We hope to answer these and numerous other questions in our thoughtful book on, "Facebook for Social Enterprise," to launch May 16 in New York City; RSVP via Facebook today! You can also get a complimentary copy of our book! Be one of the first 250 by reserving your copy today!
There are many reasons your organization could consider using Facebook groups. Numerous green businesses are using Facebook groups successfully including HUB NYC and Go Green Expo, and numerous collaboratives and co-operatives use Facebook groups, including the Green Design or Ethical Fashion Forum. Facebook groups are increasing opportunity for social enterprise because they are more conversation-oriented.
If you have not considered using Facebook groups, or have questions about how to integrate your next Facebook campaign within your marketing strategy, give us a chat at +1 646.233.3265.
Without ado, below are the top 10 recommendations for using Facebook groups for green business or not-for-profit.
1. Depending on the content of your Group, make sure you enable participants to recommend others to join the group through inviting members. You can do this by making sure yours is an 'Open group'.
Note: There are three privacy settings for your group, including: secret, closed and open. If you’re creating a Facebook group for your business or organization, open groups are recommended.
2. Create a group name including the name of your company if your target message is around your company or not-for-profit. Go Green Expo did this effectively, also while fostering conversation within the American green community.
3. Invite contacts who would be interested in joining the conversation. Don't invite a member you would not think would enjoy the conversation, but if members are uninterested, they can leave the group easily.
4. Provide an e-mail address for the administrator and now you have more opportunities to connect and have conversation with your participants. This was effectively used in the HUB NYC group below.
5. Create a conversation topic to start discussions. The conversation could be about a recent event your organization will speak at, recent or noteworthy news, recommendations from other businesses pages or groups, as well as industry-related content that keeps your community engaged.
6. @Mention individual users, as @mentioning business pages and other groups is not yet enabled. This can inform other users to join the group and promote conversations to other users; whether promoting conversation about a specific event, campaign or new product, this is a great place to cross-promote.
7. Create questions using the question feature and encourage friends and/or group members to answer by suggesting the question--make sure, though, that it's interesting and relevant to their situation. You can also let others create their own answers by selecting the 'add poll options', and 'allow any user to add options'. The Ethical Fashion Forum helped create an environment that fosters great conversations and posts by members.
8. Create your own content so you are not constantly sharing others’ content. The key to creating and sharing content is about 1) being interesting, 2) creative and 3) relevant within your industry .
Ideas for creating your own content includes blog posts, pictures of your companies’ representatives speaking, or videos to accompany your current campaigns or launches.
9. Get your Twitter community involved in promoting your conversations. Tweet about updates happening on your Facebook group, especially when interesting events or topics are promoted.
Side note: Currently, you cannot connect your updates directly to Twitter. However, you can recommend others join the group with the call to action for potential members to request to join.
10. Tell others to recommend their friends. Again, if you ask individuals to ask their friends, tell them if they want a favor from you, they should feel free to ask you. Being the friend who always asks for favors can be a precarious place to be.
11. Publicize offline. From your promotional material to e-mail signature, you should put links to your social networks (including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and/or your blog) in as many places as possible to advertise your online presence. Ultimately, in the long term, more active users means more opportunities to win their donations or purchase dollars!
Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Marketing & Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. She is co-author of Facebook for Social Enterprise and writes frequently for media outlets such as Treehugger. Follow @EricaGrigg on Twitter or visit Erica Grigg on LinkedIn to connect professionally. She has spoken to hundreds around the world on using social media for green business and not-for-profit, and organizes and chairs the Marketing & PR for Social Enterprise Meetup.
This is all great stuff, but what about Facebook Pages instead of groups? Which one is more effective? For example, on Pages, I can't message members, but my impression is that Pages are now the norm instead of groups. Would be curious to know your opinion!
ReplyDeleteHey Sami, Thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteDepending on what you are using the Facebook group for, it can create more user-generated conversation versus pages. Groups can also create pages, edit documents and have a group conversation. Those features are not available in Facebook pages. However, you cannot @mention other groups or pages via groups, and there are several other subtle differences.
For all these reasons, pages are the preferred method for many businesses. For more information on pages versus groups, as well as personal brand development, would recommend you sign up for a complimentary copy of our book when it launches May 16. Sign up at http://carbonoutreach.com/books/facebook