Today’s episode chats with Brooke Jefferson all about the art of growing and running a Facebook group. She shares her top 3 tips for growing and engaging with your group, the BEST ways to monetize, and her advice for those looking to break into the Facebook group space (because NO – Facebook isn’t dead)! You can find Brooke HERE.
How To Grow + Monetize A Facebook Group with Brooke Jefferson
Brooke Jefferson is a photographer, marketing strategist, and mentor, who thrives on helping photographers book more clients through marketing their businesses on social media and building relationships with their local communities. Her focus is helping others maximize their potential by creating a profitable, sustainable, and most importantly, a fulfilling photography business. She’s built a 6-figure photography business that was born from a new found passion in 2014. Her podcast, Book More Clients Photography Podcast has over 100,000 downloads. She also has a photographer community on Facebook with over 7,500 members.
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BULLET POINTS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- What does hustle like a mother mean to you?
- Where I’m at in this season, when I hear hustle like a mother, it really paints this picture for me of this woman who is strong, clear-minded, determined, and well-balanced. I picture this woman who is serving her family, serving her business, and really serving the world at her highest potential. And honestly, for me, from a biblical standpoint, it’s the Proverbs 31 woman.
- Why should we set our sights on growing a Facebook group?
- First and foremost, regardless of what platform you choose, I really want to invite the listener to look at them all and choose which one fits your personality, your model, and your ideal client, the best. And go with that one.
- If you choose that Facebook is one of those platforms for you, for your ideal client, and your business model – then Facebook groups are where you need to go.
- There are two ways of looking at this:
- There is a service standpoint, which when I’m looking at a Facebook group from a business service standpoint, it is because I want to create that community. Community is very important to people. Branding is huge. And so a lot of the branding that goes into a business has to do with community. People are no longer doing business with just a business. They’re doing business with people that they care about that share similar values.
- On the flip side, if I take it back to a marketing standpoint, Facebook has already told you where you will thrive and that is Facebook groups. Facebook was built for community. The purpose of growing a Facebook group from a marketing standpoint is to build your business and then from the service standpoint to build that community.
- What are your top three tips for growing and engaging a Facebook?
- Regardless of what industry you’re in listening to this, it goes back to what is the purpose of the Facebook group? From a business standpoint, it is to make sales at the end of the day.
- 1 – The name of your group has to be searchable. People will often name their group the same name as their business, but if no one knows about you, no one is searching for you and they’re not going to come across you or your group on Facebook. [You need to] think about SEO. [Your Facebook Group name] has to be searchable.
- 2 – Your content needs to be engaging, relevant, and related to your business and your offers. [Your content should be] engaging, entertaining, and educating your audience and then obviously selling to your audience. And I think a lot of people forget the other three and go straight to selling, or they forget the selling pillar and they’re doing, you know, the teaching bit, but they’re not making any money.
- 2.5 – Bonus Tip: [Your content] has got to be engaging. You can’t just be talking at people. Your content has to be worth engaging with and your content needs to make people feel seen, heard, and understood.
- 3 – You have to constantly evaluate what’s working and what’s not. If you guys are just going to rinse and repeat your content strategy, and again, this goes across any platform, but if you’re just going to rinse and repeat what you’re doing and never evaluate, never analyze and never make changes, you’re going to get the same results month after month after month.
- What are some of the ways that you can monetize a Facebook group?
- The key to monetizing a Facebook group is to pitch your offers. If people don’t know what you’re selling, they can’t buy what you have. So if you’re not telling anybody what your offers are, or you’re only telling them once or twice, the odds of you selling this program or product or service is very small.
- We are poking at those pain points and then we’re providing a solution to someone’s problem. The biggest way to monetize that Facebook group is to create that Facebook group’s content pillars to go back to what you sell. The content in your group has to be engaging, relevant, and related to what you’re selling. So start by pitching your offers.
- One way to pitch your offers is to tell your story. Get a little more crafty with your language and then approach it from serving someone and not just trying to sell to them. Selling is serving and it’s getting someone a solution – you’re trying to give them a quicker roadmap to solving the problem.
- What is your best piece of advice for those looking to grow and monetize their Facebook group right now?
- Consistency. I think you need to commit and then you need to be consistent. This can’t be a short-term strategy. If you’re looking for short-term, Facebook is definitely not the way to go for you.
- Everybody’s looking for a place in the world to belong. And if you provide that for your people and they get hooked and they’re in there, you will have clients, fans, for life. And that’s when you’re really going to see it monetize, but you’ve got to commit and you’ve got to be consistent.
- Tell us where we can find you…
- Come find me on Instagram @BrookeJanaePhotography. You’re probably going to find the best content there, especially with my stories and everyday life.
- For those of you that enjoyed today’s episode and are looking for more marketing tips, I actually have several podcasts episodes on Facebook groups. If you want to come over and just do a little more digging there, my Podcast is called Book More Clients Photography Podcast.
