In this blog post we're going to be talking about how to stand out on Etsy and how to build a community using Facebook groups. 

Facebook groups have been something that I have always done for every single one of my businesses. I've created, ran and scaled around 8 Facebook groups in my time and it has always been my automatic go to social media platform for building a community. 

It wasn't until I did a live (watch here) all about Facebook groups that I realised that you guys are genuinely interested in standing out from the masses by creating a community by creating a Facebook group. 

When I sit and think about it, Facebook groups have been one of the biggest pinnacles to my success, but I hadn't ever thought about it that way before. My Facebook groups have been the biggest platforms to drive traffic and get me sales from, and I would hazard a guess that anyone reading this can get a sale a day from their Facebook group if they build a really engaged community. 

Vanity Metrics

When you are looking at the bigger competitors out there, and you look at their Instagram followers and how many people like their Facebook page, or how many sales they've had on Etsy etc, those competitors are playing a numbers game. I'll be honest, it's a game that you cannot win without burning yourself out. 

Let me know if this sounds relatable. You're always trying to catch up with them and you think "they've got 10,000 followers on Instagram. When I get 10,000 followers I'll be that successful too". The truth is that you're probably not going to be. They have their own thing going on, they have a funnel in place and they have a plan and a strategy in place. 

I'm not saying that you won't be successful, but I am saying that if you are only comparing numbers (essentially they're vanity metrics), then you are playing a losing game. 

Quality over Quantity

It is always going to be quality over quantity and this is where Facebook groups come in.

Facebook groups are the easiest and the best way to build a community. It is more reliable than having a follower on Instagram that may or may not see your post, they might interact, they may not. Whereas, more people will see your posts within your Facebook group. More people will build that trust with you and you'll build your exclusivity and expertise. You're going to become known within your Facebook group/ community.

The reason why I recommend Facebook groups is because they're so easy, it's always worked really well for me, and to be honest, there isn't a lot of social media platforms/ networks where you can build a community like that with all the features that it has to offer (going live, allowing/declining what posts are permitted, asking questions/ vetting group members before they join). This is why I love Facebook groups, and they're free to set up. Quite a lot of the community building platforms out there you have to pay for.

Think of your Facebook group as your party. Remember, it is always more important to have quality people at your party, rather than a bigger quantity. Taking your time to nurture your audience and turn them into super fans means that you'll more likely get daily sales over a group of 5000 members which doesn't have their target market because they've just invited the masses into it without much thought. 

All of the social media gurus including Meta themselves have said that over the next 5 years, it is going to be all about building community. They're going to be adding more tools for Facebook groups, they're going to be making it easier to create events, and making building a community the future of social media. 

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They Asked For It

Your 'party' is more likely to be shown higher up in your customer's Facebook feeds because they have signed up to join it, meaning that they're more likely to engage with it and interact on the posts.

One of our biggest psychological subconscious fears, is the fear of not belonging. So because you're building a community or Facebook group, you're creating a club that you're inviting them into, and they feel like they belong somewhere.

Especially if you do a good enough job of branding your community and getting the right people in there, they're never going to leave because they feel exclusive. Do you know how hard that is to come across online? Do you know how hard that is to feel like you're part of a group where people genuinely care about you? It is insane how affective that can be especially when it comes to marketing.

Non-gross Marketing

Marketing your business does not have to be done in a gross way either, because you are filling this group with people who love what you do, who are your perfect target audience, and all you're doing is being the perfect match maker and saying, "I know you love this (because you're in my group all about this), here's this product that I know you're going to absolutely love". It saves them time by going to look for it, so you're doing them a service, it's not a gross thing to do. 

Topics

A lot of you will be saying "but Steph, I'm not sure what topic my Facebook group should be about?" And I would say that it needs to be a topic that your target market is interested in, but it also has to heavily relate to what you sell. 

I'm not saying if you sell prints, you should create a prints group. That is too close, you need to go a little further than that. But I'll be talking more about this in my free Facebook groups training, so make sure you join my Facebook group so you don't miss out on it. The free training will take place on Tuesday 20th September 2022 at 12pm (GMT).

A Perfect Example

I want to talk about one of my 1:1 clients who was stuck between creating an email list and a Facebook group. I feel more attached to my Facebook group because I know the people in there. It's a high touch version of my email list. 

So my 1:1 client creates candles using crystals and she blends her own scents and it's very high quality. She created a Facebook group all about crystals, crystal healing, and aromatherapy, and you would not believe the amount of growth that her group has had. Now it's full of people who love aromatherapy, who love crystals and her products are perfect for them so she has no trouble selling to them. 

If you'd prefer me to visually teach you this blog post, then you can watch it HERE.

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