How I Used Facebook

Facebook Step 2

Before I give Step 2 I want to emphasize that my focus here is on “free” traffic.
In other words – paying with your time instead of your dollars.

Also, if you focus and get things done while in FB and don’t get sucked into your feed, it does not take that much time.

My biggest time chunk was outlining my ideas and writing quick posts to copy/paste.
Which I did either early mornings or one weekend afternoon.

Here goes……

First you might be thinking;
Can you start getting people to your offer sooner?
Maybe.

Are you showing up in the group often and being super helpful?
If so then you might have enough exposure to start offering a link to your blog or free e-course after a week or two.

But if all you’ve done is join the group but are not working to become a part of the group, your information won’t be well received.

Once you have spent a few weeks developing relationships you can start promoting.

Some not-too-in-your-face ways to promote in groups is;
– An image or meme with your URL embeded in the image
– A link to a helpful blog post
– Send people to where you have an article on someone else’s platform, podcast, interview, etc. (Then your resource should send them to your site)
– Or simply make an offer to help when you answer questions

Remember too that you have the option to message people and that friends will be more likely to see your messages.

I made a conscious effort to “Friend” people in the groups that I enjoy to make communication easier.

Next – you’ll need to post regularly, so how do you come up with all the content?

I never added curated content, I always wanted to refer people to my own stuff or write something specifically for the groups I was in.

I worked on a 5 day schedule. (My groups tended to be quieter on the weekends.)
And I developed several posts per week.

Either by coming up with 3 quick posts a day during my morning writing OR developing posts over the weekend.

I would quickly post three times a day and then spend 30 minutes in the evening being social.

The key is to get in and get out – it’s all too easy to get sucked into reading and chasing articles.

It’s helpful to adopt the mindset of a content creator NOT a content consumer.

So back to how I distributed the content.

You don’t want to post the same content in every group at the same time so I use a rotating schedule.

It all starts with 5-7 main post ideas and then when you jump in (quickly) during the day you can either add a comment to your original post or post something similar.

I usually had 3 distinct posts that kind of worked together and referred to each other throughout the day.

I cut and pasted the posts and images I used so I could jump in and out of the groups quickly.

Some groups will move a little slower, so one post a day is plenty.
In some groups your post will move down the page fast, so posting the same post or something very similar will give it some new views.

When I was there to post, I did not read anything I just got in and got out.

My daily schedule took about 15 minutes at 7am, noonish and 7pm or after dinner.
Then if I had time I would ‘like’ and comment for a bit in the evening.
Honestly, after my first few “socializing” weeks I rarely socialized more than twice a week for about 30 – 45 minutes. (Usually while watching TV.)

You can see in the image how I rotated a limited amount of content through the groups to avoid multiple of the same posts in a single day.
(This spams your friends’ feeds)

You’ll have to do a planning session before the next step so I’ll stop here and ask.

Have you got any questions or want to know more?

3 users thanked author for this post.

Mark Rhodes, Leslie Leftley, Bruce Hoag

Thanks Leslie, great questions.

I’ll tackle them one at a time before moving on to part 3.

1) I don’t want all my best stuff just getting posted within FB groups for all to see, I want my best stuff to be reserved for those joining my list.
I think the days are gone when you could give people just a taste and it would be enough for them to sign on to try more.
If you want loyal followers you have to give your best stuff. Also there is no way to give it all away in a post of a few paragraphs.

You can also reserve some secret insider stuff for your subscribers – this is natural – a person would not be able to understand or put into practice your higher level stuff before they know your basics.

When I was assisting with seminars for a local economic development group more than one trainer came in and told me they had no fear of giving away their secrets for 2 reasons.
#1 Mediocre information is available everywhere and I (the seminar trainer) want to stand out.
#2 Less than 2% will ever act on the information anyway, so there is no real reason to fear your best stuff will all of a sudden be public knowledge.

And I’ll say #3 Post disappear quickly in Facebook so you would actually have to post it many times for the whole group to see it just once. But I also believe that the people who need to see it will, if you’re diligent to ‘get it out there’.

2) How do you motivate,and discipline yourself to spend weeks within FB groups, some of which you can’t really condone, due to “iffy” behavior and language?
See #4 – As far as motivation and discipline I think that is the same for just about everything – it comes from a deep rooted reason to do it.
Why does a person stay at a job they don’t like?
Why does a person keep working at a marriage that’s having trouble?
Why do you keep teaching a difficult child?
Why do you get your car to the mechanic (or fix it yourself) even tho’ it will cost you (time or money)?

Because there is a reason why…
You need the $ to take care of your family, pay the mortgage etc.
You have a love and commitment that’s worth fighting for.
you see potential in the child they are not ready to see in themselves.
You don’t want to walk 🙂

3) Do you have any secrets that help to keep you sane and your mind laser targeted on the task in hand.
My biggest “secret” is not that I stay laser focused but that I’ve disciplined myself to get BACK ON TASK.
I can’t always help what gets thrown at me, but I am in control of what I do with it.
So the biggest habit I’ve built is to check in with myself to become aware of whether or not what I’m doing is leading me to my desired outcome.

4) How did you build up that habit…especially when dealing with groups that became distasteful to you?
I don’t stay in groups that are distasteful to me. I see how that could be misunderstood by the way I phrased my earlier input.
But the reason I encourage you to start with 20 groups is so that you can find the 3 -5 groups you really click with.
People you like and who you want to help. there is no reason to stay if you don’t.

I’ll add step 3 in another response.

Take care,
Julia

3 users thanked author for this post.

Leslie Leftley, Bruce Hoag, Sean Mize

Part 3

I think many of you have looked at Step 1 and Step 2 and determined that this is all way too much work.
And in one way all agree.

There are more hands off ways to become visible on Facebook and you can use the same principles with this technology.

I’ve actually given you all the steps you need, even if you use the sharing tools.

It’s not that difficult.
The key is to create shareable content whether it be visually or in written form and share it get it in front of people on a regular basis.

So in this step I’m not so much going to give you what to do as a how to think.

It’s all too easy to share our product or service features or to share the benefits.
And there’s a place for that.

But I found there are two things that work in Facebook number one is to be open or you might call it vulnerable.

Sharing Insider secrets telling stories of how you messed something up and how you discovered new way to fix it or even a childhood story that taught you a lesson.

Remember the key is Facebook is a social platform and to really be effective in Facebook you need to work within that social frame.

And # 2 – Like anything you would write to get people’s attention you want to have a strong opening line.

Facebook post is not literally have a headline but you do have an opening line.

You want to grab their attention get them to keep reading and then give them an action to take.

So a good format is;
– An exciting or strong opening line
– A story in which you learned a lesson.
– Then tie that story into your offer
– And give them a call to action.

One last thing about how to think when you are writing your Facebook post is that you need to speak to a very specific problem.

For example as one person shared with me when I was learning this myself the difference between considering the purchase of a toothpick sometime or wanting a toothpick now is whether or not I have something in my teeth.

What is the specific issue that your client has and that you are there to solve?

So to recap the thought process of your sharing and post is a strong opening line or you might consider it a headline

You want to grab someone’s attention and get them to want to read more.

Tell a story and the story can be about some kind of transformation it should give an idea or sample of what you can do or maybe a breakthrough that you had that you also teach your clients.

Then make sure that you are speaking specifically to a pain point and always give a call to action.

The exception of course is when you are being purely social.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Bruce Hoag, Leslie Leftley, Mark Rhodes

Yes great point, Facebook is a means to an end – as a way to get people ON your list.

You can send them wherever you want. Your blog, a squeeze page, article, video, or another site/page within Facebook.

Any of these strategies can be used to take the conversation OFF FB where you have more control.
But it’s the same with many platforms. If you publish a guest post, advertise, do an interview, etc. you also want to bring people back to your list.

It’s just one of many places to find people to engage with.
Keeping in mind with FB you won’t have much success if you don’t first do the work of finding engaged groups that have the need you serve.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Leslie Leftley

It would make a good smaller product.

I’d love a little more feedback and questions on the topic first to know what people want to have more detail on.

Plus I’m furiously working on extracting my already finished products to get them in a sellable and easily deliverable form.
Since they were previously delivered to small groups via email then need central download pages.