Fun fact: 76% of Dash of Social®’s clients come from Facebook groups.

Although a large reason why this is true is because people are often looking to delegate their marketing and turn to Facebook groups for referrals, these people don’t just hire Joe Shmoe off the street–they hire someone who has built credibility, trust, and expertise within the community.

Posting once in a Facebook group doesn’t mean that someone is instantly going to hire Dash of Social®. And I also don’t even view Facebook groups as a sales source. Rather, Facebook groups were how people found out about Dash of Social®, and then they continued to follow our social accounts and see all of the value we provide until they were at the point where they were ready to hire us.

And the same can happen for you. If you’ve been using Facebook groups with not much success, follow these 5 tips below.

Share Who You Are, What You Do, and How You Help

When you join a Facebook group, the very first thing you should do is craft an introduction post that shares who you are, what you do, and how you help. This is like setting the foundation of your expertise within the group–you want people to know what you’re good at and why you’re good at it so that when they need to hire someone like you, you’re the first person in mind!

Pro Tips: Use a high-res headshot and tag your business page when mentioning the name of your company.

Spend the First Few Months Lurking

If you join a group and immediately promote yourself off the bat, it’s going to get lost in the noise because people don’t know who you are and therefore won’t feel compelled to invest in whatever offer you’re sharing. You need to take time building your thought leadership.

One of the best, and easiest, ways to do this is by commenting on any posts within the group that you deem to be relevant. Keyword: RELEVANT. You don’t want to comment just to comment but rather have something meaningful, authentic, and productive to say.

Commenting can include congratulating someone when they share a business win, answering a question they ask, sharing a referral if someone needs to hire a business, etc. This will show that you are someone who is always wanting to help and support others.

Pro Tip: If someone asks a question relating to your zone of genius (i.e. asks a social media question), but they DON’T ask for a recommendation on someone to hire, DO NOT pitch your business! It ends up being a big turn off. If they wanted to know of a company to hire, they would have asked.

Publish Value-Driven Content

If you have tips, advice, or a lesson you’ve learned that you think others could benefit from hearing, share it! As a business owner, it’s our job to identify problems our target market is facing and find ways to solve those problems. Posting in Facebook groups easily helps you to do that.

If you are an accountant, you can share quarterly tax estimate reminders, tips for paying yourself, advice on how to price your services, and more. This content will position you as an expert because you are giving people valuable advice for free–advice that they can easily consume and implement on their own moving forward.

This falls under the idea of “give before expecting to get.” You need to give give give before you can expect to get anything in return–but you will get something in return.

Pro Tip: Sharing value-driven content works. I have only shared a handful of promotional posts in groups–everything else falls under this value-driven content category. You don’t always need to be salesy to get the sale–sometimes you just need to be a helpful human!

Connect with Other Members Outside of the Group

Do you see a member in a group that you think would be cool to have a conversation with? Get a virtual coffee chat set up!

I’m constantly getting asked for referrals in various industries, so I set up a bunch of virtual coffee chats to get to these individuals better so I would have referrals to give. There were absolutely no sales pitches involved–I just simply wanted to get to know the other person and learn how I can support them. Because I held calls with so many people, they often kept me in mind for marketing when someone they knew was in need of my services–and this led to a ton of referrals.

Pro Tip: Always make the conversation about the other person–never about you. You want to know how you can support them, not vice versa–but it’ll still benefit you either way.

Be Consistent

The most important thing to remember is to be consistent. You won’t get clients or customers immediately from a group, especially if you’re new! It’ll take some time, and that’s OK. I have been in these specific Facebook groups for 4 years now, and I didn’t start to get my first clients from them until I was a member for about a year.

Showing up daily, being helpful, and supporting others is how you will get clients and customers to come flocking to you.

Pro Tip: Test out different groups, too. You may find that one group just isn’t working for you, but it doesn’t mean that others won’t! Don’t be afraid to join a bunch at once and narrow your options from there.

How do you use Facebook groups for your business?