How to Start, Grow & Monetize a Facebook Group

If you figure out how to grow a Facebook group correctly, your earning potential is limitless.  There’s a reason that over 1 billion people use Facebook groups. Facebook has noticed how meaningful and valuable groups are and have introduced new features for group creators that have changed the game.

BUT LET’S BACK UP, AND GET ONE THING STRAIGHT

An email list is significant and is essential to growing your business. There’s no question about it.

Having an email list full of YOUR people (your target audience) is vital to a flourishing blog or business.

Your email list is only one piece of the puzzle. Many of us have been missing a huge component.
If you plan to sell digital products of any kind (and you certainly should!), learning how to grow a Facebook group can be your golden ticket to earning the big bucks.

Facebook groups can bring loads of blog traffic, income, dedicated raving fans, and an engaged community. Once you put in the initial work, your group runs itself.

And those raving fans you’ve created? They’ll turn into your biggest promoters!

Hello, passive income.

Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into why you need a Facebook group, how to start one, how to grow and promote a Facebook group successfully with massive engagement, and how to use it to catapult your traffic, income, credibility, and your business.

Let’s start

1. Why do you need a Facebook group?

Running a thriving Facebook group is valuable and can bring success, credibility, money, and a real sense of community.  You’re able to reach endless amounts of ‘your people’ through a Facebook group.

Even your affiliate marketing income can skyrocket if you utilize your own Facebook group (if you don’t plan to sell digital products).  It’s also an exceptional place to host a close-knit community of like-minded individuals. Imagine that.. a whole group FULL of your target audience? It’s every blogger’s dream!

Even small groups can have huge impacts on a business.

You may still be wondering if it’s even worth the time and effort to learn how to grow a Facebook group?

Hell, YES, it is.  And let me tell you why.

Speaking of email open rates, these are extremely low. According to this American 2016 study, the highest open rate is in the Pet and Animal Services niche — and their open rate is only 22.1%. Many similar studies show the same statistics. The rest of the niches have email open rates between 4.7% to 19.9%. Yikes.

And these numbers continue to get lower. This is why you NEED to jump on the Facebook group bandwagon and fast.

Am I sure you’ve heard of diversifying your income?

Well, it’s the same for obtaining traffic, sales, and leads. You shouldn’t count on just your email list or only your Facebook group. I suggest a combination of varying tactics for the best results!

All of these pieces of the puzzle create an excellent monetization strategy when combined.

So now you know why it’s mandatory to start a Facebook group. Let’s plunge into the steps you need to take to create a profitable Facebook group. And how to grow it into a money-making machine.

2. What are the purpose and the target audience?

Maybe you’re thinking about starting a Facebook group? Or how to grow a Facebook group to bring in more income?

Or maybe you started one before, and you felt it was an utter disgrace?

Don’t fret. We’ve all had at least one project flop.

What matters is if you get back up, dust yourself off, and keep on truckin’.

If you don’t have a clear purpose and vision, you won’t have a profitable group with goals and steps to reach those goals. Plain and simple. It’ll be mayhem, a waste of time, and you won’t get results.

And that’s the biggest reason Facebook groups don’t make money or grow the way they imagined.

You could have 50,000 members, but if you don’t have a clear purpose, goals, vision, and a target audience, you don’t hope to profit from your group.

Do some brainstorming, and write down your answers to these questions. It’ll help give you that purpose and vision you need to get started.

Learning how to start a Facebook group is no easy feat. There are no shortcuts. If you think it’ll be easy, you’re mistaken. Like anything in the over-saturated blogging world, it’s damn hard work!

You have to be prepared for a heck of a lot of hard work. But, if you’re reading this, I guess you’re ready to put in the work. You’re ready to get serious about blogging, or you’re prepared to level up and start making more money than ever!

YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

To learn how to grow a Facebook group, brainstorming will be your first step. After brainstorming and writing down your vision and your group’s purpose, it’s time to hone in and figure out your target audience.

Your target audience is the absolute key to turning your Facebook group into a money-making machine. 

The same sort of ”rules” apply to Facebook groups to blogs to target audiences/target customers.

It would help if you ALWAYS aimed to appeal to ONLY a specific, particular set of people.
This is your target audience/target client/target client.

You don’t want to appeal to everyone. I repeat, you do NOT want to appeal to everyone. You won’t make money that way. Everyone likes different things.

Ask yourself some questions. Brainstorm and write it down, just as you should when deciding on your group’s purpose, goals, and vision.

Although we’re talking about how to grow a Facebook group today, when choosing a target audience — you can use these questions/formulas for determining your target audience for your blog, too! It will be the same target audience (I know for me, it is).

In my Facebook group, I target female bloggers and entrepreneurs. But even more specifically, moms. Of a specific demographic. I target a particular age group, income base and look at other factors.

Your target audience should be clear in your mind and be as precise as possible.

For example, if you have a “Mom Blog” and wanted to grow your Facebook group to target the same people, you would NOT say your target audience is “moms’.

That’s far too general.

Here are some ideas and examples.

Never leave your target audience as something as broad as ”moms” or ”women.” It’s smart to spend a bit of time deciding who your ideal reader, customer, or client is — long before you start the group.

The bottom line:

Once you decide on your target audience, see if you can narrow it down even more.

Even if it’s ultra-specific, I promise you there will be a group of people out there that fits into that criteria. That’s the power of the internet!

If you have a broad target audience, it’ll make it near impossible to identify their pain points. And if you don’t know their pain points, how are you supposed to create content, freebies, and paid products for them?

You can’t.

Well, sure you can — but they won’t sell.

3. How to start your Facebook group

Now comes the fun part — creating your community. If you want to expand your email list on autopilot, make more money than you could have ever imagined, and establish authority in your niche, business, blog, and your Facebook group — follow these steps!

Figuring out how to grow a Facebook group will be easy peasy after you follow these steps!

3.1 Creating your group

On your newsfeed (main page when you log in to Facebook), on the bottom left-hand side, click on “GROUP” right under “CREATE.” See the image below.

Once you see ”Create,” click on ”Group,” and fill out all the necessary information.

4. Choosing a name for your Facebook group

When deciding on a name for your Facebook group, you want to refer back to #2 of this post. Look at your purpose, and most importantly: your target audience/customers/clients.

Choose something relevant to the people you’re targetting. A group name will make it crystal clear WHAT the group is about and WHO the group is for. 

In my group, Mompreneurs & Lady Boss Bloggers, I wanted to make it clear in the group’s name. Mompreneurs and female bloggers. (But I also have entrepreneurs who aren’t moms. They just aren’t my exact target audience. Which is okay!) I’ve also added a sentence to explain further. So when someone lands on my group, there’s no doubt whether this group is for them or not.

5. A few more steps to set it up

Next, you need people in your group. (Your target audience/clients/customers) You can add a few friends if they’re in your target audience, but ask their permission before adding anyone. A month after I created my group, I realized that when I ”add” people to my Facebook group, they aren’t sent a request as I had thought!

 I was horrified and embarrassed to find out I’d been adding people to my group without their consent. So be mindful of that. Send a mass message to anyone you think may be interested in joining instead of adding them without their knowledge or consent.

SIDENOTE: An entire section will be coming up towards the end to show you how to grow a Facebook group and grow your member list full of your target audience — this is just for your first few members if you want to have a few first.

Set up the “Privacy Settings.” I recommend ”Closed.” A Closed Group is searchable in the search bar, but the posts are private. If you set it as an “Open Group,” it will lead to mayhem, and your members will not find it a safe place to engage and ask questions. But if you make it a  ”Private Group,” nobody will be able to find the group.  Unless you manually give them the link. This is why having a “Closed Group” is suggested. 

Fill out your description, tags, location, and any other information that’s missing. You’ll set up questions for members to answer that you review before they are accepted into the group, which we’ll talk about next. You’ll also put up a branded cover photo and create your group rules. Again, we’ll talk about all of that in detail shortly.

6. Set up 1-3 questions to keep spammers away

You’ve probably requested to join a group and had a pop-up ask you 1-3 questions before you can join the group. These questions are crucial to determine if this person is a good fit for your group.

Because, again, you don’t want to appeal to everyone. Only your targeted audience/customers/clients.

Set at least one question (I suggest adding 2).

I like to use one of them to remind or ask the new member to immediately read the group rules upon acceptance and the other question as a market research question.

I get into the minds of my group members with my market research question. I can then create content, freebies, and paid products that they genuinely are interested in and address their most significant pain points and issues.

And that is what’s going to allow you to grow your Facebook group into a money-making machine!

As you can see below, you can see your member requests. You can see what groups they’re a part of if you have mutual friends and other useful info.

And the second arrow shows where you set up your questions. When you click ”ASK PENDING MEMBERS QUESTIONS,” you can set your 1-3 questions and hit ”SAVE” when you’re done.

7. Create the group rules

It’s vital to establish a set of ground rules from the get-go. Not only to show your members you’re the admin and creator of the group — but it builds authority and credibility in your niche.

Monitor the members to ensure everyone is following the rules you’ve laid out. As tough as it may be, you have to be strong and delete or ban members who don’t follow the rules.

When you learn how to grow a Facebook group, you may feel unqualified to tell anyone what to do. I know I did!

But don’t forget it’s your group, your rules, and you are the admin/creator.

You can set up your rules in a few ways:

1. A pinned post stating all the rules (with an image you whipped up in Canva is best, or a stock photo if not)
2. A pinned video of you (a FB live) going over the group rules. With a written description of the rules included as well, that you write above the video.

Ensure you put your group rules in your ”GROUP DESCRIPTION.” Your group rules should always be found in a pinned post and the group description on the right-hand side.

I decided on my rules by looking at other groups in my niche for inspiration (don’t copy!), mixed with what I envisioned for my group already.

You’ll want to include a freebie (lead magnet, opt-in freebie, etc.) in both your pinned post and your group description. As well as a link to your blog or website.

I like to have a few of my most relevant and popular blog posts posted in there, too. Ones that my members will find particularly valuable.

Once your group grows to a certain size, you’ll likely need to bring moderators or other admins in to assist you. You’re a busy lady boss, after all! Moderators are the same as an admin, except with less power to do things in the group.

DON’T FORGET TO ADD YOUR ‘PROMO SCHEDULE’ OR ‘WEEKLY THREADS.’

You can get as creative as you want with these! Or keep them simple to start and work your way up to having a thread for each day of the week.

I started with one ‘promo day” or ”promotions day.” Where members could post their blog posts in the thread and one other thread that wasn’t allowed to have links, I post the rules of that thread, what’s allowed, what’s not, right above the image I upload.

Here are two examples of my ‘Motivation Monday” and my ”Promo Tuesday.’  Take a look at what other groups in your niche are posting to give you an idea. Or make up your own entirely!

8. Craft a visually appealing cover for your group

It’s essential to craft a visually appealing cover photo for your Facebook group, using whatever program you’re comfortable using.

I use Canva. The wonderful thing about Canva is you don’t have to be a graphic designer! If done right, you can create visuals in Canva that look stunning and professional. Like you hired someone to do it.

And it’s free.

With the option to upgrade for $12.95 US to ”Canva for Work.” This does come with more features, but the free Canva will work beautifully if you’re bootstrapping it.

With your cover photo, you want to make it clear who you serve, what the purpose of the group is, and who you are (the host of the group).

As you can see below, Elna Cains’ group Mom to Mompreneur covers all of those bases. She tells who the group is for, the group’s purpose, and mentions that she is the host. She even has a picture of herself — which I suggest doing. It personalizes your brand and puts a face to your business.

9. How to Grow and Promote your Facebook group

While you’ve done a healthy chunk of the work already, learning creative ways to promote and grow your group is imperative and requires hard work on your part if you want to use your group as a tool to bring in loads of income.

PROMOTING AND GROWING YOUR GROUP

You’ll have loads of the RIGHT people lining up to join your group, then opt-in for your freebie and email list, and then comes the part of turning your Facebook group into a money-making machine.

Most of the ways you can promote your group will be on autopilot — after you’ve set the groundwork.

You’re going to want to promote your group everywhere possible!

Make it your mission every day for the first month. Then after that, you’ll have specific promotion tactics already working on autopilot, which will continually promote your group for you. Then, after that first 30 days of massive promotion, you’ll only have to do a tad of work to grow your group.

Most of these tactics will promote your group on autopilot, saving you loads of time. Get creative! Anywhere you think your target audience hangs out or will be, post your link.

Your group will start to attract the right people and slowly (or quickly if you hustle) turn into a thriving community of like-minded people. And this is imperative to set the foundation so that your group can be profitable!

10. Monetize Your Facebook Group

Now that you’ve learned how to grow a Facebook group and transform it into a community full of your target audience  — you’re sitting on a gold mine. 

These are just some of the ways to transform your group into a money-making machine. But it’s essential to remember you can’t go forward with these steps until you’ve done everything else to set the foundation first.

Why? Because you need to set the foundation and build a REAL community of the RIGHT people before you can even think about profitability from your group.

You don’t want to come off as overzealous with the sales-type stuff.

That may sound counterintuitive, but it’ll turn people off if you’re constantly trying to sell to them in any intrusive manner. There are better ways to go about it.

I know I mentioned promoting your webinars in the group, but you want to keep any obvious sales tactics to a minimum. Of course, you can and should mention your webinars in your group, as well as your blog posts and things like that.

But learn some copywriting skills (if you don’t know how to write copy already), so you can word the promotion of your webinar in such a way that shows the value and lures people in.

People want to know what you’re going to do for them. Otherwise, you’ll come off as someone who’s in it for the money only.

Yes, we all have to eat. Most of us have a family to feed.

But to truly be good at what you do in this business, you need passion. If you don’t genuinely want to help people in a niche like mine, those people will sniff it out. And you won’t make a dime.

You have to find a balance between earning money (and you can still have BIG money goals) and being authentic, genuine, and providing value.

The best way to make money from your Facebook group is to build a community, get people on your email list, use email list sales funnels to turn them into customers, and allow your community to help sell for you. Your group should be more of a tool. 

Once you have people in your group on your email list who eagerly read all of your blog posts and sign up for your freebies — these will become the raving fans.  They’ll be the ones to purchase your products or services and happily promote them! Because they believe in them, and they will become your best asset.

You’ll find that the different streams of income you make from your blog can be used in your Facebook group to help maximize those earnings.

You Can Use Your Facebook Group to Help Maximize Your Earnings With:

• Affiliate marketing. [Check our affiliate marketing guide here].
• Selling your e-books.
• Selling e-courses & other digital products.
• Your services (freelance services, etc.)

And You Can Also Use Your Group to Maximize:

• Your blog’s traffic.
• Your email list.
• Social media followings on all platforms.

Final thoughts

Once you learn how to grow a Facebook group and begin to accumulate members, you’ll begin to see engagement. If you follow these steps to ensure your group is set up properly from day one, that engagement can put your group on autopilot.

Then, it’s only a few steps until you’re able to make money from your group. Eventually, turn your Facebook group into your biggest income source!

More and more bloggers and entrepreneurs are catching on. There’s one blogger, Caitlin Bacher, who strictly blogs about Facebook groups and all their glory. She’s said various times that her Facebook group IS how she makes most of her money.

If she, and others, can make 6-7 figures using their Facebook group as a money-making tool — so can you!

Do you have a Facebook group already? Or are you going to create one now? Let me know down in the comments!

Until next time,