Although Facebook groups were more popular a few years ago, they’re still very useful for bloggers. There are many ways bloggers can benefit from Facebook groups and in this post we’re going to explain some of them.
1. Promoting your links
This is an old school practice done by many bloggers. Once they get into a Facebook group they start publishing their links into the group hoping that people would click on them.
What they’re doing is in fact considered a form of spamming and this has a negative impact: not only people won’t click on these links, they would also risk the reputation of the bloggers.
Say you’re constantly posting links without providing any context or without anyone raining any related question. People would typically consider you a spammer and would not even pay any attention to your good posts as well.
You won’t be able to build any trust with the members of the group. And as everybody agrees trust is the most important element in marketing (including content promotion).
What they should do instead is finding the right opportunity to share their links. It might happen that the people on the group ask questions about the topic bloggers have written about.
If they’re smart enough (and active in the group) they can easily share the link to the post and get clicks.
And obviously if the post is good enough, it will get engagement and naturally amplified in the group. Other members would be interested to check out the post and they would finally be a follower. Lastly, consider using a Facebook post scheduler to optimize your content sharing strategy and ensure consistent posting at optimal times.
2. Form partnerships
Another way you can benefit from Facebook groups is forming a partnership with like-minded people. In some cases, Facebook groups are closed and only a small number of people are allowed to join it.
In these groups, you can get to know the members better and see if you can help each other out in blogging.
By forming partnerships people are typically reminded of sharing each others’ posts on social media. Thing is there are way more opportunities in partnerships. One way is promoting each other in email lists.
It happens that your email list could be considered a good audience for your partners in the group. It’s a good idea to mention what’s valuable to their audience.
When sending email marketing campaigns remember to talk about your business partner and promote what’s useful for your audience.
Another way is through link building. A lot of marketers are forming partnerships to mention each others’ posts in the guest posts they’re preparing for other blogs or simply get link placements.
This form of collaborative marketing is a good example of how reciprocation can be beneficial in the business world.
Even if the members are not active enough in the group, you can find information about them online and see if they’re good fit for any kind of partnerships.
One way to reach out to them is through cold emailing. Reach out to the members of the Facebook group through email and get them onboard with the partnership idea.
3. Posting surveys
Popular Facebook groups are good places for getting to know people’s ideas about a particular issue.
You could simply ask people to express their opinions about your website’s design, or you can ask them about content ideas. The more popular the Facebook group, the more chances of getting responses from people.
Post a friendly question about your website design and ask people to criticize it as much as they can. You need to be open to new ideas and find out ways to make your design better.
Ask people what could improve their design or whether they know any good examples in your niche that could be worth looking at.
If you’ve run out of content ideas, you can ask some simple questions in the group and find out what interests people the most and write about them. Instead of asking some general questions you can break down the topics and ask some detailed questions.
Another way to know content ideas is through analyzing the questions and issues raised in the group. Some issues raised get lots of interactions and this would be a signal that they’re key issues that need to be addressed.
You need to have a keen eye on the issues and questions raised in the group. See if people really have the same issues and that they mention them recurrently.
Take time to form ideas about these questions and write blog posts about them. Once your posts are published you can share them in the comment section and ask people for feedback.
Finally
Facebook groups are great places for finding like-minded people to form partnerships and benefit from in blogging. What’s important beforehand is the necessity of identifying the right Facebook groups.
Before you even decide to join a group take a look at the kind of content that is being posted in the group or its members. Are they really like-minded people you can help and in exchange have a benefit from?
After joining the right group, it’s time to determine possibilities. Are its members active enough so that you build trust with them and promote your links the right way.
Are they the kind of people with the right resources to form partnerships with you and promote you to their content list or their guest posts?
Are they the kind of bloggers that know what’s a hot topic or do they have enough expertise to raise detailed and good questions? Find out if your Facebook group has any potential in these areas and find ways to take advantage of them.