Increase Web Site Traffic through Social Marketing Groups
The beauty of Facebook and LinkedIn is that there are methods for finding and building a relationship with potential clients on a couple of different levels.
Most of the time you’ll start out by getting to know people one at a time, which is just fine when you’re new to social marketing.
Start to build a group of people you’re connected to, get to know those people as much as you can, and build yourself a network.
Starting a group
Starting a Facebook group is simple. A little too simple, it turns out. A vast majority of all Facebook groups never collect the swelling numbers of group members they’d like.
Most people when they form a group mistakenly expect that the group they create is interesting enough, in and of itself, that people will naturally join it…and then it goes on to collect a couple dozen members over the next 6 months.
The problem
The main issue most new groups have when they first get started is a lack of momentum. It’s a lack of exposure.
When someone searches for a group to join, Facebook and LinkedIn generally list groups in order of how relevant the name of the group is and the number of members belong to the group. The top groups keep attracting more members based on their already large current membership.
So how do you become a top group?
Scope out the competition
If you’re going to launch a successful group, let’s say using Facebook, plug your businesses keywords into Facebook’s search bar and see what comes up. Find several groups that are similar to the one you’d like to start.
How many members do these groups already have? These are the numbers you want to beat.
You want to be at the top of the search position yourself, so don’t start a group till you’re prepared with a few things…
A successful launch
Here are a few things that will build momentum quickly for your group:
Have a large network
If you’re going to launch a successful group, let’s say using Facebook, I wouldn’t attempt it without having a large network of “friends” that you can invite–friends that are mostly made up of people who would be interested in the group you’re creating.
How many friends would you want to have before you start?
If the group you want to beat has 500 members, you’ll want at least that many friends who would be interested in joining your group. At least that many.
Don’t forget to advertise your group outside of Facebook as well. If you have another network or an email list of interested people, be sure to invite them to join.
Your group name
You can call your group whatever you want.
Feel free to make it catchy and descriptive, but you want to take some time to do some research when it comes to people finding your group through Facebook’s search bar.
It seems that Facebook mostly lists the most exact matches first, so it might be a good idea to take a keyword phrase that looks like it’s drawing some traffic (see what keywords other popular groups have in their name) and name your group accordingly. It looks like the more words in your group name the farther down on the list you are, so keywords stuffing in your group name doesn’t help much in the searches.
Make the picture count
Your picture will do a lot to draw attention to your group.
You’ll notice that the taller it is the more space you get. That’s a good thing.
High contrast is also good. You want it to pop out when people see it.
Offer incentives
Give people a reason to join.
Offer information or freebies for group members.
Ask
When you send out messages to your group, remind them to invite other friends.
Advertise on Facebook
You might consider taking out an ad on the right side of the screen to attract people you haven’t met yet.
Do whatever you can to make it work
You really want to make this count, because done right you’ll have leads continually flowing into your group.