In this week’s episode of the Extra Paycheck Podcast we’re talking about getting targeted traffic from Facebook without paying for it.
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Paying for Facebook ads could be a great strategy of bringing targeted traffic to your platform of choice. However it costs money. Besides the investment there is also a pretty steep learning curve when it comes to Facebook advertising. You need to make sure that your ad actually respects all of the FB’s advertising rules. You need to make sure your offer is so irresistible, everyone who sees it on Facebook will click on it. You need to make sure you’re targeting the right audience. You need to make sure that you’re spending less money than you’re earning. It isn’t as easy as simply throwing some money at FB and hoping for the best.
In today’s episode we aren’t talking about using ads. By the way, does that subject interest you? If so I could probably bring an expert for an interview and learn many Facebook Ads secrets.
Facebook Fan Pages
Fan Pages have been around for a very long time. They are so common that it’s almost a requirement for a brand to have such page in their online presence arsenal. A Fan Page is like a small website but it’s hosted within Facebook. On that page you can post your brand’s updates and you have let your fans send you private messages. Unfortunately these pages have flaws.
Just a few years ago you could post an update on your page and most of your fans would see that update on their news feed. Ogilvy shows that Pages’ organic reached fell to 6% for smaller pages and as low as 2% for pages with 500,000+ fans from 3012 to 2014. This number kept dropping in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Several sources suggest that this number will fall to ZERO in the near future. This only means one thing – if you want to reach your Facebook Page Fans you’ll need to pay for the ads. Surprised?
It sucks for people who spent years building these fan pages and accumulating loads of fans. But after all, Facebook has full control of its platform and we can’t really do anything to alter these updates. This is what happens when you rely on a 3rd party provider. This is why it’s important to diversify not only your income sources but your online business traffic as well.
Creating Facebook Groups
In the recent years Facebook Groups gained a lot of popularity. As networking is happening online more often than offline – people need an outlet to meet like-minded folks. “Back in my day” we used forums for that and often you would end up being a member of 5-10 different forums just to be able to connect with other people who are passionate about fishing or European cars or music. Then Facebook come along. Nearly everyone who has access to Internet has a Facebook account so it’s only normal to seek these communities on a platform you’re already using.
Unlike Pages, Groups can be very interactive. On a Page you’re the only one that can post updates while in a group every single member can post a question, ask for advice or share any kind of content they want to share. If you decide to create your own group you have to remember that you’ll need to put in a lot of effort into it especially at the beginning. You’ll need to post a lot of content, encourage your members to post content as well, you’ll need to react to their posts and be genuinely involved in everything that’s going on within that group.
If you’re thinking of starting a group and blasting your affiliate links in it or pushing your products then your members will ignore it and leave the group. Sure, you can promote your stuff there but you need to grow the community first. It will take time and it won’t be easy.
You don’t need to create your own group though.
Joining Facebook Groups
You can simply find active Facebook groups in your niche or your industry and join them as a member. Be active in these groups, be genuinely helpful and pay attention to the community. What kind of problems do they have? Are they willing to pay to solve these problems? Can you possibly solve these problems for them? What kind of content do they love and what kind of content goes unnoticed? You need to be active and keep your eyes open.
Once you understand these things you can start sharing your own content (as long as it doesn’t break the group’s rules). You need to either create a good amazing piece of content for these folks or find an older piece and simply post it on the group. Last year I made a short video for one of my niche brands and I made it specifically for a few similar Facebook groups. I knew they would love it so I posted that video within those groups as soon as I released it. In the first few days the video got over 20,000 views and reached over 50,000 people (these number went up quite a bit since then). The Page likes doubled (from 200 to 400). I also gained quite a few YouTube subscribers and generated some affiliate commissions. Facebook estimated that it would cost me $500-$700 to reach this amount of people if I paid for the ads. It felt good to get all this traffic without paying for those ads.
You can take this strategy to another level though.
When you post something within a group it can get lost within minutes as many other people are posting content as well. Whenever people comment on your post – it goes up on the wall. If no one comments, it gets lost. There is a way to hack this.
Different groups have different default notification settings. Most group decide to send a notification to ALL members whenever an admin posts something. Imagine if you were the admin of a group with 50,000 members. Whenever you post something within the group all these people receive a visible notification about it. This is huge! I know, you probably aren’t an administrator in a group but what’s stopping you from asking an admin to post something for you? Do that and you increase your chances of your content getting very popular within that group (that content has to be VERY relevant and it has to provoke some kind of a reaction).
You’ll have to find the right approach to an admin and it can certainly be done.
There is another very awesome hack that will almost guarantee that an admin will be extremely happy to post your content on that group. In order to learn that trick you’ll need to listen to today’s podcast episode by scrolling up and clicking the play button 😉
Mentions:
In this episode I mentioned episode # 25 of the Extra Paycheck Podcast, Using Competition Apps To Grow Your Business With Stuart McKeown.
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