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| Exactly How I Make Money on Facebook |
The idea of this new series from entrepreneur Kathy Dee is to embrace Amazon’s idea of the 15 minute read, and accept the challenge to provide working plans for making money, without any fluff at all. In my guides, you get the idea itself and the necessary direction you need to start making money.
If that’s what you want, you are in the right place.
So let’s get down to the meat of what this report is about i.e. making money using Facebook Groups.
If the power of Facebook Groups is not yet apparent to you, let me briefly explain why they are so powerful.
Essentially, it is all about engagement. You may have noticed that when you post on your timeline or on a Facebook Page, that your post is not shown to all of your contacts. That’s because Facebook really wants you to pay for ads, and that’s especially true if your posts contain external links.
Simply put Facebook knows why you want to get people away from their platform and over to some offer and they are basically okay with that – provided you are prepared to pay for the traffic. In other words they are happy to show your posts to plenty of interested people, just as long as you pay for advertising.
Of course, we don’t want to pay and that’s why, if you are going to leverage Facebook as a traffic source in this day and age, you need to be using Groups! Quite simply Facebook Groups get much greater engagement and that’s because in the eyes of Facebook, when someone joins a Group, they are effectively showing an active interest in that Group’s main topic.
Now, next thing is that there are already Groups for any subject you can think of and many people simply join them and (not being unkind here) essentially spam them with links to their offers. I feel sure you would not do this, but let me make it plain that this is not an effective method.
What you should do, if you want to make money – and I know you do – is to start your own Facebook Group that is focussed upon one main subject, and that subject should be something your intended audience is passionate about.
When you have your own Facebook Group, you get to make the rules and, if you do it right, people will be continually asking to join so you will be building a targeted audience, at no cost, and with very little effort beyond the initial work to setup the Group in the first place.
Really, once your group gets the first 200 members, it will take off on its own. So, of course, setting up your Group and getting those first 200 members is your first goal. After that, you can post a ‘sticky’ at the top of the Group page that everybody will see and, of course, whenever you post to the Group, you will find that your posts will be seen by the bulk of the Group.
Hey, if it’s my Group, why doesn’t everyone see my posts?
Good question, if that was on your mind!
Just by being in the Group, you will find that your social reach is already significantly improved. But Facebook can still understand when you are trying to sell something, so it will still restrict your reach and continually suggest to you that you could reach more people by paying for their ads or ‘boosting’ your post, as they put it.
But don’t worry, I have some tips for you that will extend your reach within the Group even if you don’t pay for their ads. By the way, I am not against paying for Facebook Ads, provided you can be sure they generate a positive ROI (Return on Investment). When you can get free traffic to a converting offer, then you will be able to measure your ROI and know whether or not Facebook Ads will be worth your while thinking about.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves, first we need to select the subject that will be the central theme of our Group. This is the most important step i.e. the selection of the niche market you will operate within. It is a very important step indeed because within all market niches there are problems that people face and when you as the Group leader can find something that offers a real solution to a common problem faced by the members of your Group, you can be raking-in the cash.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not suggesting for one moment that you should renege on your responsibilities as the Group owner. Believe me, that would indeed be a recipe for total disaster! But when you can show other people that you are genuinely interested in the subject of your Group, when you can point them to useful resources, many of which may be available free somewhere on the web, when you can stimulate helpful discussion and genuinely help people to achieve whatever they actually joined your Group to do, then, my friend, you will establish your credibility with that Group.
And, after that, they will trust your recommendations.
Now, I am not for one moment going to suggest that you spam your own Group. But the fact is that, in whatever niche you decide to operate, there will be some products and services that are very useful indeed, but they cost money and many of these will have their own affiliate programs.
Affiliate Marketing is one of the most under-rated methods of making money today, but it is also one of the most lucrative when it is done well. And if you follow this plan, you will be doing it very well indeed!
Just once more in case you didn’t catch it – don’t be tempted to spam your own Group; it is not only ineffective, it is also counterproductive. When I say counterproductive, I mean that you will end up driving away the very people you need in order for the Group to succeed. If you allow spam, the flavor of your Group will change and it will end up like many of the other Groups on Facebook i.e. a place where spammers congregate to spam each other!
Don’t let that happen to your Group!
Work out the Rules – actually Facebook helps you with that by providing a useful set of default Rules when you are setting up the Group. You can edit them and even completely change them, of course, after all it is your Group! But view them as a set of guidelines for your Group, and you won’t go very far wrong.
Now we come to a very important point indeed!
You must tell people that you are an affiliate and you should do so in a prominent place. That is acting ethically and, these days, in many countries it is actually a part of the law. All professional affiliates tell their prospects that they may earn commission if purchases are made from their sites.
Obviously, you need to do this in a way that keeps you on the right side of the law and conforms to the requirements of the various affiliate programs you will join. Personally, I have found that adding a statement to the end of the Group Description is the ideal place to make your declaration. Firstly, a small part of the Group Description is displayed on the Group page – with a link so that people can read more.
Add a statement similar to the following to the end of your description:
We participate in a number of affiliate programs that help us to cover operating costs. Referrals may result in this site earning commission from advertising and/or product recommendations.
If you add your affiliate statement to the bottom of your Group Description, you will be not only conforming to the ethical standards expected of the modern professional affiliate, you will at the same time, not be wasting your most valuable real estate i.e. the sticky post in the most prominent position on your Group page!
Your ‘sticky’ post will contain a nice graphical link to your best-converting affiliate program. You will work this out over the course of time and change the offer as and when necessary, but your bottom-line will eventually tell you which offer it is best to place there. Again, the type of offer should be something that people active within your niche actually need and it should ideally be an offer (e.g. a special price or a trial period or some other useful thing of real value).
Once your Group is rolling, you should simply concentrate on taking part in the discussion, moderating the Group and generally being helpful. As you get more and more into the subject matter, you will undoubtedly come across more and more useful products and services. As and when you do, check them out. When you have a little money, purchase a few that look good, review them for the Group, and recommend (using your affiliate link) only the most useful!
As time goes by, you will gradually position yourself as an expert within your chosen niche and your Group members will increasingly come to trust your recommendations.
Before we close, I want to give you the benefit of my experience in setting up my own Groups.
Firstly, niche selection is critical!!!
There are great niches all around you, but you should choose one that really interests you personally because, you will need to stay with the plan until you build your audience. It will take a little time, especially at the beginning, and you are more likely to stay motivated if the subject genuinely interests you. Your niche should already be established well enough so that there are already affiliate programs for you to promote. And it should be something about which other people are passionate.
Setting up your Group on Facebooks is easy.
1. Login to Facebook
2. Click on ‘Groups’ in the menu on the left
3. Click ‘Create Group’
4. Enter your Group Name
5. Complete the Privacy Settings
But here are a few very useful tips for you:
Firstly, think carefully about your Group Name. You want to choose something that people who are interested in your niche might type in to Facebook if they were looking for a Group like yours. A friend of mine runs a community choir but when I type ‘choir in her hometown’ into Facebook, her choir doesn’t show up, and that’s simply because she chose the wrong name. If she had included the actual name of her hometown and the word ‘choir’ in her Group name, her Group would be very easy to find!
Don’t keyword-stuff your Group Name – it looks amateurish and you don’t want to look like an amateur; far from it, you want to look like a professional. But do include a keyword phrase that is relevant to people who might be looking to join a Group Like yours.
Privacy settings should be self-explanatory, but essentially you want to setup a Public Group and allow anyone to join. Just work your way through the Facebook form taking time to complete ALL of the sections – this is important for Facebook and you want to look good in their eyes.
Make sure you choose a really good image for your Group Header. Again, this is very important! You want something that looks professional and is relevant to your Group. Go to one of the many royalty-free image sites (I personally use Pixabay.com – they have really good images too) and take your time to find something really striking.
A final word on setup: it took me a while to find out how to post a ‘sticky’ within a Group. It’s easy but you have to know that in order to do it, you first have to mark the post as an ‘announcement’ and then Facebook will allow you to make it ‘sticky’ i.e. to appear – and stay – at the top of the Group.
Getting your first 200 members is your initial challenge. After that, the Group should grow under its own steam. So put everything you can to getting those first couple of hundred people. Invite all of your friends; if you have a Facebook Page, you can link it to your Group and then Facebook will allow you to invite everyone who liked your Page to join your Group.
Do everything you can, including posting interesting stuff (related to your niche, of course) regularly to the Group. Even in a fledgling Group, some people will share your stuff if its good, and that will attract other people to join.
Really stay 100% behind posting quality to your Group and keep sharing it. A couple of posts per day is certainly enough as long as it is good quality.
We are rapidly coming to the end of my allotted word-count (that I need to stay within Amazon’s 15 minute read criteria) so I need to finish off. But I want to say that you should not be discouraged when you start to make a small amount of money. This is again, very important because lots of affiliates decide to pack things in long before they should even be thinking about it.
Let this sink in: to succeed you just need two things:
1 – A Growing Audience
2 – A Converting Offer
And that’s it!
If you follow the advice in this report, you will have a growing audience because, after your first 200 members, your Facebook Group will grow organically. You will simply be participating – and enjoying – the conversation. And if you have setup your Group in the way we have discussed, your leading offer will deliver the results you desire.
And now is the time for me to stop writing.
You now have a plan that is working for me right now, and it will work for you too if you apply it to the letter, so go to it!
Good luck, my friend! 🙂