a unique way of doing it within the Facebook.
This social world means that we’re about adding value, so don’t sell when you get in there. When you jump in, tell your story, add value to other people around you. Quite often, the groups are around sharing tips and sharing ideas or helping a group of people solve a common problem. If you know the answer, if you’ve got some experience, feel free to add value and share that experience instead of putting yourself out there and say, “Buy this,” or “Align yourself with my service.” That won’t get you very far and, in fact, an admin might even remove you from the group if you’re in that sales mode.
3. Tip number 3 is, It is a good opportunity to test some ideas, so you’re not out there to sell and you’re not out there saying, “Buy this, buy that,” but you have the opportunity to put some ideas.
Let’s say you’re thinking about running a webinar, and you weren’t too sure which of the three topics you should do that webinar on. You could go into group and say, “Hey, guys, I represent this business and we are interested in achieving this outcome. We’re thinking about running a webinar on topic 1, 2, or 3. What do you think we should do?” In so doing, that’s give you the ability to, in a very soft and subtle way, have people start to engage or interact with your brand without you being able to say, “Buy my product or register for my webinar.”
4. Now, the 4th and final tip to remember is that a successful group is about a topic and not a brand.
You might be interested in CrossFit but the group isn’t necessarily about specific CrossFit gym. It’s about sharing ideas, about recipes, about workout tips, about the social things that are happening, but it’s not just about that company and that service offering. Once you’re confident with this, start exploring these groups, and “Here’s some great tips or great groups that I love.” There’s a topic or a group that exists called Google Apps for Work. I love the idea of Google Apps. In that group, we go in there to share different ideas about how to best use these applications.
Also, I know of another successful group called The 4 Blades and they’ve got a Facebook group in which those who use the thermomix are able to share recipes, share ideas, and brainstorm challenges that they’re all commonly facing. Once you go through and you become a bit of a Ninja at hanging out in Facebook groups, then and only then would I suggest you go and set up your own Facebook group.
For Inspire, we represent an accounting firm but why we exist is helping young families in small business, and that’s exactly the name of our group, and we all talk about commonly occurring issues or ideas or suggestions that we have as a unique tribe hanging out in that safe environment.
If you like what you learned in today’s video, feel free to start a conversation with us. Like this video. Put a comment up below. We keep an eye on them. Share your ideas. Share your stories. If you’ve got a question, you can ask us and we’ll answer it for you. You can also jump over to InspireCA’s facebook page to find out more about how we use our facebook groups to connect, educate and support other business’.
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