You can leverage Facebook groups to grow your practice. Here is a simple three step strategy to leverage Facebook Groups for your practice:
- Create a Facebook professional persona
- Join relevant groups
- Develop connections and increase the audience for your practice
Who should be joining groups?
Read our post on creating a “professional Facebook persona” for tips on how to keep your personal life separate from your professional life.
Search and join relevant Facebook groups
Use Facebook search to locate the Facebook groups most relevant to growing your practice. There are numerous groups. Focus on the groups where people that you want to attract congregate. Such as, “parents with kids on the autism spectrum” or “blended families making it work”.
The search function in Facebook leaves much to be desired. For instance, if you search “substance abuse”, Facebook will return results for news and articles and much more that is not what you want to see. Filter the results by clicking Groups along the top (directly below the search bar).
Once you find relevant groups, go ahead and ask to join them. Try joining groups with a larger number of members that are relatively active.
Guidelines for joining groups
Your professional persona joined some groups— now what? Here are some tips for engaging in group conversations:
- Groups are not the place for heavy-handed sales language
- Answer questions: you’ll educate everyone in the group when you respond to questions
- You want to become the go-to person when someone looks for advice in your niche
At some point, you’ll want to start a discussion. In that case, keep these tips in mind:
- Be evocative, not provocative
- You want to evoke conversation, not provoke confrontation
- Ask questions (“what is your opinion on the best technique in couples counseling?”, “does anyone have experience with…?”)
With these tips, you’ll have an effective method for leveraging Facebook groups for building your practice.
Need help developing a strategy?
Call, text or fill out the contact form and click send to discuss what you can start doing today to grow your practice.