S3E1 | How Engagement Works in Facebook Groups

Any time I’m tagged in a Facebook post in someone else’s group, it’s usually because someone is looking for help with engaging their group. Engagement is something we struggle with. Often people hope their engagement will just take off on its own, or that members will start having conversations with each other. 

But we actually need to take an active role in engagement. And here’s a behind-the-scenes look into the Facebook algorithm, which will help to explain why engagement matters. 

Facebook wants their users to have a great experience on their platform…and to stay on the platform. What counts as a great experience for groups is having a community that’s highly engaged. 

You’ve probably noticed that when you join a new group, you’ll get a lot of organic notifications about that group that let you know when someone has posted or commented. This is because Facebook is thinking: Oh, you just joined a group for entrepreneurs? You must be really interested in this topic right now, so we’ll tell you when there are new posts in that group. 

Now say I joined a group about stationary way back in 2016 that I haven’t visited in a long time. Facebook will recognize that I’m no longer interested in stationary, and won’t show me posts from that group. 

So what this means is that new members to your group will create more engagement for your group. New users will get more notifications and will typically provide the most engagement because they’re coming in knowing they need this content right now. They’ll also be looking through things, commenting, asking their own questions, reading at featured posts, or watching past Facebook Lives. 

When you’re monetizing your group with a launch it’s really important that you bring new people into your group. Of course it’s always important to be bringing in new members, but during a launch these newbies will breathe more life into the group, get more notifications, and make your community more active. 

Your engagement can skyrocket when you’re doing something very active in your group. My engagement goes through the roof whenever I do a challenge because people are constantly checking in, asking questions, and sharing their successes. 

But even after a big event like a challenge or member drive, it’s important to keep your engagement going so you can continue to monetize your group. People don’t like being sold to, so you can’t keep making sales posts in your group. You’ll lose your audience. One way to make sure your conversations don’t burn out is by using engaging posts. 

Engaging posts don’t have to have anything to do with your group. One of my past engaging posts was asking people where they got their first email address from. This didn’t have anything to do with being an entrepreneur, but it did create feelings of nostalgia and sparked a lighthearted conversation. That post got a lot of engagement, and prompted a lot of stories about how AOL was the first email address many members had. It was a lot of fun, and allowed connections to be made between members. 

We want to connect with other people, and people want to be a part of a community that gets them. People stay not just for the content, but for these connections. It’s fun to see the inside world of the people in the community, they’re not just a profile image and a name, they have a life or a family. This really helps people to connect. 

Another great part about these engaging posts is that when you have an engaging post, Facebook will see that whatever is happening in the group is really relevant to the people in the group, so it will show this post to more people in the group. This will also apply to your future posts. Everyone that’s commented and reacted to the engaging post will see the next post you or someone else creates in the near future. Facebook doesn’t want to promote a group that’s dead. It helps when your community is relevant, active, and engaged. 

Engagement is really important, not only so that people can start to connect with each other. Strategically, it ensures that your future posts get more people into your group, and get seen by other people! 

Just a note,if you want more engaging posts in your group but don’t know where to start, my Engaged Groups Membership features a monthly calendar of engaging posts written for you—plus images! All you have to do is copy, paste, and schedule them in your group at the beginning of the month. 

Now go out and start engaging!