Grow Your Business With A Customer Group

You can successfully grow your business with a customer group. It’s all about connection! A good customer group is fun, full of engagement and showcases your products. I’ve learned a lot the past 3+ years building my customer group and my business. I’ve done things that haven’t worked, and found what does. Here are the top 4 tips that have worked best for me.

Timing
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “timing is everything”, well its true! Even on social media! Is there a certain time of day you are more active on social media? I know I’m more active earlier in the morning and at night. If you post in your group at a time that few group members are on, it’s likely your post will get lost in all of the other posts of the day.

So how do you find out what time of day you have the most interaction? Glad you asked! 😉 The post with the most interaction in the history of my customer group is “What time is it when you saw this post?”. I had hundreds of comments with the time they saw the post. I asked a question with an easy answer, got incredible interaction, and I found out what time my audience was most active.

Did you know Facebook also keeps track of the engagement in your group? In your group, go to Settings/Posts, Comments and Reactions, to see the entire breakdown of your group. You’ll not only see the times of days that are most popular, you’ll be able to see what day you have the most interaction as well. Once you know when to post, you’ll need to figure out who your audience is.

Know Your Audience
One of the easiest ways to get to know your audience (and create engagement) is to ask questions. People love to comment on posts with questions. Ask either or questions such as “Are you a night owl or a morning person?”, “Coffee or Tea?” “Thanksgiving or Christmas?” “Mascara or Lipstick?” “Painting or Carving Pumpkins?”. Think, icebreaker questions, questions you would ask in person to get to know people. Questions like these are great to start a conversation with your group members.

Once they comment, reply back to every single comment. Example- I’m a coffee person too! How do you take your coffee? This will keep the conversation going allowing you to get to know your audience. Knowing your audience is key to knowing what products to promote in the group. You don’t want to promote a product in the group that no one is interested in. When you know get to know someone, you’ll be able to know what products they like and promote accordingly.

Be Genuine
When you post and interact with the members of your group, be genuine. Do not comment and engage with the intent to sell to the person commenting. People will see right through that and will feel like they are being used. Yes it’s a group for your business, but people do not want to be sold to 100% of the time. Follow the 80/20 rule. 80% engagement/lifestyle and 20% selling. Spend almost all of your time building relationships and finding your tribe, when you’ve done this, people will naturally want to support you and your small business.

Be Consistent
The key to growing your business on social media is to be consistent. Set a goal of how many times a day/week you’ll post, stick to those goals. When you are consistently posting in your group, your group members will get used to engaging with you each day, your posts will become part of their daily routine. Your group will become a community. Your community will become your support system and the top supporters of your business.

I love to plan out my posts on a Saturday or Sunday. I can take a look at what product/products I would like to feature that week, what interactive posts/questions, then schedule the posts throughout the week. This frees up time during the week to engage and get to know my group members and allows me to be consistent with my posts.

Make your customer group about connection. Your group should be a place people want to be. A place that is fun, interactive, and full of community. You’ll see your network and your business flourish!

Now that you are growing your business with a group, take your business to the next level and grow your customer base.