When it comes to social media marketing, especially through Facebook, the usual advice is to create brand pages or communities and expand their reach with the help of Facebook advertisements. However, no one pays attention to Facebook groups. They might be few in number, but they pose several advantages that any other strategy of Facebook marketing is unable to provide.
Small businesses and self-employed with tight budgets need to be careful in social media marketing because without the right information, they can easily end up investing in something that does not give them a positive ROI in the future. And this is why using Facebook for marketing needs careful consideration (especially after all the policy changes).
Why marketers or anyone else should look into Facebook groups? Here are a few reasons:
1. A small niche, with enthusiasts
Using Facebook graph search, you can easily search for any groups in a particular niche. For example, if you want to sell sci-fi merchandise, you can do a search for ‘star wars group’ or star trek group’. Other keywords that can be used in the search are ‘groups about star wars’ and ‘groups about sci-fi’.
The results that will appear will either be in the form of open groups and closed groups. The members of the community might be small, but there are some pages that have members over 10,000. Regardless of the number, these members would take interest in what you have to offer, as they are part of the sci-fi community. You can also find communities related to technology, science etc.
2. Free to join
All the groups that you discover, whether they are open ones for closed ones, are free to join. Most of the group creators are going to accept your request to join the group, and they won’t remove you until you follow the guidelines set by the moderators/creators. But this is not a big worry because group members are often given a lot of liberty when they share posts.
So this means you do not have to pay anyone to be a part of the community, and you would also be able to share posts for free. In case of conventional Facebook advertising, you first have to create a community by taking Facebook ads, and then ‘pay again’ to share your company or blog’s work with that community… Not quite feasible.
3. Untapped opportunity
As it stands now, Facebook groups are an untapped opportunity, because people mostly focus their efforts on conventional Facebook marketing and other platforms like Pinterest and Twitter. Those who can make a name for themselves in different communities on Facebook can reap benefits in the long run.
The communities work in a similar way as Google+ communities. You can also create hash tags along with posts to rank them on a separate hash tag page as well. So posts can be shared in open groups which will increase the chances of brand exposure; all without paying a penny.
Do you use Facebook groups for social media exposure? Feel free to leave comments.
