12 Mistakes to Avoid in Facebook Groups

A beginner group admin who just took this marketing path, doesn't know what mistakes to avoid in Facebook Groups. It is common for someone to just assume they know some things about this topic, because they are members of a group, or they even have a personal Facebook Group.

But marketing on Facebook Groups has some aspects that you should know about. I called these next ideas, mistakes made on Facebook Groups – mistakes made by the admin and the owner of the groups. They are an example of what not to do on Facebook Groups if you want to have a successful one. Of course, you can test these ideas and choose what suits best for you.

1. Do not schedule all of your posts on Facebook Groups
2. Don't answer your members in a private message
3. Don't just share links without a little explanation and personalization
4. Stop always cross-posting
5. Do not constantly promote yourself and your company
6. You don't help and communicate with your members
7. Your Facebook Group doesn't have any rules
8. You expect people to have common sense
9. You're always serious and you don't have fun
10. Stop adding people in your group without their consent
11. You don't pre-select your members
12. Your Facebook Group isn't private

Designed with help from rosapuchalt/Freepik

With this relatively new feature of Facebook Groups, it can be really tempting to schedule all of your posts. This is mainly due to the fact that you are accustomed to do so with all other social media channels. But understand this:

A Facebook Group is different from all other social media, because a Facebook Group is a community.

A community means that people are genuinely interested in the topic discussed. They are looking for persons with similar interests, and they want to find and share ideas. They don't join a group to see a robot talking to them. People expect you to engage with them, to help them when they need to, and to find great valuable content.

Members of a Facebook Group want to know and see that you are involved 100%. This is how they'll trust you.

Sure, you are a busy person, and scheduled posts will help you. But don't overuse them. Post scheduled messages:

1. when you are away, but let your members know that you'll do this. In this way, they'll know that you'll be back and scheduled posts will appear only for a limited amount of time;
2. when you want to post regular, not engaging content, such as what's new this week.

Basically, scheduled posts are OK to use if they don't aim to engage your members.

Scheduled posts should be purely informational.

PM means private message, for those of you who don't know. Let's emphasize the word private. As I said, a Facebook Group is a community, based on interactions. Why would you want to keep your members away from answers and discussions?

Why would you make your answers private, instead of sharing your information with everyone in your Facebook Group? Asking your members to PM you whenever they need an answer is definitely a mistake on Facebook Groups.

Understand you've created a Facebook Group in order to bring people together and help them with your valuable knowledge. Your members join your Facebook Group because they know that maybe there's another person who asked the question that's been on their minds. And they know they'll find the answer.

Imagine you being a member and trying to find some information. You finally found the question you need, you are all excited to read the answer, but in the comment, you only find some “of course I can help you with this. PM me for more details!”. Wouldn't that be frustrating?

Also, you are not doing a mistake only with your members, but with yourself, too. Think of all those people that will send you a private message all regarding a similar message. It will take you a lot of time to give the same answer to them all. And it will become frustrating, so here's for another one of the mistakes to avoid on Facebook Groups.

Your website may be full of information, full of products, full of whatever you want. People join Facebook Groups because they want specific answers. There will be no engagement if you will just copy the website link and paste it as a post or as an answer.

Give your members some personalization. They want to feel taken into account.

You are aware that your products/services were created to offer people a few niches. Some may use your product for a particular things, some may used for another.

Don't just paste a link with your product whenever someone asks for something and you think that it will be a good fit. Share something useful about this product, tell your members know why your product is a good fit. Don't let them search for this info, because they will not.

Similar to this, if you have some written content, share it along with some commentaries: why did you write that, emphasize a snippet from it, ask you members their opinion.

To be short, always engage with people on Facebook Groups, don't appear like a little robot.

Having even just two Facebook Groups can be challenging. You'll be tempted to share the same information and content across all of your groups, or across your Facebook Page and Facebook Group.

Remember that you created a specific group so that you'll be able to offer your customers/future customers original content, and created only for that group. If your members will see that you post the same things on all of your groups or on both your Facebook Group and Facebook Page, they will not be able to differentiate them. This can go to the extent that they'll think it's of no use to follow both of the Facebook Groups and/or Facebook Page.

Do you want to get to the point of slowly losing all of your members, because they will choose to follow the other group/the page? I'm guessing not.

There are two things that combine here. The first one is that we live in a world where people started to hate being to told or being pressured to buy right in their face. They want to trust you, as an entrepreneur or as a business, before they will decide to buy something from you.

It is crucial to gain your customers' trust before everything that requires selling.

I strongly agree with the idea that your content or your actions should be the ones that sell your product. Many people like to find things about the company, check their story, see how they act in real life and in social media. All of these before they decide to buy. Yes call-to-actions still work, but you also need to gain trust.

Some impulse buyers may buy from you instantly, but if they will see that you don't act good, you don't offer anything more than just “sell, sell, sell”, they will not be loyal to you.

The second thing is that, as I've said many times, people join Facebook Groups to find information, valuable content, advice etc. They will leave your group if they'll see that you only post about a discount of your products, a bundle promotion or anything similar. Your Facebook Group members need and want valuable knowledge.

You can promote yourself from time to time, but even in those times, try to combine the selling process with something valuable in terms of information/knowledge. Present the benefits they'll have if they'll use your product, in simple real-life examples.

What you want to do is be a leader, not a boss. Guide your members with advice and information. Let them know that if they will have a problem, you'll be there for them. Gain your trust, and don't be that admin that needs to be tagged in a post so that he'll answer with a superficial comment.

Of course, you should let you members try to help each other, as I've said in the previous article, but keep a close eye on them and get yourself involved if things stagnate.

You can even get into their discussions, trying to be their friend, also. These will make your group thrive and your members loyal to you. They'll even spread the word, and you'll constantly have new, interested members.

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In life it is best to be friendly, but severe. This mistake people do on Facebook Groups goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. You have to be a leader, but a leader also knows how to apply his rules and make his colleagues follow them.

No rules will lead to a high level of disorganization. This will make your members leave you group, as they'll not want to be part of a community that has no guidelines.

Don't be afraid to apply your rules. Severity isn't a bad thing. It is just a way of keeping things under control. If you see a member that doesn't obey your rules, write him a personal message. If he/she continues, you are totally free to remove that member from your group.

Besides, if your group gets bigger and bigger, it will be hard to give your members second-chances, and it will be hard to write to each one of them (hopefully, they will not be that many). In this case, you can specify right from the beginning that you will remove a member without a notice.

Put your Facebook Group and your members' good first. Don't let anyone ruin what you built.

You should constantly act like “better safe, than sorry”, so this is another to do on Facebook Groups. Expect that people will try to get as much as they can from you, even if you are really trying to offer them as much as you can. And even if they know this.

It could happen that your free content slips away to some members that will try to make money out of it. Or your members will get annoyed and demand that you offer more free stuff in your Facebook Group. Or people will just be mean with you, other members or your company.

Expect these things and try to overcome them.  Write a procedure for every case you can think of. In this way, you'll know exactly how to act, and you'll act fast.

Work should be also fun. Create some weekly posts that involve something funny. This will help all of your members: the new ones will know that they will be comfortable in your group, and the older ones will feel better.

There are tons of ideas that you can use. Not to mention that these will be great engagement posts that will bring your members altogether.

I wrote some fun engagement ideas for Facebook Groups right in my previous article. Just a give you an idea, you can post the following:

1. Tell your favorite TV series/movie using just emojis;
2. Share the funniest joke you know;
3. How's your Friday night, using only gifs.

Having fun triggers some positive emotions. They'll help your Facebook Group members be comfortable, and trust you, as a company/entrepreneur. In a state of happiness, they will sure be more open to buy.

Designed with help from zirconicusso/ Freepik

One of the most important things is to create a niche Facebook Group. How can you do this? Certainly, not by inviting absolutely every person you have in your Facebook friends list. You may be friends with all of them, but that doesn't mean they share the same interests.

You should add in your Facebook Group only the people you know they are or can be interested in what you offer. One of the actions you can do is to contact each of the persons you suppose is interested, and tell them a bit about your group. Add call-to-action and a link for them to join your group. This is how you get people to join your Facebook Group.

At one point, your group will start growing on its own. You'll no longer need to invite people, at least not that often. To make sure you'll still have that niche Facebook Group, you are able to add some questions for your future members.

When someone wants to join your group, they'll be prompted to answer some questions. Ask them something relevant, that will help you know if they are a good match for your group. Think that if they don't answer, they'll probably not that interested. Or maybe they'll even become those members that don't follow your rules.

Don't add many questions, though. A maximum of 3 should be relevant enough. Pre-select your members and keep your Facebook Group clean and organized.

Keeping a clean and organized Facebook Group can be a difficult task, even if you do the things I mentioned above.

To ensure you make the most out of your actions at number 10 and 11, you must make your Facebook Group private. You really don't want anyone to join your group. This can lead to several things:

• it can create a traffic you can't keep up to. You don't want to spend your time looking at the people coming and going. You want to know which of the members are loyal, how is your Facebook Group growing, and so on;
• people spamming your group. You definitely don't want this situation. It will ruin your existing members' interest and trust in you.

How to make your Facebook Group private? Just click on the More button, and then on Edit Group Settings.

After this, search for the Privacy block and click on Change Privacy Settings button. Select the Private option and you're all set!

Marketing on Facebook Groups is not as easy as you think. It can be challenging to grow a Facebook Group. There are a lot of things and mistakes you should not do in Facebook Group as the admin. To sum up, you:

• should schedule all of your posts;
• should answer your members in private;
• only promote yourself or your company;
• don't have fun;
• invite everyone in your group, without asking for consent;
• don't make the group private

And the list goes on. Pay attention to all of these things. If one of these situations listed doesn't seem right for your Facebook Group, don't choose it. These are general mistakes that most of the admins do on Facebook, but you should know best your Facebook Group; therefore, what is good and what you should not do on Facebook Groups.

Featured photo is designed with help from katemangostar/Freepik