Groups are a key feature of social media channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn and they act as a space where like-minded people come together and discuss topics or share useful information with one another. Despite groups being a key part of these platforms and being around for a long time, there are still lots of businesses that haven't tapped into their potential when it comes to digital marketing. In this article, we're going to explain how you can use groups across social media to find prospective clients and increase brand awareness.
Facebook groups
Groups are a key part of Facebook and if you search you'll find there are hundreds and thousands of groups that are based on different factors such as interests, location, health and more. For example, most towns have groups designed for businesses to be able to network and they also have buy and sell groups for towns and most villages will have a 'What's going on' community. Because of this, these groups essentially act as easy to find places where your target audience may exist for example if you're a business that sells dog toys there will be multiple groups on Facebook specifically for dog owners across the UK potentially even in local areas as well.
Now the easiest thing would be to join these groups and begin posting and selling to the members that exist in there however the vast majority of groups on Facebook and LinkedIn have rules around self-promotion. This is to avoid the group becoming a place which is spammed with sales pitches rather than creating a community where people actually discuss topics with one another. Therefore we need to be a bit cleverer in terms of how we target people within these groups, one way of doing this is by using advertising, particularly on Facebook using Facebook advertising to target people who are in certain groups. Another way of doing this is by getting a list of individuals within that group and then contacting the via direct message and this is really where LinkedIn comes into play.
LinkedIn groups
One of the challenges when targeting B2B businesses is understanding if the business you're speaking to has a requirement of the service or product that you provide. For example targeting a Financial Director on LinkedIn still leaves a lot of questions to be asked about the particular industry or problems the company they work for has and need solving. If however you see the employees from a certain business are members of LinkedIn groups that offer advice this gives you an indication this business is looking for something that you provide.
The best way then to make the most of groups on LinkedIn is to join groups that are relevant to your industry or problems that you solve, look at the individual in those groups and what they're talking about and then contact those individuals on LinkedIn offering them a solution and even mention that you're part of the group that they are in, you saw their post and that gives you a nice ice breaker to begin the sales process with them.
On the Facebook side however again you can use this method but it is probably more beneficial to join groups where possible, understand the conversation that is going on in there and then target individuals in those groups using Facebook advertising.
Having read this article if you'd like to learn more about social media groups and get support in utilising them to generate new business, minc marketing can help. Our team has worked with numerous businesses helping them leverage the opportunity of groups across social media platforms and ultimately grow their business and increase sales.
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