Benefits Of Private Facebook Groups

This article is a guest post by Melanie Deardorff

How many private Facebook groups are you in? Most wellness pros I know are in several and some are in 10 or more. Whether it’s one group or 10, we’ve all experienced the pleasures (Love the new friendships I’m making!) and pains (Those @$#&# self-promoters!) of Facebook groups.

My experience with private Facebook groups dates back several years and includes one for a nonprofit board, my church, a goal-focused group for women, and now today I’m part of a dozen groups connected to the health coaching school I attended, IIN, and other wellness-focused groups. I also manage two Facebook groups and coordinated a small mastermind for health coaches where we used Facebook to keep us connected.

Have you thought of creating a private Facebook group for your wellness practice? There’s real potential for health coaches and wellness pros to use these. Here’s why:

Groups work well with special programs – Groups can be set up for the short-term or longer, depending on what the group supports. Use one for your 21-day cleanse participants or an ongoing group for your coaching or personal training clients.
You’re large and in charge, but you have help – As the group admin, it’ll be your job to keep people connected by monitoring and moderating discussions. But group dynamics will kick in at some point, and you will see your members supporting one another without your help, the more they connect with and trust one another.
More people invested in the group’s success – We’ve all heard there’s power in numbers. Same thing with Facebook, where there’s a group of like-minded individuals focused on similar goals, like losing weight, following a cleanse or staying on the healthy track over the holidays, they collectively will move the group forward.
Two (or 10) heads are better than one – Just like the offline world where you’re not expected to have all the answers, it’s the same online. Give your group members the opportunity to answer one another’s questions and resist the urge to always jump in. (Oops. I’m think I’m guilty of that sometimes in my groups.)
Facebook groups are free and easy to set up – There are several resources that can help you with Facebook groups: Facebook Group basics (Facebook Help), Create a new Facebook group (Wikihow.com) or join a Facebook group. As long as you don’t mind the built-in quirks and limitations to Groups, they can be great. For example, Facebook auto-changes certain notifications when groups get larger than 250 members, but for a wellness practice you’re likely to have a much smaller group and that will not be a big deal.

Are you seeing the full potential of Facebook Groups for your wellness practice? Hope so.

We all know Facebook likes to keep us on our toes by changing the platform a few times a year. With an estimated 500 million people using Groups, let’s hope Facebook sees the need to add more functionality that will please both admins and members. Facebook Groups are always in the news and you can often find resources like How [and Why] to Build a Booming Facebook Group orHow to Use Facebook Groups to Get More Traffic and Traction for Your Blog, BUT the latest article Facebook tests ads in Groups, suggests that something’s brewing…

Melanie Deardorff is a veteran marketer whose focus has been digital and social media marketing since 2009. Based in the U.S. Midwest but transitioning to more of a digital nomad (work from wherever) lifestyle, Melanie partners with companies of all sizes and industries, including nonprofits. A special passion of hers is helping small companies, including health and wellness-focused businesses, stand out and be authentic online.