New Facebook Group Features: How to use them to INCREASE Engagement

Wouldn't you like to learn the HOTTEST and NEWEST Facebook features? 

Maybe you know what they are but you're CLUELESS on how they work or don't know how to use them?

In this in-depth training, I show you  screenshots so you can see how Facebook Groups work. Inside FB groups, there are these amazing tools that you can use to increase engagement and I’m going to break them down for you. My main focus will be Watch Parties. I suggest you use these options from your computer first (but there are still things you can do from your phone as well).

But before you dive into this episode, don't forget to grab this weeks free download!

25 Free Posts to Increase Engagement in Your Facebook Group! Click here to grab your free download. 

First and foremost, inside your group page under the Notifications tab, you should have it set to “All Posts” when you’re running a FB group. Make sure to be on top of notifications and what’s going on inside that group. You can actually share your group if its a closed group. If it’s a Secret Group, you can’t share the link and nobody will be able to see it. If it’s a Closed Group you can actually share the group. 

The “More” button is where you can Add Members, Moderate the Group, Edit Group Settings, Archive the Group (that means you’re done with the group and don’t want it around anymore), Put it to your Shortcuts. You can also link existing groups that you have to the group under the “More” button, as well as create a new linked group or create a new group.

Under the “Settings” tab, is your Group Name. You can only change your group name every 28 days. Now, most of you are probably thinking: Why would I want to change my group name? Here’s something powerful to think about. This doesn’t necessarily mean changing the whole name, but for example, adding an exclamation mark. If you change the name of the group, everyone within the group will be notified so no worries! I actually suggest that every 28 days you change it to drive engagement. Add a period or maybe a dollar sign next to your group. You can get as creative as you want with it.

Next to “Group Type”, I have mine as a Support Group. And underneath that is the “Description Box”. Make sure you fill this box out because you want people to know what they are in the group for and what your group is about. Then there is “Location”, which I set to Global. Now, when it comes to “Tags”, if you have a closed group, the tags are going to be REALLY REALLY important. Here’s why. Anytime someone searches in that Search Bar, and their search word includes your tag, you will come up (but this only works if your group is a CLOSED group).

You can link your business page to your group and even choose a color. You can turn on your social learning units in the same place, which is super important. Where it says, “Membership Approval”, I have it set to only Admins and Moderators and I recommend you do the same.

Underneath is Chats and this is a brand new feature! Here, you can actually create chats from the members inside the group. As of right now, I am not currently using this because I haven’t found a way to leverage it yet. No worries, I will let you guys know when I figure it out!

Membership Requests are the questions you want to ask people before they come into the group. This way you can approve them based on how they answered the questions. Plus, it lets you collect data about the people joining your group. How cool is that? I don’t use this option for my team page or my product page for my company, I only do it for my generic Moms & Heels Group. I allow pages to request to join as groups members. As for Posting Permissions, anyone can post in the group but I have to approve it. Make sense?

When you create a post, you can actually schedule a post for a later time using the clock icon at the bottom. You can see the posts you scheduled on the “Discussion Tab”. On the right hand side of the screen are all new members to the group. I highly recommend welcoming them to the group, but you can only welcome 50 at a time. By doing a welcome post, you’re getting them to engage with your group.

The “Announcements” is where you’re going to drive new members to that pinned post. This is where I have my Welcome video. This video tells 3 things that they need to do. You can drive them to watch a video, to turn the notifications on inside the group, and drive them to engage within the group. You guys can go ahead and watch my welcome video to get ideas if that helps. If you look at my cover photo for the group, you will see I put the steps there. If you go to fiverr.com, they can create a quick little cover photo for you.

In the “Members” section, you can sort them alphabetically or by the date they joined. The goal is always to drive people to your group. Now, let’s say you’re running a challenge for your group, and for example, you say, “I’m giving away $100 to the next person who adds the most people into the group within the next 72 hours.” If you need to count up the people that were added, you just go by Join Date and see when they were added. This is also where you go if you want to search for a member or delete a member for being inappropriate. The “Events” is where you would create reminders. For example, it reminds you if you’re going to go live or have an event within the group.

Now, ALL the videos you’ve ever made are in the “Videos” tab (obviously). You can bump up an older video to the top by dragging it up to the top. Same with the “Photos” tab. If you want to bump one up you can do that as well. The “File” section is where you put files for your members to download. You can add a file by going to Post, and then clicking the “More” button on the top right corner, and then “Add File”. One of my fav things about FB groups are the “Group Insights” section.

It is SUPER powerful and will really drive up engagement for you guys.

It will tell you the growth of the group, the engagement of the group, the member details, and all that jazz. If you want to see the growth for the last 7 days you can do that as well. You can see the top posts and how many eyes have seen your posts. You can even see which day of the week you got the most engagement and do more posts on that specific day and within that specific time frame.

Within my Moms & Heels group 8pm is the main time my members are engaging, so I would want to do a FB Live at 8pm. You can also see which members are most engaged. For my top 10, I send thank you cards or a gift to to say thank you for being a top member in the group. I also may create an an “Announcement” shouting out my top members. This makes others want to engage even more in the group. I can’t stress the importance of this tool and hope you will use it because it is amazeballs!

The “Moderate Group” button shows you if you have moderators in the group and what they’ve done. You can even add notes. It’s super awesome the things Facebook groups can do now.

Now, back to the “Discussion” part of the training. If you’re building an email list, this can be the ISH for you. Embed your group onto your email. All you have to do is copy the code and paste it inside of your email. Then all they have to do is click Join from the email OR you drive them back into that Facebook group if you’re doing a challenge for example. This is powerful for me because it gets more people into my group that are already on my email list or even those people that have forgotten about the group.

Now I’m pretty sure you guys know how to create a post (that’s the easy part) but if you have less characters in your post, I suggest you use a background color because it catches people’s attention. If you didn’t know, now you know!

There is also a “Poll” option when you go to create a post. If you’re not utilizing this tool, you are missing out. Don’t miss out Heeler! This allows you to collect data. Now you have data on your group members. Cool huh? “Tupac or Biggie?” for example (I choose Tupac by the way). I suggest you do a poll at least once a week. It’s super important so don’t miss out on that.

When creating posts now you have the option to use a Group Posting Format aka makes your posts STAND OUT and adds some BOOM to it #Fancy. See below in my post example from my Episode 55! (If you don't have this yet, Facebook started rolling it out so you may be getting it shortly.)

Next, there is a “Get Together” option. This is basically when you want to do an event that’s not online, but in a physical place. So if you’re doing home parties, you could use that option. GIFS are also an option and super effective in catching eyes or getting a point across.

Now let’s talk about “Watch Parties”. Here’s the thing. Right now, nobody is using this. So this means you have a chance to do what others are not doing and gives you a leg up in your group.  I need for you to play around with the Watch Parties. You don’t have to become an expert, but in order for it to work, you’re going to have to test it out to see what works and what doesn’t. I just want you to try. Make sense?

You can do a Watch Party in your group or even on your personal page. This allows you to stream videos onto your personal page. It’s basically a FB Live, but a new feature. I can search what friends are watching for example, and add it to the queue, then click done. Make sure that the video is public or members of your group won’t be able to access it. You can add a photo to go with the Watch Party as well. There’s even lists you can choose from to watch with so you can just watch with your customers. After posting the Watch Party, you can watch the video with others while commenting back and forth and eating popcorn.

This is the future people!  

While you’re live, you can create a Watch Party from inside the group. This will draw more people and drive up engagement in your group. You can use Watch Parties on your business page. People in the group can invite other people in the group to the Watch Party. I think this tool is so cool and again, others aren’t using it.

So check this out. How can we leverage Watch Parties? So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to document everything that I do for the Watch Party that I do for my team. And what’s going to happen is this. You’re going to pick a time that you’re going to have an actual presentation every week. You’re going to prerecord a presentation (or a live you’ve done), and you’re going to have a Watch Party one day a week at the same time. Then your team can jump on and invite other people. If you’re confused, no worries because I created a blog that goes into the technicalities of it.

It’s www.momsandheels.com/15download if you want to see the specifics.

In a nutshell? When you’re using all the features inside a Facebook Group and you understand how to use them, it becomes really really powerful and you want to utilize these things for your groups.

Until next time, Byyeeee

xo,

Marina Simone

Please keep in mind that this blog post contains affiliate links. Please note that I only recommend tools that I personally use + love and I always have my Heelers best interest at 💗.