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7 Easy Steps to Launch Your Own Facebook Community

Hello Reader!

I hope you’re having a fabulous week so far and that the cooler temps are finally making their way to your part of the world. (But not too cool. Think blazers and Docs, not parkas and Sorels.) (Hello, I'm obviously from Minnesota with those seasonal fashion references!)

Welcome to lesson 3 of the “bootstrap” series, which is intended to help anybody who needs to be a little scrappy in their work do strategic, effective marketing without a huge budget or team. This week’s topic is how to start your own Facebook Community. Follow these steps:

1. Define your goals. Are you looking to create a space where people can connect and support one another? Cool. Or are you hoping this space will make them love your brand and bond with fellow fans? Great! Or are you seeing a Facebook Community as a place they can turn for help or issues with your product? This one is harder because you’ve crossed the territory from marketing to customer service, and you’ll very likely spend 30+ hours a week supporting and redirecting people rather than fostering a community. I urge you not to launch a Facebook Community like this unless you have a full-time dedicated support specialist to manage it (and if you have that, there are probably more efficient ways to handle support issues).

2. Who do you want? Determine who you'd like to be your IDEAL Facebook Community member, how you'd like them to act and feel in the group and the relationship you want to have with your business or brand more generally. Make sure you’re setting up a space that makes them comfortable.

3. Make the rules. First, make your goals for the group clear to prospective members in rules and an introductory message. For example, “This community is a great place for you to share your favorite tips/recipes/advice about X” or “This community is a space where you can ask questions of fellow members about X.” Then provide a list of rules, standards and expectations about how people should behave in the "Group Rules" section. If you aren't sure where to start, check out rules from other Facebook Communities you like. (Enforce the rules, and also be transparent with offenders in a DM about why a post has been removed or why they are being suspended.)

4. Create a detailed FAQ. Take a guess at people’s most burning, common questions about what you are trying to do in the community and the best answers possible. I suggest publishing an FAQ page on an external website (your company's site should be fine for this); you will link to it from the rules section, your introductory post and in response to questions in member's posts. After you’ve launched, look through people’s posts and identify questions that you can add to the FAQ and answer them.

5. Moderation alerts are your BFFs. What kind of trigger words (besides swearing, which Facebook can automatically filter out for you) might you want to weed out of discussion? Set up email alerts for yourself when people try to post with your trigger words.

6. Create posts — but not too many. Right after you launch and after you’ve had at least 10 people join, set up a pinned post asking people to introduce themselves and say something about why they joined. (As new people join, tag them on a weekly basis and ask them to do the same). You can also create some easy, engaging content to get things going — polls on a fun (but related) topic work really well. However, as the Community grows and matures, you won’t need to post as often; Facebook's algorithm is likely to bury your brand posts anyway. Have something important to say? Create a featured post with a colorful background and large font and pin it to the top of the page. Add a megaphone emoji for emphasis. 📣

7. Promote the heck out of it! Think again about #2 above. Are those people already on your email list? Send them a dedicated email promoting your Community and add a little “Join our Facebook Community” link to the bottom of future communications. Are they visiting your regular social media platforms? Consider a paid/promoted post.

And when the Community is off the ground, don't forget to use Facebook Insights to learn more about what's working. You can also get helpful qualitative insights from the comments — what are your community members' interests and burning needs? Figure out how you might be able to step up and help them by developing better products and processes. That’s how you’ll really make them love you.

And now, a few things I read...

Bosses mean it now: Return to the office or get fired These ongoing stories about whether we'll go back to the office or keep working remotely are starting to have a lot of "will they or won't they" Ross-Rachel energy. I'm here for it. (From The Washington Post) Read article

If everything is a platform, is nothing actually a platform? Enjoyed this fun piece about the word platform and how and why it came to describe pretty much everything. (From Wired) Read article

How Jimmy Buffet created an empire Speaking of how to create a community that loves your brand! (I realize it's a little different but there are some good lessons here.) (From The Atlantic) Read article

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Thanks so much for reading, and I'll see you next week!

P.S. If you can't access any of the articles above but would like to read them, just reply to this email and let me know. I'll send you a copy directly.

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