It’s true. Anyone that has built an online business will tell you the importance of monetizing your audience and it’s also well known that a lot of facebook group onwers monetize their audience in the group.
In this article, we’ll briefly look at a few pratical ways on how to monetize and make money from a Facebook group, namely the methods and “dos and dont s” you have to be careful about.
Facebook Groups on the rise – What’s the thing
Facebook Groups have exploded in popularity and numbers lately, with Facebook revealing at its annual Communities Summit that a whooping 1.8 billion people are using groups on a monthly basis.
But why are these online communities becoming so popular?
Facebook Groups are online communities where people gather to discuss, share ideas, and participate in group events around a shared topic or brand. Some of the biggest Facebook groups are based on main topics like maternity, travel and food.
Well, facebook Groups are preferred to Slack or other forums because they are more versatile and act as a forum and as an information board too. Also, the members are used to the Facebook brand and it’s interface and it comes as a natural extension of their own profile.
Administrators can hold live streams, get feedback from members and hosts files on there too.
What a lot of companies and Facebook Group admins don’t know, is that there are multiple ways to monetize this channels, from sponsorship to affiliate marketing. Stay with us below whilst we’ll go into the details of every single potential revenue stream.
Why you should have a Facebook Group for your Business and how to Go about it
Your company can benefit enormously from these groups if you know your target audience well enough and engage and nurture them with useful content. This way, it will be easier to monetize your Facebook Group.
If you understand your target audience and ensure that your community is made up of people that fit the right profile, you’ll be far more successful when trying to monetize a Facebook Group.
You must be really clear, to begin with, about the kind of members you want. You shouldn’t be looking to attract just anyone. In fact, the more exclusive your group is, the more business and leads you’ll be able to generate.
In order to make sure your group is attracting the right kind of members for you, consider the following:
What kind of persons woul you want to join your group–(age, gender, social status, interests, job role,etc)
How can you solve problems for them or help them with some situation in their lives?
Will this kind of person be willing to spend money on your product or service?
What’s in for them in being a member of your community or Facebook Group?
Now that you have an idea on how you should be “hunting” for your members, let’s have a look below at 10 ways you can monetize your Facebook Group(s).
10 Ways to Monetize Your Facebook Group
1. Promote (Your) Services including Upselling and Cross selling additional service
This is probably the most popular way to make money from your online community or Facebook Group.
Because you are constantly engaging with or informing your community, you already have access to a somehow active audience. This means you can potentially sell your main products or services to them but in a subtle way. For example, through written content that includes 1-2 products, videos, live-streams and even podcasts. You can do this by including direct links in the content or sending a follow-up email to members shortly after publishing the content.
Be careful not to create content which is too salesy, otherwise members will find it agressive and they might even leave the group. You want to insert the products or services very naturally into the stories, videos and pictures and leave the Facebook Group member decide if he or she needs the product or service.
Stay focused on good quality content and keep engaging the people in the group through different means like questions, polls and other creative content.
2. Sell the Cover Photo (for your business or others)
Usually, the cover photo can be used to promote your products, your own events or even to show testimonials.
However, if you want to monetize it, you could partner up with different companies and promote a special discount code on the banner itself together with a shortened link. This could bring some revenue, not too big though. Other ways to use the Facebook cover for your company are to push the new product releases, describe your products and services or highlight upcoming events. This will probably not bring you money short term, but is a winning strategy long term to acquire potential clients and thus extra revenue.
3. Promote E-Commerce Products
In order to do this, the admin must create a special Facebook Group type called “Buy and Sell”. In this type of group, a post will display the price details and it may even appear in the Facebook Market.
If you want to buy, sell and trade different new or second hand items, maybe this group type is ideal for you or your business.
Another way to monetize via e-commerce is to sell products from a Facebook page via Shopify on Intagram. More on this here.
You can then promote these facebook products on your Facebook group where you have your audience. This way, the journey will be seamless, as the person won’t ever leave the facebook ecosystem during the purchase.
4. Generate leads by creating a Funnel from your group to your website
You can use your group following to expand your sales funnel and email list.
A very efficient way of doing this is share on the Facebook Group a URL that sends the user to a dedicated landing page offering a useful free e-book or video in exchange for the email of the visitor. In time, your email list will grow
Remember, email is still one of the most efffective way to sell products and services.
This monetization option mainly applies to people selling high-ticket items such as corporate training or specialist services, such as freelance graphic design or marketing services.
For instance, an analyst can own a Facebook Group on how to do Data Analysis. He or she can then use this group to offer general freelance services. They can showcase their work in their group, or use examples of their work as training materials or free content about data and analytics in exchange for the visitor’s email address.
Remmeber, this feature is only available for public groups and not for private ones yet.
5. Charge Membership Fees
The majority of Facebook groups are free, but some content creators run private groups for paying customers only. Depending on your niche, community members may be willing to pay for exclusive membership and premium content like webminars, Q&A sessions, access to special guests and mentors and so on.
For instance, a fitness trainer may be able to sell monthly membership deals that offer members full video courses on certain types of excercies, as well as tips, advice, and weekly group classes.
Usually, the membership fee on Facebook group is somewhere between the range of $0.99 and $9.99 and you can charge this with some special apps and plugins for Facebook. This is a another avenue for you or your company to take advantage and monetize the community you are helping.
6. Setup partnerships with Brands (directly via Facebook)
Another way to monetize your Facebook group is by advertising products or services of other companies by enlisting some kind of sponsorship. In fact, now it’s easier than ever with Facebook’s new feature called Brand Collabs Manager.
Brand Collabs Manager (BCM) is a marketplace that enables you as an admin of the group to match with brands who look to promote their products and services in groups like yours. As a Public Group admin, you will be able to collaborate with brands to create campaigns that resonate with the group members and match their interest (so it won’t look spammy either!).
For brands this is also great, because they will be able to connect with relevant audiences in these spaces that people trust and actively engage in.
7. Win potential clients from the Facebook group
This monetization option mainly applies to people selling high-ticket items such as corporate training or specialist services, such as freelance graphic design or marketing services.
For instance, a small design studio can create a Facebook Group on desgn techniques or tools and how tos. They can use this group to help and then offer their general services to people or companes looking for help in that field. They can showcase their work in their group, or use examples of their work as training materials. This will demonstrate the quality of their output to potential clients, thus generating valuable leads.
8. Accept donations from members
When group members stay in the facebook group for a long time and are engaged, they are often very grateful for the free content and valuable resources they get.
Some of them are willing to give something back to the admin or company behing the group that creates the content.
You can enable them to do this by requesting donations or making it clear that donations are gratefully received. You can receive donations via Paypal or cryptocurrencies for example.
If you are on the way of launching a new product, then you can use your group to start a fundrasing to finance this venture.
9. Earn sponsorship revenue
In a similar way to the cover photo sponsorship, you can make monetise your group by advertising products or services of other companies through your group or enlisting some kind of sponsorship.
In order to attract some sponsor(s), your online community will have to reach quite a big number of members before being able to look for sponsorship from companies. Usually sponsoring companies are interested in groups with over 20,000 members or more so it’s not an easy feast.
10. Sell other products via affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a popular, and sometime shighly profitable, way to monetize an online community. You can share links on the group with relevant products and services that other companies offer and everytime someone from your page buys something from them you get a comission from sales. (usually between 5% and 30%)
If you don’t know too much about this monetization method, BigCommerce has a full guide here.
Make sure that the stuff you sell is relevant, meaningful and high quality to your group’s interests, otherwise, you’ll seethat members will drift away and you might be losing the opportunity to monetize this channel too.
A few ideas of 3rd party products are services you can share on your group and monetize are educational videos (skillshare, coursera,etc), software tools, tickets to events and so on.
If you have people from your group from the US (very likely) then make sure you have a disclaimer on your group saying you use affiliate marketing and you are taking a comission from sales.
Type of Facebook Groups
There are different types of groups, depending on the security settings applied and the way you want to manage your audience:
Public Groups – these are open to everyone for membership, and all Facebook users can view the content freely.
Open Groups – these groups encourage membership, are free to join, but the group owners often limit membership by using screening questions.
Closed Groups – these groups are visible to outsiders, but people can only join if invited by the group owner or another member.
Benefits of Facebook Groups for Business
Facebook groups have always had plenty of potential that businesses could use to their advantage, and now with the new group features, they’re more effective and powerful than ever before.
While you shouldn’t choose between a Page or a group, you should use both to build awareness and a community around your brand. The group’s exclusivity and more personal interactions will help you do exactly this.
Summary and final thoughts
Facebook Groups are becoming more and more important in today’s digital ecosystem.
With more people working from home and needing to socialise, the online communities have become the number one of the most popular places to go for entertainment, information and networking.
If you already have an online community and a brand in a niche, maybe now it’s the time to consider how to open up and monetize a Facebook Group and use it as an extra source of income for yoru business.
We’ve describe the 10 main ways to monetize Facebook Groups above and we hope you will apply them and start generating income by using them.
To recap, the key takeaways when it comes to monetizing Facebook Groups or online communities, are:
- know your audience in detail and attract the right people
- be careful with the amount of advertising and sales you are doing on the group
- keep your followers enganged with excelent content and keep growing the community
Here are a few more resources on how to grow your current or plan your Facebook Group
Or watch this quick video for some top tips on Facebook Group Growth Strategies
What do you think? Do you use Facebook groups for your business? Have you started a group involving or centering your brand? How do you increase engagement and followers within your group? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
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