Marketing Monster

A few weeks back, Charles Mandel from The Globe and Mail (a national newspaper in Canada) asked me some questions for a piece he was writing about a start-up classifieds site who’s strategy was to leverage a Facebook group to get traction. The article appeared today in the Incubator column of the Report on Business section.

With it’s rise in popularity, so many businesses are hopping on the Facebook bandwagon In addition, many companies striking out into this new world don’t realize that there are fundamental differences in functionality between creating a group and creating a fan page. (Check Jason Falls‘ excellent post on Facebook Group and Brand Pages Best Practices for the breakdown.)

If you start a group and you manage to get people to join it, then what? What will members be able to do there, and how will you encourage them to participate?

As most who’ve joined Facebook groups know, the vast majority of the time there is no follow-up by the group owner. With no outbound communication, it’s easy for the member to forget about the group and never return.

However, there are some groups that go overboard with emails, becoming an annoyance in inboxes and inciting members to unsubscribe. The trick is to strike a balance and have a plan.

Before launching your Facebook group, determine your outbound communication strategy. How often will you send the group messages? What will you say in the message? Will you offer group members any incentives to come back to the group page? Will members have any special benefits? And ultimately, how will you make your group so good that your members will invite their friends to join?

You may find that, after consideration, starting a Facebook group isn’t the right tactic to meet your strategic goals. Thinking through all of these considerations before diving in, will help you to be more focused in your efforts, increasing your chances for success, no matter which social network(s), if any, you settle on.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 5 Considerations before Companies Dive into Twitterville (socialmediatoday.com)
• Do brands belong on Twitter? Yes and no (mathewingram.com)
• Beyond Politics: Social networks and commerce (marsdd.com)