If you already know what Facebook groups are, but you are still not taking advantage of the full potential that these social communities can offer you and your business strategy. I invite you to read this guide that I have prepared for you. And it is that, this could be one of the channels where to find your target audience.

For this reason, since I assume that you already know what Facebook is and how the world’s largest social network works at a generic level, today I want to show you in detail how to create a group and how to take advantage of the advantages that they bring you.

What is a Facebook group?

A Facebook group is a place within this platform in which a limited set of users, with common concerns and interests, share content and information of interest to all its members.

It is evident to think that, when talking about a community of this type, we may be referring to both the work and personal level. For this reason, these groups can be divided according to their main theme: Neighbors, educational centers, project, etc. Or, you can even choose other themes in “personalized”.

What exactly are Facebook groups for?

In general, we can say that the uses that you can give to these digital spaces are as many as communities of this type can exist.

However, in a generic way I will tell you that if the use you give to this platform is exclusively for leisure, without professional pretensions and you are a fan of sports, for example, an ideal group could be the one made up of fitness fans.

In this way, its members will be able to share content related to healthy eating and exercise.

On the contrary, if like me, the use that you give to these virtual spaces is for work or you dedicate yourself to Online Business, you can ask to enter circles related to entrepreneurship or digital marketing.

This is precisely the case of, which I opened some time ago together with my JF-Digital team, in order to create a community interested in these topics and have continuous learning, based on the content that all its members would like to share.

Taking into account these previous considerations, I have to say that these are used for various purposes, such as:

1. Purchase and sale of products

There are some created for buying and selling used or second-hand items, where, in the same way as in portals such as Wallapop or Milanuncios, you can sell what you no longer use.

2. Meet new people

In the same way, Networking also has a place in them, since some have been created to meet new people, either for personal purposes (make friends, find a partner, etc.) or for professional purposes, as I have mentioned before.

Thus, regarding the latter, you can meet professionals in your same sector, with whom you can establish a collaborative or “win-win” relationship that is very beneficial for both parties.

3. Reach your target audience more easily

From an exclusively professional point of view, the “star” purpose of these is to be able to give greater visibility to your products or services in a space where, positively, you know that there are users who will be interested in what you offer.

Certainly, this is one of the uses of Facebook groups that I like the most, given the reduction in reach that corporate pages or Fan Pages have suffered for some time.

How to create a Facebook group for my digital strategy? step by step tutorial

Bearing in mind that you already know what Facebook groups are and the benefits they can have, if with your business you want to create your own and have a space to share quality content with your community, I will explain how.

1. Access from your personal account

If we are logged in to our profile, we can quickly access it by clicking on the upper right tab of the platform, as I show you in the following image.

Among its options, you will find the “ Create group ”. Click on it and you will access the indicated process.

It is important that you know that, depending on when you read this tutorial and, due to the continuous changes that this social network is making in its interface, you will probably see a message indicating that you must do it from the “Create” option.

And where do I find this option?

This is probably your question. Very easy, taking a look at the previous image again, in the header menu, you will see it to the right of “Start”. So, access from here in case it does not allow you to do it in the previous way (the traditional one).

It will be right here where, in addition to being able to create one of them, you can also create:

• A new corporate page.
• Facebook Ads banner ads .
• events.
• Purchase-sale announcements in the Marketplace of this social network.
• Collection for charitable purposes.

2. Name and members of the group

The next step is very simple: you will simply have to choose a name for it, the thematic category and start adding the first members that will be part of it.

As I show you in the following image, I have used « Learn marketing from scratch » as an example and in the next box, just by writing the name and surname that your friends have on the platform, you can add them one by one.

As a detail, you will see how once you add the first one, the network itself will suggest some others, according to the affinity and interaction that you usually have with them, so it is possible that some of them you do not have to write them manually.

3. Group privacy

Although this is offered as an option within the previous section, I wanted to separate it a bit, since it is something that you should not take lightly.

Here there are 3 types:

• Public.
• Closed.
• Secret.

The differences between them is evident, being the public , it is an open space to be visible to anyone who can find it from the social network search engine and see what is published.

In the case of the closed one , it is visible from the search engine to be found, although only its members can see who else belongs to it and the published content.

And, finally, the secret group , is where in addition to not being visible from the search engine, logically, it is not possible to know who its members are or see the content.

In the latter case, to locate it, it should be the creator himself who sends individual invitations to those he/she wants to be its members.

After this paragraph, you will understand that you should think carefully about what type yours should be, always taking into account your final objectives.

4. Personalize your group

Then, once you add the options that you prefer, from among those that I have mentioned above and click on “Create”, you will have it created. But that’s not all, since the ideal would be for you to give it the personal touch.

So, the next step will be to customize it, adding a cover photo from among those you already have uploaded to your personal profile, or upload one from your local device.

What are the roles that exist within Facebook groups?

Once you have created your own, you should know that there are different roles within it and that, obviously, each of them has permissions to perform different actions:

1st Administrator

He has the possibility of editing any of the community options, whether in terms of its appearance (change of name, uploading a new cover photo, etc.), as well as in terms of its members (add new ones, ban those who have improper behavior, etc.).

In the same way, the administrator can add new administrators, moderators or even if he wishes, even delete the Facebook group.

In addition to all these functions, as you can imagine, everyone who has created a group will have the role of “Administrator” by default.

2nd Moderator

This profile is assigned practically the same “freedoms” to act as the administrator, except for the fact that you cannot change the community settings , delete or edit who becomes the new administrator.

3rd Member

The member is, as its name indicates, a member of the community with rights to share content and interact with the publications of other users.

However, you will not have the privileges of the moderator or administrator.

How to analyze the activity of Facebook groups?

As you have seen, these are more important than you probably thought, when it comes to carrying out or improving marketing strategies, especially in regards to social media.

These have many metrics that many people ignore, but they give you much more information than you think and, knowing all this data, you could change the strategy to improve your business on Facebook .

If yours is very large, has a lot of activity, many people and you intend to improve your traffic, it is difficult to keep track of the users who enter, the publications they make and the interactions that each of the publications have.

However, for example, with Metricool you can analyze all the activity of your group and organize the publications that you are going to make.

You can connect your Facebook groups with this tool to:

• Obtain analytics of its activity.
• Plan the posts you want to share within it.

How to connect Facebook groups in Metricool?

Now that you know all the theory around these communities within this social platform and what it can be used for, I will show you how to connect it with Metricool to get the most out of it.

First of all: the only requirement that you have to meet to be able to connect both platforms is that you be an administrator of the group. Otherwise, you will not be able to access the analytics that this tool offers you.

Clarified this fundamental aspect, let’s go by parts:

1. Log in to your Metricool account

As you did in previous sections, where you had to log in to this platform to be able to create one, the same here. Simply log in to your account to access your analytics.

2. Go to ‘Connections’

Access the connections section at the top right of the screen and select the option: connect group.

3. Sign in with your personal account

In order to authorize Metricool to access all metrics and data and subsequently offer it to you appropriately, the tool will ask you to log in.

Depending on the browser you use, this step will be skipped and you will be signed in automatically.

4. API permissions

Accept the permissions requested by the network so that the tool can access yours and thus connect it.

5. Choose which group you want to connect

This step is inevitable, because I bet that, like me, once you have understood the usefulness and advantages of these social communities, you will join dozens of them, according to your interests.

Therefore, in this step, a window will open where you will be asked to choose the group you want to connect, in order to view its metrics.

6. Install the Metricool app

Now that you have it connected, you have to install the Metricool application in your group so that the tool can publish the plans you make from it.

Enter the one you manage and on the “More” button, select the Edit group settings option .

Search for the Metricool application, add it and click Done .

When you return to Metricool, you will already have your Facebook group connected to the tool.

Analyze the activity: Metrics of your Facebook group

In the analysis of your group’s activity, Metricool divides the metrics into three sections:

• Community.
• Publications.
• List of publications.

” Community

In the first metrics section, you will be able to see the evolution of your group in the period of time you have chosen. (You can change it as many times as you want at the top, above the dashboard).

The number of members that have been added in the period you have chosen and the posts that have been shared in the group on the dates you have selected.

You can see this data in numbers or in graphs where you can select or remove metrics depending on the data you want to see and which seems most important to you.

” Publications

In the publications section you will have all the information that is related to the publications and their metrics.

You have graphs from which you can see the overview of how the publications evolve , and the metrics in the period analyzed.

The metrics you will find are:

• Engagement – ​​Calculated in a different way than Company Pages. The way to calculate it in the groups is the following:

(Reactions+Comments) / group members and multiplied by 1000

• Interactions : are the sum of the reactions, comments and number of publications.

» List of publications

This is the last section of the metrics that Metricool offers you in the analytics section. In it you will find a list of publications with the following metrics:

• Publication date
• reactions
• Comments
• Engagement

All these metrics will refer to the period of time that you have selected at the beginning of the page.

You can order the list of publications by the metric you decide. This way you can know which publications are the ones that work the most, the ones that are more or less successful and thus be able to focus your strategy towards that type of content.

Content planning in your Facebook groups

With Metricool you can also plan all the content you want to be published in your Facebook groups.

You have different ways to publish on them:

» Metricool Calendar

How do you control all the content you want to publish on this social network?

Sometimes it’s not so easy to manage all the content you want to upload without missing something.

In the planning section in Metricool , you will have a planning area where you can manage all your publications in a very easy and visual way.

Within this calendar you can see all the plans you have and drag the content from one day to another or make the necessary modifications.

» Autolistas

In Metricool you will also find the option to create  an autolist so that content is published automatically and easily.

» Feeds RSS

Within the autolists you have another possibility: that your lists generate content through an RSS file.

This functionality allows you to import blog or web posts automatically.

Shall we give an example?

You want to post to social media every time a post is published on your blog, but you don’t have the time to write the posts every week.

The RSS Feed functionality is your solution!

By taking the RSS file from your blog or web page, you can automatically and directly import the latest posts from your domain.

So every time you publish a post on that platform, it will automatically be imported to the autolist and shared on your social networks.

Conclusion

As you have seen, Facebook groups are very useful for all those marketing strategies that intend to be competitive in their sector.

In addition, one of its advantages is that you can reach your target audience more effectively, knowing in advance that their members, by belonging to it, will be potentially interested in what you offer.

And also, with Metricool you can save time and automate the content you think is necessary.

Before reading this article, did you know what Facebook groups were?

What groups are you a member of?

Tell me your opinion in the comments and, if you think someone might find it useful, share it!

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