Figuring out Facebook

[Andy Black]

I need somewhere to document what I'm doing so I can make a repeatable process. Also... most of you guys probably know more about Facebook and pages than me so will likely steer me right if I keep going round in circles.

I have created a few pages just to see what the process is, but never went live with any of them.

Funny how I've been self-employed for nearly 20 years without a Facebook page or a website to speak of.

Anyway...


Day 1

Created a Facebook page for my business.

I wasn't sure whether to create a public persona page and have a photo of me on it, or build a business page without a picture of me at all.

I'm active in forums and Facebook groups, and a reasonable amount of people know me. Someone pointed out that a lot of folks might want to follow *me*. I have some people following me on Soundcloud, Facebook, YouTube, and in this forum, but I've never tried to grow any of those channels.

At this moment a public persona page feels like a slippery slope in the wrong direction. My goal is to build business(es) that do not rely on me, but use my lead gen skills instead. Let's see if I can do that without domain authority etc.

I decided to start how I mean to continue and not have my name or face on it.

I've put up a simple little logo and a background image I like.


Got my vanity URL

I couldn't get my vanity URL initially. After a bit of Googling it turns out that getting 25 Likes/Followers would allow me to do that. I invited all 500+ friends and 80+ of them have Liked the page. Some are personal friends, some are people who are following me because of what I post here and there.

Note: It's freaking simple to do. I had to wade through so many long form articles to do what is essentially:

1. Get 25+ Likes/Followers.
2. Click "About".
3. Click "Edit @userName".

Honestly... the stuff people write to get ranked top on Google doesn't often create an article that helps the best. (This is where my paid search brain thinks: send people to a simple page where you give them what they want!)



End of Day 1

I'd like to personally message everyone who Liked my page to thank them, and then ask them what they're hoping I write about. Except I can't freaking find a list of who likes the page.... ffs...

Anyway... back to work.

 

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[John F.]

Watching this one. I am going to be in the facebook page creation stage very shortly and I am certain there is going to be some good info coming into this thread.

 

[Atu]

Some excerpts from the last Facebook training I took:

1. Always write down "Facebook" name with a capital letter at the begining. If you do otherwise they can sometimes even block your accounts.
2. Be really careful about the order of steps you take. If you want to have cheaper Facebook ads it's beneficial to set up a "non-conventional" gender for you first, than create profile pages for your businesses, etc. Like everything, this not always works.
3. Facebook heavily promotes "family, friends and groups". It means that if you are a company you will have to pay for reaching anyone. You can always hack it by using your personal account for business purposes only, accepting friends from your customers/inviting them. Do not post any silly cat images. Give loads of value to your customers, they will follow.
4. It's an absolute must-do to use "Facebook business manager" and fill in all the description fields for your company.
5. Facebook takes close consideration on your personal education and it's relevance to your declared profession.
6. Generally saying - the more close, friends-alike relation you can make/simulate with your customers on Facebook, the better it is. This constitutes of giving reactions to their photos, using emoticons, varying short and long texts, placing photos that will provoke reaction, than re-reacting to answers, using facebook-live, etc...
7. Even if you have a herd of followers for your company, things you post as a company will only reach a small percentage of followers, unless you pay.

And best wishes

 

[TonyStark]

Drop the link!

 

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[Roli]

I'd like to personally message everyone who Liked my page to thank them, and then ask them what they're hoping I write about. Except I can't freaking find a list of who likes the page.... ffs...

Nice one Andy, it's about time... or is it...? Only time will tell

If you go to "your page" using the dropdown arrow on the right of the top blue bar. You can then go to "notifications" and you will see all the people who have liked your page.

Feel free to hit me up for any more tips. Might as well put that life I've wasted on that site to some use...

 

[SamRussell]

I'd like to personally message everyone who Liked my page to thank them, and then ask them what they're hoping I write about. Except I can't freaking find a list of who likes the page.... ffs...

I might be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to do that on Facebook Pages.

You can post a status update asking people what they want - as more people comment, facebook shows it to more of your "fans".

Questions like that tend to be very engaging.

As silly as it sounds, posting a question along with a selfie of you doing whatever can get people engaged.

Facebook will show your content to people, IF that content engages people.

 

[Andy Black]

Watching this one. I am going to be in the facebook page creation stage very shortly and I am certain there is going to be some good info coming into this thread.

Thanks for the vote of confidence @John F.

I must admit, now I’ve created the page I’m a bit stuck. I actually don’t know what to do with it!

The main reason I’ve finally created one for my business is that I’m going on a “Facebook & Instagram for Business” workshop next week and a pre-requisite is you have a Facebook page.

The reason I’m going on the workshop is because it’s a free, two hour, evening workshop about an hour away. I’m taking my stepson who’s doing a bit of work for me.

I’ve been thinking of giving my own free, two hour, evening workshop on Google Ads so wanted to go through the process as a consumer.

I also have clients who use Facebook with varying degrees of success so want to be able to better help or advise them.

For the Facebook page for my actual business: I’d like to get my it setup and configured, and may just leave it as a static page. Or not. I don’t want to mess about with my company Facebook page, running tests and/or posting the wrong type of content. I want a minimal presence for those that go looking for it, but don't particularly want to grow the number of followers or use it as a lead gen channel. I’ve other brands I’d want to do that for.

Sooo... given I want to get my head round creating Facebook pages, growing their following, and generating leads and sales via it (which is the main point right?), I think I need to create a page that I pump out any old (business and marketing) content to and not worry how it affects my business brand.

I also feel constrained by my business page in that I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t post. This reminds me of my paid email newsletter thread where I was trying to figure out how to get one running and went round in circles naming it. After a few months I came full circle and just called it “Andy’s Paid Email Newsletter”, which gives me permission to write what comes to mind.

I’m tempted to create another Facebook page as a public persona page and document me building the page, a following, as well as having an outlet to post many times a day without worrying about spamming my friends or screwing with other brands I want to create.

I’ll figure this out by Monday morning. I don’t want to keep inviting friends to like different pages so I can get the vanity URL though. I believe there’s a workaround of setting someone else up as a temporary admin and getting them to change the @userName.

Something else I’ve realised upon observing people liking the page is that many of them are friends of old, and many others are nieces and nephews. For all I know some of them might actually want to know what I’m up to in business, how to get started in business, and/or want to follow along with more of what I’m up to. I don’t post much on my personal profile because I don’t feel it’s appropirate. But I do feel an obligation to try and help the people who’ve decided to follow me.

 

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[Andy Black]

Some excerpts from the last Facebook training I took:

1. Always write down "Facebook" name with a capital letter at the begining. If you do otherwise they can sometimes even block your accounts.
2. Be really careful about the order of steps you take. If you want to have cheaper Facebook ads it's beneficial to set up a "non-conventional" gender for you first, than create profile pages for your businesses, etc. Like everything, this not always works.
3. Facebook heavily promotes "family, friends and groups". It means that if you are a company you will have to pay for reaching anyone. You can always hack it by using your personal account for business purposes only, accepting friends from your customers/inviting them. Do not post any silly cat images. Give loads of value to your customers, they will follow.
4. It's an absolute must-do to use "Facebook business manager" and fill in all the description fields for your company.
5. Facebook takes close consideration on your personal education and it's relevance to your declared profession.
6. Generally saying - the more close, friends-alike relation you can make/simulate with your customers on Facebook, the better it is. This constitutes of giving reactions to their photos, using emoticons, varying short and long texts, placing photos that will provoke reaction, than re-reacting to answers, using facebook-live, etc...
7. Even if you have a herd of followers for your company, things you post as a company will only reach a small percentage of followers, unless you pay.

And best wishes

Thanks for these tips @Atu. I’ll drop my ones after the workshop next week.

I’d like to create a page such that I’d feel comfortable testing things and trying to grow it. The one I created yesterday isn’t that page I don’t think.

 

[Andy Black]

Drop the link!

Lol! Thanks @TonyStark.

I don’t want to drop my company Facebook page, but will likely create a public persona one and drop that one so you can follow along.

Oh, maybe it’s a follow along (progress thread) kind of thing?

 

[Andy Black]

Nice one Andy, it's about time... or is it...? Only time will tell

If you go to "your page" using the dropdown arrow on the right of the top blue bar. You can then go to "notifications" and you will see all the people who have liked your page.

Feel free to hit me up for any more tips. Might as well put that life I've wasted on that site to some use...

Thanks @Roli.

I went to those notifications but it doesn’t give a nice clean list of people who are now following the page so I can work my way through them. I feel kinda bad. It’s like people sending gifts but me not being able to send a quick note back to say thanks.

I’m looking forward to the tips as you see me getting stuck or going round in circles.

 

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[Andy Black]

I might be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to do that on Facebook Pages.

You can post a status update asking people what they want - as more people comment, facebook shows it to more of your "fans".

Questions like that tend to be very engaging.

As silly as it sounds, posting a question along with a selfie of you doing whatever can get people engaged.

Facebook will show your content to people, IF that content engages people.

Thanks @SamRussell. Your points really did get me thinking.

1) I’m so uncomfortable with the word “fans”. I vaguely think this is something I need to get over.

2) I’ve no problem posting a selfie... so long as it’s not on my business Facebook page. That realisation has me thinking I should create a public persona page and play with that page.

3) I do want to thank folks and ask what they would like to get from following me. Doing so publicly may well create an engaging post, but I feel some folks would be too shy to reply. Given a lot of them are personal friends I’d love to have IMs with them. If I got loads of strangers following then I’m sure I’d have to protect my time.

 

[Andy Black]

Day 2

Posted this to my personal page:

I’m humbled.

Yesterday I invited all my Facebook friends to like the brand new Facebook page I’d setup for my business. I didn’t expect 90+ people to do so.

I’m attending a “Facebook for Business” workshop next week and a pre-requisite is that all attendees have a Facebook page. Hence me finally pulling my finger out.

I saw so many of my friends pop up in my notifications after liking my page that I’ve been taken aback somewhat.

Thank you. I really appreciate you liking that page, and I figure it could be for any or all of the following reasons:

1) Out of support.

2) Out of curiosity.

3) Because you want to read my chatter about business, marketing, self development, and other stuff I don’t want to spam everyone else with.

Here’s the rub...

I can see nieces, nephews, and other youngsters Liked the page. I can see friends from school days, college days, and many different workplaces have also Liked the page. And I know some people who follow me in various Forums and Facebook groups have also Liked the page.

Anyone in any of those groups of people could have Liked the page for any or all of the reasons above.

What I didn’t expect yesterday was the feeling of obligation that’s come over me. An obligation to try and help those who followed who might want to start their own business, grow their business, get a job, get a better job, or just watch someone making it up as they go along.

My newly minted business page will be a bit boring and staid. I’ll not put too much of me into it, and it’s just there in case prospective clients go looking for it. I haven’t created that page to get my business found by anyone so I won’t post regularly. They’ll find my business via other, more intentional, methods.

There won’t be much to see on that page unfortunately. Which I feel bad about since so many people went and Liked it.

So I’ll create another page (a public persona page?) and invite you all to like that page as well/instead, and I’ll chatter away more freely without worrying about affecting my business brand.

Anyway... this turned out a lot longer than I thought it would.

Hope you enjoy the weekend!

Thanks again and thanks for reading.

 

[SamRussell]

Thanks @SamRussell. Your points really did get me thinking.

1) I’m so uncomfortable with the word “fans”. I vaguely think this is something I need to get over.

2) I’ve no problem posting a selfie... so long as it’s not on my business Facebook page. That realisation has me thinking I should create a public persona page and play with that page.

3) I do want to thank folks and ask what they would like to get from following me. Doing so publicly may well create an engaging post, but I feel some folks would be too shy to reply. Given a lot of them are personal friends I’d love to have IMs with them. If I got loads of strangers following then I’m sure I’d have to protect my time.

1) Yeah the word "fans" is a bit cheesy...

2) You don't necessarily have to use a selfie, but you can use an image, pro photo, stock photo etc. Images in general usually help boost engagement. Rather than a selfie, maybe a friend (or stranger!) taking a photo of you? From what I've played with, very simple questions with no image, and images of myself with my face clearly visible with a question, get the best engagement.

3) I agree - you can add a button on your post, for people to IM you. So you could say "What do you want blah blah comment or message me (just click the button) and I'll personally answer you" or something to that effect. So you have all bases covered. If you grow the page and keep it, you can:

• Setup auto responses to filter people
• Have a VA handle messages like you might have a VA handle email
• Have auto responses sort people into a funnel to book a phone call with you

There are a few ways you can go about protecting your time

 

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[Andy Black]

I’ve quite a bit to braindump. I’ll do it over the coming days.

In the meantime, I’ll change the title from “Andy’s First Facebook Page”.

Also... I just posted this on the inside, and I think it’s relevant to what I now think I can use Facebook for (after a week of scratching my head).

Someone asked:

How would you go about building an email list for a digital product that is not yet available?

I am aiming to monetise my cooking knowledge of about 10 years into digital products over the coming months.

I currently have a Mail-chimp account set up and have been engaging in cooking forums getting known as an authority and someone to go to for questions.

Here’s my reply:

If you’re helping people in forums or Quora, can you have a signature that links to a simple squeeze page? Some people will trickle through.

If you’re helping people in a Facebook group, some people will start checking out your personal profile.

If someone sends a FB friend request then get into a FB message conversation immediately. I do this when someone follows me in TFLF, and I do it when someone sends me a FB friend request.

You can tell them what you’re up to, direct them to a Facebook page they can like, and also direct them to the “tease page”.

Setup a public persona Facebook page and link it to your personal profile. Some people will check it out. Don’t make it perfect. Just start adding daily content of you creating food, documenting your progress as you build your course and training. Invite all your Facebook friends to Like this page. Be prepared to be humbled.

Maybe even create a Facebook group? I don’t know much about running these. I’m observing a few and I’ve spotted some are run by people’s public persona page - because they can setup message chatbots in case people in the group message them. Regardless... setup the group “signup questions” and have something in the description where you send people to the squeezepage to get their freebie.

I’m having a play with this stuff on Facebook and have a new progress thread on the outside.

I don’t know if you listened to the call in my signature called “Who have you helped?”. I think Tony lays out a great strategy for Quora, that should work for all communities online.

PS: Don’t worry about the numbers trickling through at the start. Initially they will be the most motivated. Get into email or message conversation with them. Get onto Skype, Facebook, or Zoom calls with them too. Record the chat with their permission. Shove it on YouTube, SoundCloud/iTunes, your Facebook page and group, etc. (I use Zoom where I can.)

P.P.S. Don’t get precious about *any* of this. Just start and make it up as you go along. Some people will like to follow the journey from the beginning.

 

[Andy Black]

The free workshop I took my son to last week was interesting.

Only three people attended, which is a shame for the lady who’d paid for the beautiful hotel room and projector. She says she had 11 confirmed attendees, but lots of them flaked. I think that’s poor form. I did suggest she slaps a €20 ticket price on it next time.

We learned a few tips on the workshop that were handy (how to make my stepson an Editor of my business page, how to schedule posts, how to do personal Facebook Lives just to ourselves so we can practice).

The part I was most confused about and wanted to discuss was separating personal and business chatter, but also about keeping my business brand on point. She believes you should have one page and post everything to it, even though I said I have different markets. I don’t think she understood me and I didn’t belabour the point.

I’ve figured it out this week though by “doing”. I’ve been traveling a lot so have had my phone in hand and being a consumer on FB while observing what the producers do (a much better way of learning I might add.)


One guy is doing something I think is really smart.

He invited me into his own Facebook group (presumably after seeing me comment, join, or like something related).

He’s super active, posts good content daily, and replies to *everything*.

I finally noticed he’s using a Facebook public persona page to admin the group, and messaged him to asked why. He said it’s because you can setup chatbots using pages but not personal profiles.

He’s also building a course (tagging you @Timmy C ) that group members will get access to earliest and for a 50% discount. He “teased” us with a screenshot of him building his course. He got a great response, which he deserves for all his hard work in the group to date.


I can now “see” what I could/should do. I want somewhere I can post daily but don’t want to do it to my personal page, or to the page of my business.

I’ll do that to a public persona page that I created but haven’t done anything with yet.

It feels right because I feel free to post what I want, how I want, and without affecting my business brand.

If (when?) I do link to any other Facebook page from my persona page, then it will be one created specifically for whatever I create to help certain segments of whoever follows me. Maybe I create something to help people with CVs, interviews, and getting on at work? Maybe something to do with going freelancing? Etc...

Then each Facebook page is hyper focused and super obvious who that page will help. For instance, instead of creating a “Google Ads Tips” page, it’s smarter to create separate pages for “Google Ads for Plumbers”, “Google Ads for Blacksmiths”, etc.

But if I create a persona page I can blog/vlog daily about me figuring all this stuff out - ***as I help people***.

That last part is important. I’ve been here before in the AndyTalks progress thread. I get stuck if my goal is to “build a page”. I become unstuck if my goal is to help someone.

I spoke to a friend who’s struggling to keep his head above water with his business. I’m going to document helping him on my persona page. Helping him is the goal.

 

[silentjay]

Just thought I'd mention that since a FB algo change awhile back organic reach is pitiful, all those likes/follows a page has got are pretty much meaningless now, off the top of my head organic reach is now only something like 5%. You now have to pay for your own fans to see your posts. This also effects how fast your FB page will grow, it's never been harder to grow a FB page than now. I've got a high engagement page, higher than most of my competitors and the reach is still pitiful.

Not saying don't have a page, but just keep this in the back of your mind when investing time into it. It's sadly a band wagon many of us have missed and there's probably better avenues for ROI on your time. Lots of big brands have even closed their FB pages, refusing to hand over to FB hundreds of thousands just to reach their own fans.

 

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[Andy Black]

Just thought I'd mention that since a FB algo change awhile back organic reach is pitiful, all those likes/follows a page has got are pretty much meaningless now, off the top of my head organic reach is now only something like 5%. You now have to pay for your own fans to see your posts. This also effects how fast your FB page will grow, it's never been harder to grow a FB page than now. I've got a high engagement page, higher than most of my competitors and the reach is still pitiful.

Not saying don't have a page, but just keep this in the back of your mind when investing time into it. It's sadly a band wagon many of us have missed and there's probably better avenues for ROI on your time. Lots of big brands have even closed their FB pages, refusing to hand over to FB hundreds of thousands just to reach their own fans.

Yeah, I’ve also heard the sub 5% reach stat as well. It seems like a lot of businesses spent (wasted) a lot of time and money getting likes.

I’m curious about Facebook’s supposed new focus on groups and messaging (which I think makes sense):

• (Article) Facebook to focus on groups and messaging

And this was an interesting podcast where the guy was saying he gets similar engagement on his page as he does in a group:

• (Podcast) Building a 985,000-Subscriber Facebook Page

I’m curious how groups, messaging, pages, and ads would all fit into an overall strategy.


I actually archived the page I created a couple of weeks ago for my business, and unlinked it from my personal profile. I see my business as a holding company. If I want to use a page or website for a new brand or business venture then I’ll just spin up appropriate ones.

 

[silentjay]

I hear you.

I’m curious about Facebook’s supposed new focus on groups and messaging (which I think makes sense):

• facebook groups

And this was an interesting podcast where the guy was saying he gets similar engagement on his page as he does in a group:

• (Podcast) Building a 985,000-Subscriber Facebook Page

Thanks I'll listen to that podcast in a bit. Unless you've got a huge marketing budget or are able to post after post of viral content i'd say it's near impossible now to build a page with those sort of numbers for page likes. I agree with you FB does seem to be moving to groups/messaging.

Currently i'm spending most my time trying to move people from my FB page onto my email lists. Non-paid reach is only going to get worse.

 

[Andy Black]

Last year I vowed never to have a Facebook group or forum again - because they were a distraction and I was spending too much time in them. But then found I was spending too much time in other people’s forums and groups. Reading and responding is obviously something I’m drawn to. I do it instead of watching TV, and especially when I can’t get to my PC to do “work work”.

Upon noticing I was spending too much time being a nuisance in other people’s groups I reopened my small Facebook group for folks who took my course. It’s been fun chatting to people with similar goals in there.

I have noticed most people’s questions are about building a business with the skills from the course, although there’s a few questions about more advanced stuff.

Having a look around Facebook I can see a LOT of free groups for people building Facebook Ad Agencies, or for running Facebook Ads, but not so many groups for Google Ads, and they’re not as big and seem to be more technical, how-to, groups.

Maybe I also create a group as part of this adventure? People I know are already asking for one. The advantage of a group over a page is that the content is behind closed doors and I can jettison folks.

The advantages of a page are that anyone can find a post - but probably only if some money is put behind it?

And what the heck are stories and how are they used? Are they just for personal profiles?

Ack... this stuff is confusing. I may just try stuff, go with the flow, and see what happens.


I got my friend to make me an admin of his page so I can amend it and then try to get him more work. I’ll document what I’m doing on my new Facebook persona page.

 

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[silentjay]

Last year I vowed never to have a Facebook group or forum again - because they were a distraction and I was spending too much time in them. But then found I was spending too much time in other people’s forums and groups. Reading and responding is obviously something I’m drawn to. I do it instead of watching TV, and especially when I can’t get to my PC to do “work work”.

Upon noticing I was spending too much time being a nuisance in other people’s groups I reopened my small Facebook group for folks who took my course. It’s been fun chatting to people with similar goals in there.

I have noticed most people’s questions are about building a business with the skills from the course, although there’s a few questions about more advanced stuff.

Having a look around Facebook I can see a LOT of groups for people building Facebook Ad Agencies, or for running Facebook Ads, but not so many groups for Google Ads, and they’re not as big and seem to be more technical, how-to, groups.

Maybe I also create a group as part of this adventure? People I know are already asking for one. The advantage of a group over a page is that the content is behind closed doors and I can jettison folks.

The advantages of a page are that anyone can find a post - but probably only if some money is put behind it?

And what the heck are stories and how are they used? Are they just for personal profiles?

Ack... this stuff is confusing. I may just go with the flow and try stuff and see what happens.

I'd only bother with FB pages if you're willing to spend money (lots of it) and are selling something with big enough margins to get decent ROI. Otherwise just give it a miss, maybe do FB ads direct to your site or something instead. How about your own forum rather than a FB group? Honestly F*ck FB, they will continue to change the game in their favour so all that time you're spending you're valuable time on their platform is basically you building a castle on sand.

I've either closed or leaving dormant my pages as the juice is no longer worth the squeeze, too much opportunity cost and none of my products have high enough ROI to warrant throwing money at FB.

 

[Andy Black]

I'd only bother with FB pages if you're willing to spend money (lots of it) and are selling something with big enough margins to get decent ROI. Otherwise just give it a miss, maybe do FB ads direct to your site or something instead. How about your own forum rather than a FB group? Honestly F*ck FB, they will continue to change the game in their favour so all that time you're spending you're valuable time on their platform is basically you building a castle on sand.

I've either closed or leaving dormant my pages as the juice is no longer worth the squeeze, too much opportunity cost and none of my products have high enough ROI to warrant throwing money at FB.

I’m thinking the FB “persona” page can be me blogging/vlogging as I figure out Facebook and try to grow various friends businesses (using Google Ads as well as what I’m learning on Facebook). I need somewhere to try out Facebook Lives, uploading videos natively, polls, long form copy, short form copy, copy with an image background, engagement posts, CTA posts, etc.

I might as well take some of this progress thread to Facebook itself and document the journey. I’m sure a few folks would follow and that’s all I’d need to keep going.

A line that springs to mind is “People listen to experts, they follow leaders.”


As for changes to the platform... that’s the same with Google, Amazon, Udemy, Upwork, etc. So long as we know we’re building a house on someone else’s sand, and make sure we’re getting people onto an email list we own, then I think it’s ok to give up that element of control in exchange for all he other benefits.

As I go deeper into Facebook I’m actually amazed at how slick everything is. It’s so easy to spin out pages, groups, written content, videos, etc. It’s quite astounding how you can MVP something so quickly on the platform.

I’m a content creator, and I like helping people. I couldn’t stop if I tried. I may as well use that tendency and leverage it better. And if I get my head round Facebook then it’s something I’m better able to help clients with, or other projects for my own business.

 

[minivanman]

I find it ironic that she didn't just hold a Facebook LIVE for what she wanted to do. She would have probably gotten more takers.

How did you find out about her workshop to begin with?

 

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[Andy Black]

I find it ironic that she didn't just hold a Facebook LIVE for what she wanted to do. She would have probably gotten more takers.

How did you find out about her workshop to begin with?

Yeah, she doesn’t have that great a following personally. She manages other people’s social media accounts more than her own.

I suppose it’s similarly ironic that I don’t run Google Ads campaigns for myself, and don’t really have a website? Or maybe not?

I suspect I might actually have a better head for “social media” than I thought because I just see it as an extension of how I interact with people one-on-one in real life (sorry, IRL ... haha).

Mind you... she’s big into helping the local business community, and I fully approve of that. It’s something I want to do more of.

I found out about the course because I’m in a Facebook group of Irish business owners and the admin shared the event. It’s funny being in all these groups. There’s 2,500+ members in that group and it’s just tumbleweed. The occasional business owner posts some promotional junk that gets no likes or comments. I pop in and ask if there’s any government incentives for taking on paid interns and there’s a stack of helpful replies.

Doing “Social media” right doesn’t seem to be any different than what we’d do without the internet. It’s just interesting to watch smart people leave all their life experience behind and do some weird sh*t because they’re “on social media”.

I could be completely wrong of course. I am nearly 50 so maybe I’m missing something that these youngsters grok naturally?

The more I learn about Facebook the more I think I need to get my head round it.

 

[Andy Black]

Very interesting read. Saving to come back to:

• How To Use Facebook Groups for Business To Generate Revenue - Jessica Campos

 

[silentjay]

Very interesting read. Saving to come back to:

• How To Use Facebook Groups for Business To Generate Revenue - Jessica Campos

See she doesn't talk about numbers. Just another horse shit salesman. The insane cost of paying to get people to join your page plus then paying for them to see posts to join your group lol with the end result of posts in your group will have just as crap organic engagement rates as your page. Been in the FB game too long now I'm pretty disheartened with it if you're trying to create something from scratch without big advertising budget.

 

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[Andy Black]

See she doesn't talk about numbers. Just another horse shit salesman. The insane cost of paying to get people to join your page plus then paying for them to see posts to join your group lol with the end result of posts in your group will have just as crap organic engagement rates as your page. Been in the FB game too long now I'm pretty disheartened with it if you're trying to create something from scratch without big advertising budget.

Have your page link to your group? I’ve seen and joined groups just from reading about their page - above the fold and without scrolling. I’ve (somehow!) ended up in some messenger chatbot that collects my email address and sends me a password to log onto a Kajabi membership to view some free courses.

If I’m falling into these rabbit-holes then others are too.

 

[silentjay]

Have your page link to your group? I’ve seen and joined groups just from reading about their page - above the fold and without scrolling. I’ve (somehow!) ended up in some messenger chatbot that collects my email address and sends me a password to log onto a Kajabi membership to view some free courses.

If I’m falling into these rabbit-holes then others are too.

Yup of course. You can tick all the i's, cross all the t's regarding FB, getting people onto your group etc, you won't be able to escape the fact that FB will force you to pay. There's no hacks anymore, they closed them all down. Cough up or get lost basically.

Closed all my pages/groups today bar 2. Will keep them on life support, maybe 2-3 posts a day tops. Going to be odd shutting my buffer account down. See a few of my competitors who started same time as me have also given up. Only competitors still playing are ones who started their pages back in 2014 or whatever, have 800,000 likes (which they never had to pay for) and can accept 5% engagement rates.

I know i'm being very negative about it and i'm sure there's still people making FB work for them, I just want people to run the numbers first when you accept the free likes tap has been turned off and organic reach is non-existent for anything but viral content.

 

[Andy Black]

Yup of course. You can tick all the i's, cross all the t's regarding FB, getting people onto your group etc, you won't be able to escape the fact that FB will force you to pay. There's no hacks anymore, they closed them all down. Cough up or get lost basically.

Closed all my pages/groups today bar 2. Will keep them on life support, maybe 2-3 posts a day tops. Going to be odd shutting my buffer account down. See a few of my competitors who started same time as me have also given up. Only competitors still playing are ones who started their pages back in 2014 or whatever, have 800,000 likes (which they never had to pay for) and can accept 5% engagement rates.

I know i'm being very negative about it and i'm sure there's still people making FB work for them, I just want people to run the numbers first when you accept the free likes tap has been turned off and organic reach is non-existent for anything but viral content.

My favourite quote seems very appropriate:

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person closest to you.” (Mother Theresa)

I think it was last year that I had a play on Instagram. I posted stuff. People engaged. I tried to get into a conversation with them. Eventually I realised I was talking to bots. I then buffered up content and got my own bot. Sheesh. How boring was that! I did it for 30 days and never logged in again. Why? There didn’t seem to be any real connections being made. Could be I was doing it wrong, but the platform just isn’t for me. I’m not a meme type of guy, and all the motivational quotes made me want to barf.

Now Facebook, Facebook seems totally different. I see my friends and family doing stuff. I see local things happening. I join groups about stuff I’m interested in and chatter away like I do in TLF. I make connections and help folks and end up on Zoom chats all the time. Business is coming from all sorts of angles and I don’t even have a Facebook page and I don’t post anything business related to my personal profile.

I’m just going to take what’s worked for me to date IRL and in forums such as TLF and do the same on Facebook. Sure, I’ll post the occasional “piece of content”, but it will be something already posted to help an individual and that I figured could help more people.

I’m curious... what are you buffering? Are you posting content to your Facebook page on a regular schedule? What if you weren’t allowed to create a new post but could only reply to threads? How would you think about it then?

I can see you’re jaded. Is that because something that used to work isn’t working now? Can you switch it up and make it work again? Are Facebook Lives getting priority in people’s newsfeeds now-a-days? Can you leverage that?

I’m being a bit misleading when I say I’m a Facebook newbie. I’ve had an account for years, same as everyone else. I’ve been engaging in groups for years too. I don’t feel jaded at all... it’s been pretty good for me to date, and that's without spending any dollars on ads (yet?).

 

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[silentjay]

My favourite quote seems very appropriate:

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person closest to you.” (Mother Theresa)

I think it was last year that I had a play on Instagram. I posted stuff. People engaged. I tried to get into a conversation with them. Eventually I realised I was talking to bots. I then buffered up content and got my own bot. Sheesh. How boring was that! I did it for 30 days and never logged in again. Why? There didn’t seem to be any real connections being made. Could be I was doing it wrong, but the platform just isn’t for me. I’m not a meme type of guy, and all the motivational quotes made me want to barf.

Now Facebook, Facebook seems totally different. I see my friends and family doing stuff. I see local things happening. I join groups about stuff I’m interested in and chatter away like I do in TLF. I make connections and help folks and end up on Zoom chats all the time. Business is coming from all sorts of angles and I don’t even have a Facebook page and I don’t post anything business related to my personal profile.

I’m just going to take what’s worked for me to date IRL and I’m forums such as TLF and do the same on Facebook. Sure, I’ll post the occasional “piece of content”, but it will something already posted to help an individual and I’ll figure that it could help more.

I’m curious... what are you buffering? Are you posting content to your Facebook page on a regular schedule? What if you weren’t allowed to create a new post but could only reply to threads? How would you think about it then?

I can see you’re jaded. Is that because something that used to work isn’t working now? Can you switch it up and make it work again? Are Facebook Lives getting priority in people’s newsfeeds now-a-days? Can you leverage that?

I’m being a bit misleading when I say I’m a Facebook newbie. I’ve had an account for years, same as everyone else. I’ve been engaging in groups for years too. I don’t feel jaded at all... it’s been pretty good for me to date, and hats without spending any dollars on ads (yet?).

On the page I've got left, my main page, it's about 20 posts a day, mostly curated affiliate links, and about 3 memes a day (I dislike them as well). It's in a particular niche where people actually want these links and I could post much more (my competitors do). I built a script to post the "posts" from my website to buffer which then schedules them automagically.

My issue hasn't been the content for this page it's the fact the amount of money made via the affiliate links isn't enough to offset the cost of building the page or boosting individual posts. You need a page with a large following in this niche. There's no magic bullet. So i'm scaling it back to 2-3 posts per day and moving on to pastures greener, got a large web app I'm building out and also want to start dipping my toe back into dropshipping.

 

[Andy Black]

I don't want to post business stuff on my personal Facebook profile, so have created a persona page, then added a bit.ly link to it to my personal profile bio.