Why the need for a Facebook Group as well as a Facebook Business Page for your cut flower business?
Roz Chandler started her flower farming business ten years ago. She will be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media and upscaling your flower farm. No matter what point you’re at in your journey, this podcast will give you the information you need to grow your business.
In this episode, she takes you through all the reasons why a group is a good idea. It is vital for any flower farm to build an engaged group of like-minded people - your customers, the people who believe what you believe and buy from you all come together in an engaged group.
Want a more engaged customer group for your cut flower farm? Roz Chandler explains how.
You will learn:
Connect with Roz Chandler:
Join my Facebook groups: Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business; Cut Flower Collective
Thank you for listening. I’d love it if you subscribed to the podcast and left a review or rating.
Why the need for a Facebook Group as well as a Facebook Business Page for your cut flower business?
Roz Chandler started her flower farming business ten years ago. She will be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media and upscaling your flower farm. No matter what point you’re at in your journey, this podcast will give you the information you need to grow your business.
In this episode, she takes you through all the reasons why a group is a good idea. It is vital for any flower farm to build an engaged group of like-minded people - your customers, the people who believe what you believe and buy from you all come together in an engaged group.
Want a more engaged customer group for your cut flower farm? Roz Chandler explains how.
You will learn:
Connect with Roz Chandler:
Join my Facebook groups: Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business; Cut Flower Collective
Thank you for listening. I’d love it if you subscribed to the podcast and left a review or rating.
Welcome to the Cut Flower Farming, Growth and Profit In Your Business podcast. I'm your host, Roz Chandler, a flower farmer for over 10 years and 30 years as a business owner marketing director. This podcast is for you if you're an ambitious flower farmer, and looking for hints and tips to grow your business, we'll be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media, and upscaling your flower farm. So much more. I'm so excited to introduce you to my amazing guest speakers along the way. All of you will be at different points in your business. Our podcasts will take this into account. We look forward to joining you on your journey.
Hello, I'm Roz Chandler of the Cut Flower Collective, which is part of Field Gate Flowers. This podcast series is for ambitious flower farmers with a desire to grow their cut flower business. And so today we're going to talk about Facebook groups. So, we're going to cover what is a Facebook group? What's the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook group? Why create one even in the first place? The different types of Facebook groups. How to use it for your business. How to actually make it worthwhile. How to set up a Facebook group. And what I think are the ten best practices for Facebook group marketing. Quite a lot to go through.
So let's get going. So what is a Facebook group? Well, I looked this up as a definition from Facebook and they say, Facebook groups are spaces on the social media network for friends, acquaintances, or people with similar interests to discuss or share about broad or narrow topics. Groups provide an arena for organic discussion about your products or services and present the opportunity to cultivate brand awareness. So what they are really, in essence, are groups of people who all have the same similar interests and values. So what's the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook group. So let's take my business, for instance.
First of all, I have my own personal page. I've used it historically, mainly for friends and family. However, this page is now allowed me to reach out to people in the business community. So we are using our personal page to reach out. And I know that gives a lot of you absolute fear. But please bear in mind that you can create groups within your Facebook personal page of personal and private information that you do not want to share with the rest of the group. So if you don't want to share photographs of your grandchildren, or you don't want to share photographs of your house or the fact that you're going on holiday, then you can actually protect that within part of your Facebook group. And then use the rest of your Facebook group as a business page. And the reason why we do that is because your personal page hasn't got the constraints that a business page has got. And so when you're posting more people will see your posts, it's just got more flexibility. And that's a shame because business pages are actually hampered. So then your business page, this is your public identity of your brand. This is where you put your business updates. This is where you obviously put your products and services. You know our Facebook page has been growing over the years and we now have over 4000 followers, it's a great way for us to talk to our customers. However, we know that only 5% at most really will see any posts we put up. Obviously the more engagement you getting on your posts, the more people that will see it.
But obviously, Facebook's a business and it's looking for you to do paid advertising. And you need to have a business page to be able to do paid advertising. So it has a place and we definitely have ours. But bear in mind that your exposure to the whole of the people who follow you on Facebook is very limited. Facebook groups, on the other hand, are a place for all your customers, your fans, anybody who's interested in what you're doing to come together. It's a place for a discussion. It's rallying around you know Common causes. And for us, it's about sustainability and growing bridge flowers.
It's learning about a product is sharing experiences is sharing knowledge. And also get some personality in there, which is really quite vital. So why create a Facebook group for your business? Okay, primarily is a space that you own, you've built it as your group, it allows your customers to come in and for you to have a two-way conversation with them. It's a space, it's a safe space because you've created it. And it's part of your community, you can monitor the audience and what they're saying and what they're doing. You can respond to the queries and deal with any issues. You can build communities around certain subjects. We built a cut flower collective Facebook group, for consumers, some business people are in there, but mainly consumers. And that was built in December. And today, I think it stands at 3900 members of people who are really interested in growing cut flowers. So it's a great audience and a great community allows you to get a better understanding of your audience demographics and what they care about. It identifies new target audiences for you and new products and new services and a direction you should be taking. And it allows you to gain valuable and honest feedback.
Think of it as a direct line to your customers, the people in your Facebook group are likely your most loyal customers, they're spending their free time coming along and talking about your business, your purpose, no one's making them do it, they're doing it in their own free will, you've got an opportunity to tap into some real insights then, and learn from it. You can build long-lasting relationships with customers in a Facebook group. Customers are loyal to companies that treat them well. So that's what a Facebook group does, obviously, increase your organic reach as well, because it's part of the Facebook space. So what type of Facebook groups are there, there are three, in essence, and you need to choose very wisely because it's difficult to change them afterward. If you've got a public Facebook group, anyone can see what members post or share, if they have a Facebook account. It's visible to all potential group members and customers and there's no barrier to join in there, obviously, plus sides and negatives to that. It can be a private but visible page. So these private Facebook groups still show up in other searches. But potential members need to manually be accepted by the administrators.
It's like they come knocking at your door, and you let them in. For me, that's how I would set all my Facebook groups up. I like to monitor who's coming in. And I'll come back to why that's so important. You can have it private and hidden, as well, sort of secret groups that don't show up in any searches. But you can find it if you know where to find it. So it's really small community groups and not something that I would do for business.
So number five that we talked about is how to use your Facebook groups for business. On the surface, your Facebook group might seem like a social club. But in reality, it's a killer business tool. Don't ever, ever forget that. Customers might be chatting away and forming friendships, and some of them will last a lifetime. In our groups, if you go over to Cut Flower Collective, they're really loyal. And they’re creating friendships. And they're talking about meeting up. I mean, it's amazing. So how do you use it? You build it as a customer support community when a customer is looking for support or help. You can put a question in there. And I can tell you that lots of people will help out and try to solve the problem. And also why asking a question a customer allows us, you know, somebody else might be thinking of the same thing. So it's a great community. It's meant to be a party. It's meant to be a community. It's not a sales pitch. It's really important that you don't put it as a sales pitch, you can offer products and services. But the idea is that it's a community.
So how do you set it up? Well, creating your Facebook group. So first of all, you obviously have to have a Facebook page. And after logging into your Facebook page, you can find the create tab in the navigation bar and select group from the menu. Now the next step is the most important one naming your group. When you're naming your group, try and make it something so that people will know what you're talking about. I know it's quite funky and cool to come out with a name. That sounds great, but it doesn't actually say what it does on the tin. So be very careful about what you name your group. Ours is called the cut Flower Collective as our consumer group and growth and profit in your cut flower business as our business group. So we hope that will convey exactly what we do. Next, you can invite members to your group, you can either email address them, or Facebook names here and you can invite them. And they're more likely to join once you've invited them. So then you can make your group private, or public, we've talked about that. You can add detail into your Facebook group. You can customise your Facebook photo. Absolutely crucial to get this right. Now, this group is set up by you. So I would suggest you have a very clear photograph of you. And a very clear, what is this group all about. That's really quite important. If you look at both of ours, both the Cut Flower Collective Group and also the Profit and Growth in your Cut Flower Business, you will see that they are very clear about who that group is for. Finally, share your first post, get it off, go get going and get your community building.
So next, we're going to talk about the best practices for Facebook group marketing. These are really important. A Facebook group isn't one of those things that you can set up and walk away from. It's a growing organic community. If you want it to be civilised, and people to talk to each other and help each other out. You need to set some rules, and you need to be very hot on those rules. You can set the rules and you put them in there. And you say these are the rules of my group. And you can ask people to accept them before you let them into the group. So mine would be about no spamming or selling. Mine will be about being respectful to each other. So it's really important that you get those clear in the first place.
Next, you need to post regular welcome messages. So newcomers coming into your group, you need to welcome them, you need to say welcome to the group. This is what the group's all around, we hope you have a lovely time. You know, they've cut they've taken their time and they've come over. So please welcome them. You need to engage consistently, but obviously not too much. I do engage a lot in all of my groups. And I answer lots and lots of questions. But I also let the others answer some of the questions and engage in the community. I don't always jump in and answer all the questions, you can edit your membership. Now I've done it, not many times. So if you've got a troublemaker in your group who flouts your rules all the time, and really the only reason they've joined your group is to sell their services, then just remove them. It's your group, you've built it. Your time, your effort. And if you've done Facebook marketing, Facebook ads, which we do to build your group, then it's your cost and your investment. And so I'd be really, really careful about who's in your group, then I would say that these are your group. These are your fans, these are your members. So give them exclusive content, talk to them, give them some tips and hints. We do for instance, in our Cut Flower Collective. Recently, just in the last few weeks, we do fireside chats, where we invite some of the group to come on and talk about a particular subject. We've talked about pianists, for instance, and had some experts on pianists. We've talked about mental health and flowers. And we will continue that series. We've also invited guest speakers along. And so we provide content in the groups in my business group. I've just done two things recently, I presented to the European Flower Growers Association, in January, I think. And I then shared that presentation with the group. And I did it as a live so that I could talk over the PowerPoint because otherwise it's death by PowerPoint, all about marketing in your cut flower business. And that is in the group and was very well received. I then recently did one on brand and brand messaging and asked people to get involved in brand messaging. And that too sits in the group. And this one, I will then take these notes and edit them and do either a live or some sort of PDF into the group so that they can all benefit into the business group. So yes, it's really important to keep the content of your page unique. You can't copy and paste and use it somewhere else. It's a members association and they are your members, so you need to treat them as such.
Yeah, this is quite a hard one. The bots and the trolls. They will try and get into your groups and it happens every single day. So I manually accept people into my group. I don't approve all. I don't let them come in without approval. And you get one and it's the same photograph. It’s usually it's a photograph. And when you've asked them to complete the rules of your group. They go, hi, hi, hi, hi. And it's really frustrating. And you can see them a mile away. But they're a bot and you need to get rid of them. Then you need to be hot on it. If somehow somebody has got into your group, you need to monitor what they're actually saying. So in one of my groups., in the cut flower collective, we're nearly 4000 people, I have a Community Manager who helps me out because I can't keep control of four thousand people's comments. So if somebody is flouting the rules in there, or if somebody is doing something I'm not happy with, then my Community Manager flags it to me, and I will take them out of the group. And that's really important. Remember, your group, your investment, so you know, just keep control of it. So my last final point is don't just set it up and forget it. For your group to thrive, it needs regular attention. I'm really conscious of this, and I'm doing it daily. But you know, you want to check it frequently, you want to answer questions, you want to add members, you want to delete spam, or moderate the content. It takes a lot of work, it's worth it in a business. So just think of your business as a cut flower business. You can build a local community of people who are interested in British cut flowers. Absolutely, you can and absolutely I suggest you do because then you can start to talk to them and build your organic community.
So I hope that's helped with Facebook groups. I suggest also that you go and join other Facebook groups and see how they're operating. Come along and join ours, I'd love to have you along. So we have two. We have the Cut Flower Collective, which is primarily a consumer group, but also some business people in there too. And then we also have growth and profit in your cut flower business. So that's our business group. And so that's the one that this podcast is aimed at. Also, I’d love you to follow us on Instagram at Field Gate Flowers. If you join one of our groups, do say you've listened to the podcast and do let me know what you think. I'd love to get your feedback. Thank you very much for listening.
This has been your host, Roz Chandler. If you'd like to know more about growing your cut flower farm, do join our Facebook group. It's called Cut Flower Farming, Growth and Profit In Your Business. Many thanks.