From 0 to 20,000: How To Grow A Facebook Group with Cindy Gersch
Aug 09, 2022
In this episode of Cash In On Camera, Facebook Power Admin & award-winning marketing expert Cindy Gersch shares how she grew her own Facebook group from 0 to 20,000 members in record time and what it takes to keep your group active and engaged.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear…
▶️ [0:46] I love talking Facebook groups and I've been in marketing for my entire career, right? 25 years. And I know Facebook, I know social media. I know the strategic component of it. Didn't really know Facebook groups, but being a small business owner myself, I own a marketing consulting agency. When the pandemic hit, I wanted to do something to help small businesses. And my first thought went to social media. So I started a Facebook group that was to support small businesses during COVID, during the pandemic.
▶️ [2:27] And then on top of that I know being a small business owner, myself, a lot of small businesses, part, particularly the solo entrepreneurs, the mom, and pop shops. They don't have really big. Budgets right for marketing. And it's like a revolving door. That's what I say like you need marketing to get clients, but you need clients to have money for marketing. Right? So my number one goal in that Facebook group is to really support small businesses with marketing.
▶️ [4:30] Yeah. So, I mean, there are lots of ways that you can monetize on Facebook. Clearly, you can do things like advertising. I haven't quite opened that up yet, but I've been approached by a lot of people who wanna advertise on my group because there are so many people on it. What I do and I've just started, this is actually, I have a membership. So it's closed right now, but it's a year-long membership for people who actually do have a little bit more money. It's not a lot like it's less than they would pay for me as a consultant for five hours, they get me for a year.
▶️ [6:41] Yeah. And that is definitely, so my whole marketing firm, the 25 years I've been in marketing, I'm very, I'm a strategic marketing person. So I think there's something to be said about that. I deal with strategies and all different types of strategies. And so it was very strategic, right? So at one point when the Facebook group had 24,000 members. It became a free for all right. And it was like just flyer drops. "Hey, follow me. I'll follow you."
▶️ [9:09] Yeah. So I think a little bit of both, first of all, I wanna emphasize by saying, I did this a hundred percent organically. So today, for instance, my Thursday thoughts are about social media and advertising. That's when we talked about obviously you can buy ads for social media groups. I did this a hundred percent organically. And yes, you are absolutely right. At one point, and this is my number one, a tip I tell everyone it's funny that you hit on it immediately without me even saying it. The number one tip is to have a name that sticks, and that people will be curious about and want to know. But that also really tells you what the group is. Name is everything.
▶️ [13:05] So one of the cool things about that is that we get to ask questions and get ideas from other power admins as well. And we get to beta tests. So the algorithm in regards to the emails is one of the things that many of the power admins sort of complaining about, is I will have posts that will only 200 people will see of 20,000. And that's frustrating. And now that I'm a power admin in this group, I can say like, "Hey, listen, this is a complaint of mine and everybody complains the same way", but that's why email is so important because you can make sure that they're seeing it. Right.
▶️ [16:42] Cause I target like small businesses, and other small business Facebook groups. Anyone who says marketing, that boilerplate goes right there. And the next day it's like, boom, I get so many, so many members. So that is free, obviously takes a little bit of time, but I would say join other groups that are similar to yours and post away. Have a boilerplate statement, copy and paste it. Spend 15 minutes a night doing it. It will make a huge difference.
▶️ [19:10] Yeah. So obviously my entire career, as I said, I've been in marketing and communication. So I understand the importance of networking. I will tell you since the pandemic networking has changed so much, it's all online. It's how I met you through networking. And my biggest tip is I joined a networking group.