10 Steps to Massively Grow Your Facebook Group

This is an article by one of my friends and short term coaching clients, Jake Ballentine… he wrote this in an email recently and it was such a great list of tips that he said I could share it on my blog. He really is “all in” with this ONE strategy to really building community so if you want to use Facebook Groups as your main strategy for building community you really want to read this and then connect with him and join his group. – Katrina Sawa

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We recently hit the milestone of 10,000 members in the Speakers, Authors, and Coaches Network Facebook group! This is a huge milestone that I am very excited about! I set this as a goal at the beginning of 2020 and I am very happy to have reached this goal!

I am often asked how I have grown the group and since we hit this milestone I thought it was a good time to go into details on it.

Here are 10 steps I used to grow The Speakers, Authors, and Coaches Network Facebook Group to 10,000 members. I encourage you to follow these steps and see what they do for you.

1. Be specific: Be clear and specific about who the group is for and what the group is about. If it is a general group on a general topic it will be challenging to attract the right people.

2. Create the group for the ideal member: Many group owners create the group and content for the entire group. I say to focus on the type of people you want more of. Make the group for the ideal group member and you will attract more of them. Once you have a small group look for the people that you want more of and ask them what they like about the group and what you can do to improve. Ask them what they like in other groups, and what they dislike in other groups. Ask them about the content they would like to learn more about and any other questions you can think of that would apply to your ideal group member. Take the answers to these questions and tailor the group for that ideal member. Do this and you will attract more people just like them!

3. Quality over quantity: This is a big one! People are so excited to grow their group that they don’t think about group quality and member quality. It doesn’t matter if you have a massive group with the wrong people. Or a group that may be big but no one sees the content. If you run a high quality group it will grow in size and will grow with the right people that will actually help you in your business or mission. Focus on creating consistent, quality content for the group and it will make a big difference.

4. Engagement is key: This one is an extension of “quality over quantity.” In a Facebook group nothing matters more than engagement on your posts and member created content. If your members are liking, commenting, and posting it is an engaged group. The reason this matters so much is the more engagement the higher the deliverability of your content to your group members. Also, the more engagement the more people will find your group. Facebook suggests high quality groups to people they think would be interested in the group. The higher the engagement the more your group will be suggested. This is free advertising that comes as a reward for creating a high quality and highly engaged group.

5. Make the group about them: Yes! The group is about them and not about you. The first group I ever created was called “The Jake Ballentine Group.” It was an absolute flop! Why? Because it was about me and not about them. A group is not your fan page. A group is a community centered around a shared interest. Make it about them and not about you. You are a leader in the community that you create.

6. Tell people about the group: Tell people that the group exists. People need to be aware that it exists before they can come and join. Awareness is usually the first obstacle. Tell everyone you meet about the group you run. Use your social media to tell people about the group. Set up your Facebook profile and bio to lead people to your group so when they look to see who you are and what you are about they will go to the group and check it out.

7. Leverage other people who have an audience: Look for people who have a similar type of audience and create a win win for both of you. Interview swap or promote each other somehow to share each other’s audiences. I started doing this from the very beginning. I did it with other groups who were also small but I knew that even if I was starting small I would grow and later I would be doing cross promotion with bigger audiences. This strategy takes time and effort but is well worth it!

8. Invite others to help you: If you have followed the first 5 steps and created a high quality, highly engaged community for a specific audience people will want to help you. But most people will not help unless they are asked. Most people want to help but don’t know how or forget and need to be asked. Ask group members to share the group with friends they think would be a good fit for the group.

9. Be consistent: This one will stop more people than any other on this list. Many people get excited and start a group and work hard at first but once they get bored they move on. Be consistent and it will pay off over time.

10. Take Action: Get started taking action. This list tells you what to do but without action it means nothing. Move forward and take action now!

I hope this list helps you move forward and take action. Building your own Facebook group can make a huge impact on your business! I went into more detail in a training I made that includes this in a 30 minute video plus 2 additional video trainings on the step by step approach to grow your Facebook group or any other type of online audience. The training is absolutely free and available now!

Jake Ballentine
Founder of The Speakers, Authors, and Coaches Network!

If you want Jake’s full training on how he built the Speakers, Authors, and Coaches Network Facebook group to 10,000 members, you can get that here: https://www.speakerauthorcoach.net/group