Shownotes
Three ways to fill up your Facebook group
Before we get into today’s episode I just wanted to let you know about a checklist I’ve created to take the overwhelm out of setting up in private practice. This is for you if you are new to private practice or if you still aren’t completely confident in your systems and processes. It is impossible to be creative and do more than therapy in your practice if you aren’t confident that you have the boring stuff like insurance, policies and data protection sorted. Tick of the boxes on the free checklist and you can see your clients confident in the knowledge that you have everything in place for your security and theirs. That will free up your mind for some creativity and business planning for 2021! Download it now the link is in the show notes.
Now on with the show!
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Social media strategy can be very overwhelming. There are actually a million things you could do to grow your audience on social media but I would argue that these three strategies are most likely to help you grow your group in the shortest amount of time possible. It is important to remember that a group will only thrive if it continues to grow and you provide it with consistent value. So, like everything, you need to think about your vision for your business and your ideal client for the project you are working on right now. Then think about how you can solve a small problem for that client group through your group. That will give you some ideas for helpful content you can create for them. Once you know what value you are going to give to your group and you have that planned out you are ready to open the doors and try and get people in!
The top three strategies for psychologists and therapists growing a Facebook group
- Speak in other peoples’ groups
- Post on relevant threads in other peoples’ groups
- Create high-quality cornerstone content that links directly to the purpose of your group.
Speak in other peoples’ groups
Essentially in order to fill your Facebook group, you need to find the people who would naturally want to be in it, wherever they are hanging out. If you are targeting a particular professional group you could do this by sending messages on LinkedIn letting them know what the group offers to them. I do that for DMTT and it works really well. If your group is not united by a profession or you don’t think they are active on LinkedIn you can also find them in Facebook groups.
Last week we talked about how to build authority using Facebook and one of the best strategies for this is developing a relationship with people who own groups that contain your ideal client group and offering some free training to their group. This gets you in front of plenty of your ideal people and gives them a chance to quickly get to know, like and trust you. This is also a great way to grow your Facebook group as at the end of your talk you can let them know that they can find you there.
The first step is to set up some calls with your ideal clients and find out where they spend their time on Facebook. Then you develop a relationship with the people running those communities and work out what you can offer to them.
There are lots of things you can provide free training on that people with relevant groups will be pleased to have in their communities. I have done talks on managing strong emotions for life coaching groups, the difference between “depression” and low mood is a topic I get asked to speak on quite a lot, I have gone into groups and done training repeatedly for communities run by charities including those supporting unemployed people and veterans. Also, in order to promote DMTT, I have done talks in groups relating to marketing and online business on the mental ups and downs of entrepreneurship and I know that some of the members of the DMTT Facebook group found me that way!
Listen and comment in other peoples’ groups
Rather than just broadcasting you should also pick three communities that you think have a good number of your ideal clients in and become an active and helpful member. If you feel you want to mention your group, ping a message to admin and ask if that is OK. It is generally bad form to just post links to your group unless they have a dedicated networking thread or you have an agreement with them. Usually, if your group will be valuable to their audience but offers something different to what they are offering they will be OK with you posting links but the relationship with the group admins is very important so never do that without permission. One top tip is that if you set up your personal profile with clear links to your business page and a statement of what you do then people who “stalk” you from these groups will find your group anyway.
I know this is where some of you may start to freak out. Some groups do let you join as your business page so you may be able to avoid people finding your personal profile. But I wouldn’t count on it. I wish I could say that there is a workaround that will allow you to build a thriving social media presence for your business while maintaining absolute, tight boundaries over your personal profile but I don’t believe there is. I would never put that much trust in the platform developers. You can have high privacy settings on your personal profile that means that if someone who is not a friend clicks on you all they see is your name, a list of your business pages and a brief description. I do that in fact and at present, I believe it works. However, I think you have to accept that if you want to grow your business using social media, if you want to sell online courses or books or workshops, then you need to be mindful of anything you post from any social media account because privacy settings are not infallible and some people will look to find out as much about you as they can. I think I probably would if I was thinking about investing in a course with someone and I definitely would if I were considering therapy.
I can’t say that every post or comment I make is something I would LIKE all my clients to read but I do make sure that all of it is something I wouldn’t be embarrassed by if they heard me talking about it in the supermarket. For me, that means I try not to make any political statements or anything that could feel judgemental towards anyone. I also won’t give opinions that I wouldn’t want to be associated with me professionally (say about political figures etc.) If you decide that social media marketing is part of your vision for your business then you need to figure out a policy of engagement with it that feels right for you and stick to it.
Essentially the strategy is to listen to people, gather information about what they need from you, be a helpful person and, when you can, suggest they come and join your group. If you only do the last bit it won’t help you build relationships and frankly, just won’t work!
Create high-quality cornerstone content
You heard me talk last week about the importance of high-quality cornerstone content. This is the content that delivers real value to people and solves their problems. It is your best work, made accessible for free. I promise you if you are creating it regularly then talking to people in your group with become a lot easier. Getting people IN to your group will also become a lot easier! Some people will find your group organically through your cornerstone content. I know that people find the DMTT Facebook group off the back of this podcast all the time. I mention it so people get to know it and naturally want to be part of it. If you produce podcasts, videos or blogs you will also get a few people this way. Any channels you use to promote your cornerstone content will also, therefore, help you to promote your group. If you run FB ads to a podcast or a blog or use the organic strategies for promoting these that we have talked about on these podcasts this will see a steady stream of people joining your group to get more value from you. Seeing that you produce awesome content will also encourage people to want to move a step closer towards working with you. If they see you dropping a link to a really helpful blog post they are much more likely to want to find out what valuable stuff you are giving to your group members.
BONUS: Make sure you have follow up content that you deliver to your group that encourages them to join your email list. Sam and I will talk more about this in our episode on running a high-quality Facebook group but the most important thing to remember is that to successfully sell something to your group you are going to need to get as many people as possible onto your email list.
Finally, remember that growing a successful group is very very time-consuming. DMTT is my most successful group. We are at 1500 members and I love the interaction and supportive nature of the group. In order to get to that position, I have recorded a podcast episode, written five social media posts, responded to comments, been active in other peoples’ groups, spoken in other peoples’ groups and run FB ads to the podcast every week for a whole year. I’d say I spend at least an hour a day solely on working on the group and I have help from Sam, our community manager. At times it is way more than that! It is a big job and honestly that isn’t the half of it!
I have also created groups for people struggling with their mental health in the past. I posted in the group this week about one I created for birth trauma that didn’t work at all but I also created a 21 day mindfulness challenge for parents going through divorce that worked extremely well. You might not nail the right problem to solve for your client with your first group, you have to be willing to test it out and see. So although I think it is harder for more “clinical groups” and will certainly take up more of your time and thinking from a risk management and content creation perspective, it can work. The effort can definitely pay off. So if you are serious about building a FB group, be really clear about why it is essential for moving you towards your vision and follow a clear strategy that is all about solving problems for your ideal client group.
I hope that has given you some helpful insights into how to build a strategy to grow a Facebook group. Next week we have Sam Hill, our community manager, talking to me about how to make sure your group delivers value to members and becomes a thriving community. You all have lots of skills that will naturally make you brilliant at running groups. Sometimes we just need a mindset shift to unlock them!
Before I go I’d like to ask a favour. I’m really keen to get this podcast heard by more people so if you found this episode helpful please swipe up in your podcast app and give us a five-star review and a comment. It tells the podcast app that we are creating something worth listening to and will help spread the do more than therapy movement to more mental health professionals.
See you next week.
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Do you sometimes wake up at 2 am worried that you’ve made a terrible error that will bring professional ruin upon you and disgrace your family?
I’m laughing now but when I first set up in private practice I was completely terrified that I had “missed” something big when setting up insurance or data protection.
Even now, three years in, I sometimes catch myself wondering if I have really covered all the bases.
It is hard, no impossible, to think creatively and have the impact you should be having in your practice if you aren’t confident that you have a secure business. BUT it can be overwhelming to figure out exactly what you need to prioritise before those clients start coming in.
I’ve created a free checklist (plus resources list) to take the thinking out of it. Tick off every box and you can see your clients confident in the knowledge that you have everything in place for your security and theirs.
Download it now from https://psychologists.drrosie.co.uk/client-checklist
