What's up? I'm Rachel Spewak and this is Rock Your Tribe Radio where community, fun, social media and business collide. I firmly believe that parties are the answer to all of life's problems. Seriously. Building a community, bringing people together for a common purpose and serving them, that's your mission as a business owner. Let's make it happen. It's time to rock your tribe.
(00:29): Why aren't people engaging in my Facebook group, I hear this all the time and it reminds me of all the nights I spent deejaying to no one, except the bartender. When I was a working DJ in New York city, you could get yourself a gig at just about any dive bar and are in 10% of the bar sales. That was the deal. And it was your job or promoter's job to bring people to your DJ night. Did you ever watch the show Portlandia? There's a come to my DJ night, sketch that spoofs, this arrangement it's hilarious. The reality was that unless the bar was already a hot spot or you had a big enough following, it was going to be a slow night, but it comes with the territory of being an artist or an entertainer. You have two choices here, suck it up, deal with the rejection and keep going.
(01:16): Or you can quit. This is probably one of the best lessons I've learned in life. How to perform to no one and how to build an audience. One person at a time. If you want to attract people to your DJ night or your Facebook group or to your offer, you got to give them what they want. I don't mean be a pushover, a people pleaser. What I mean is read the room, except the reality that if you want people's attention, you gotta be entertaining and you have to know what people really want better than they know what they want. So here's how to give people what they want in your Facebook group to make the group popular and profitable without sacrificing your soul. Here's the concept. You're a members of your Facebook group. They're the rock stars. You're the executive producer. This is the mindset you need to be a Facebook group owner.
(02:05): I picked up this concept from my podcast, producer, big shout out to Jonathan Rivera at the podcast factory, all the stars you love, they didn't make it all on their own. They had a mentor who took them under their wing, gave them their hits and cultivated their careers. When it comes to your Facebook group members be the Quincy Jones to their Michael Jackson, the puff daddy to their notorious VIG, the Clive Davis to there, Whitney Houston, the Dr. Dre to their M and M help them get what they want and what your Facebook group members truly want is love, acceptance, validation, and connection. That's why you join a community, your members. They might want information too, but what drives them to a community to get information is that they will get their deep dark questions validated by people who understand them. So, okay, your Facebook group members might not want to become internationally Grammy award-winning global pop stars, but you can certainly give your members the star treatment.
(03:05): How do you do this? The best place to start is with what I like to call a Bulletproof onboarding process. When you bring someone new into your paid offer, you onboard them, right? You roll out the red carpet and make them feel great about their investment before they get buyer's remorse and ask for a refund, you should do the same with your group. And it's simple. You can roll out the red carpet, get them excited about being a member of your group and get them engaging right away. Let's talk about three key areas for onboarding new members into your Facebook group. So they are the rock stars. You're three membership questions. You're welcome post. And your email sequence. Let's start with the three questions. You know, the three questions you can ask new members when they request to join your group. Those questions, most Facebook group owners get these three questions totally wrong by not thinking about how it's part of their onboarding process.
(04:00): They also missed the point that your group is part of your sales funnel. And these three questions feed the funnel. I'm going to tell you what my three questions are right now in my Facebook group. And why they're important. Question number one, this group is for online business owners and freelancers who run Facebook groups. Do you have a Facebook group or plan to launch one in the near future? Number two, how did you find this group? And number three, what's your best email address for freebies, announcements and reminders. Okay. Going back to question number one, this group is for online business owners and freelancers who run Facebook groups. Do you have a Facebook group or plan to launch one in the near future? This lets me know where someone is in their process. So I know where to meet them, to help them move forward.
(04:47): My support for someone who wants to launch a group looks different from my support for someone who's got a group up and running, but wants to start selling to their members. And it looks different from somebody who launched a group, but it's not getting any engagement. So I need to know where my members are in their Facebook group journey so I can help them point them in the right direction and hopefully work with them. This question also lets new members know why they join the group, knowing who your group is for and what the purpose of your group is. That's fundamental to building an engaged and profitable group. If you're not sure who your group is for and why they should join. I have a workbook that will help you with that. It's my rock, your Facebook group workbook. And it has a big exercise on identifying your ideal tribe member and why they should join your group.
(05:37): Go grab the workbook at rock, your tribe.com forward slash workbook. You're going to love it. Okay. Question number two. How did you find this group? I want to know where my traffic comes from. I want to reward people who are referring new members to me in the group. I want to know where to focus my attention. When it comes to creating content, to drive traffic to the group, I'm frequently a speaker in other groups, summits on other platforms like clubhouse. And I've got this podcast and I want to know which of my talks and appearances brought new members into my group. This also helps anchor your connection to your members, having them remind themselves how they know you, part of why you're running your group is to build personal connections. So keep it personal by finding out how you connected with your new members.
(06:25): You've heard the same advice about Facebook groups everywhere. Ask questions, add value for what does that mean? Let me show you what a profitable engaged and a fun Facebook group looks like. And I'll pop the hood for you so you can see exactly how I do it. Join my Facebook group. Rock your tribe, community. Building for entrepreneurs at rock, your tribe.com forward slash Facebook.
(06:51): Question number three, what's your best email address for freebies, announcements and reminders. This is where we're going to start talking about your sales funnel. If you're a fan of this podcast, you've probably heard me say this before, but it's important. And I'm going to say it again. You don't own your audience when it's hosted on any social media platform, the only way to own your list is to build a mailing list. You need this at the very least as a backup. If Facebook disappears today, will my business thrive? How about yours? But you need for these questions to be effective and useful is an automation that captures this information. That's because Facebook doesn't save the answers to these questions. Once you accept new members, that information has gone forever. Unless you save it into a spreadsheet or a document. I was doing this manually for the longest time.
(07:40): And it was awful. Even if your group is small now and you think you can manage it, go ahead and sign up for a service like group leads that records the questions and answers and a spreadsheet for you and sends the email addresses into your mailing list. I use group leads. I love it. The developer hangs out in my Facebook group and my affiliate link for that is rock your tribe.com forward slash group leads. Go check it out. I see group owners making a few mistakes with these questions. Number one, not getting those email addresses, huge mistake. Number two, asking what people are struggling with. I hate this question. People who are asking to join your group, they don't know you. Would you ask a complete stranger that you want to get to know this question? How would you react? If a stranger asked you, it's just rude.
(08:27): Stop asking what people are struggling with. Another way to phrase, this is what do you want to learn here? Number three, asking members. If they agree to the rules, why do we police each other like this? If someone's being a Dick in your group, just toss them out. Don't waste a valuable question in your Bulletproof onboarding process on this. It's not worth it. Okay? So now you've updated your three questions. Your new members know why they joined, you know, where they are in their journey. You both know how you found each other and you got their email addresses. Maybe not for all of them, but for most of them, it is an opt-in after all. So let's move on to part two of your Bulletproof onboarding process that makes your members the star of the show. So your welcome post Facebook groups have an awesome feature.
(09:14): Auto generate, a welcome post that tags your new members. It's in the member section of your group. Facebook groups thrive on engagement and you want to establish a habit of engaging with your group right away. Plus you want the algorithm to continue notifying your new members when there's activity in the group. So jazz up that auto-generated welcome post, tell your new members where they are and why it's so awesome that they're here. Share a little bit about you and ask them questions. Easy ones like who are you and where are you and share a fun fact about yourself. This gets them in the habit of engaging and it tells the Facebook algorithm that these people should continue to get updated about what's going on in the group. You can throw a link to your freebie and your welcome post and get them started on consuming your offers, or you can direct them to whatever step you want them to take next, like voting in a poll or checking out your frequently asked questions contained in a unit of your group.
(10:11): My sales coach, Shauna Beckman. I learned from her that no conversation is a cul-de-sac. I apply this to my group and my content. I always direct my reader to the next step. So they stay in my world and so I can continue to serve them by the way, go check out Shauna's podcast, consensual sales, after you finished listening to mine. It's awesome. You're welcome. Post also helps to establish the flavor and culture of your group. So if you let your personality, hang out, your members will do it too. Plus, remember when I said to stop worrying so much about the rules of your group, a better way to enforce the rules of your group is to establish the culture. You're intentionally creating the big mistake. I see group owners making here is not creating welcome posts. What a missed opportunity or they use the auto-generated post, but don't bother to add anything else to it.
(11:01): Remember engagement is everything in groups. So start creating it from the second. A new member walks through the door. Plus the big concept here is to make them feel included, loved validated. They're the star of the show. So roll out the red carpet for them with the welcome post. So far, we've talked about your three membership questions and your welcome posts. And this is all about making your members, the stars of the show. And you're the brilliant mentor behind the curtain who helps them shine brighter. There's one more piece of the Bulletproof onboarding process we got to talk about and it's this your email welcome sequence. Why bother with a mailing list? Is it running the group enough? I mentioned earlier that you need a backup. If Facebook goes down, that's the doomsday scenario, but if you're collecting email addresses, you might as well do something with them.
(11:51): Think of it this way. Your is a high ticket lead magnet. Shout out to my friend, SUNO, Phillip, the lead magnet lady for pointing this out and a guest expert session in my group. Lead magnets are ethical bribes that you leverage to gather up email addresses. If you don't send out emails to your list and you're just sitting on them, there will come a day. When you want to use them. Maybe you want to launch an offer. Maybe you need to send out an announcement. Maybe Facebook does go down and you need to connect with your members. Your open rate is going to suck. If you haven't been nurturing your list all along. So you might as well get started nurturing your list from the very beginning and use it in your Bulletproof onboarding process. Create a welcome sequence. That's triggered when a new email address is added to the list.
(12:38): If I got your attention now about setting up an automation to do this, I use group leads to grab those email addresses from my three questions and it sends them right into my mailing list. And my affiliate link, once again is rock your tribe.com forward slash group leads. Did you know that welcome emails? Get the highest open rate out of all of the emails you're going to send on your mailing list. Yeah. So use that to your advantage, right? That welcome email and even flesh it out into a whole sequence. So write that sequence that introduces you to your new members points somewhere. They need to go next, invite them onto a call with you. Maybe offers them a freebie or even sells them a trip wire offer. There's lots you can do in your welcome sequence. And in that first welcome email, give them a reason to reply.
(13:26): So your email address is white listed in their inbox. So your future emails don't wind up in their spam folder. That's a mailing list. Pro tip the big mistake I see group owners making is simply not doing this. It took me a long time to figure this part out. And I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it really is. You can always outsource the copywriting to someone like my friend, Ashley DeLuca. She's amazing with writing emails that capture the voice of the person that they're coming from. So let's wrap this up. Your Bulletproof onboarding process for your Facebook group makes your new members, the star of the show and it gives them exactly what they want. What you know, they want. Maybe they don't know they want this, but all humans want to be included, loved, supported, and validated. So give it to them.
(14:13): The Bulletproof onboarding process includes your three questions. You're welcome posts and your email welcome sequence. You'll get your members to engage with you in your group and you'll get them engaging in their inbox, which makes the experience of being in your group. Even more personal for them by building up engagement from the very beginning, you're creating habits among your members and training algorithms at the same time. Pretty cool. Right? Next time, we're going to talk about how to launch your impossible idea through the power of community. How does that sound? Thanks again for being here and as always you rock,
(14:59): This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
