Your Group

YOUR GROUP

If all goes well, you now have a web site, are getting some traffic and are offering some products. How do you keep your visitor’s interest and create more interest for you sites? The answer is simple: fresh material. You can add fresh material by having a blog and posting regularly on it.

Most businesses and services thrive by word of mouth from their happy customers.

If you notice we called this page, your group, not your customers or your followers. You have to consider the people who will be getting your products as friends and not as people you are selling to. 

Your products are a clear reflection of you and people will be drawn to you and your services if you treat them well.

You also need a great customer support service as problems can arise. 

It is true that some people in your group will drain the life out of you and will never seem satisfy. The best thing is to refund them and not argue with them.

You should also consider your group as your peers as you will learn a lot from them. Be humble even though you might be the one teaching the courses. 

When you treat your group right, by giving them lots of freebies and value, they will turn around a refer their friends. Free publicity is always a great thing especially from a satisfied customer.

Your group is eager to participate and interact in your blog or social media posts. Unfortunately, there are loads of spammers on the net and you need to monitor the comments that are posted. 

The good thing is that when you get a huge fan in your group, often they will be flattered to be named administrator of your group, often for free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You could decide altogether to block all comments on your blog and avoid spamming. On the other hand, allowing comments on your blog can get you fresh material and you don’t have to write a word.

Don’t  get too excited about having your visitors commenting on your blog and you just have to sit back and relax as your site’s content is growing by the minute. For a popular website, monitoring the comment section is a full time job.

The same goes for a popular Facebook group. You need a full time moderator for the comments. You have to ask yourself if it is worth your time or investment to have your comment sections allowed.

 

There are features on your blogs you will need to activate (or have activated):

-On Word press blogs there is a free feature called Akismet you can activate that will filter most of the known spammers.

-There is also a feature on most blogs where a comment will not be posted until you review it and approve it. That can be done on your site settings in a matter of minutes.

Many successful internet marketers told me they just disabled the comment feature altogether on their blogs not to have to deal with the spammers and people just posting their links without any valuable comments. If you have a blog, I highly recommend you check it in the beginning to see if the comments are good and valuable or not for you.

As a side note, this square was originally named “forums”. Forums, except for a few big ones, are pretty much a thing of the past with all the social media available.

There are still plug-ins to open forums on your website but your forum will need constant monitoring or it will fall pray of spammers and doubtful links within a matter of days.

 

 

Another use of forums was to post your valuable comments on other people’s forum. At the end of the comment, you are usually allowed to add your signature file which usually contains your name and web site address. This way, you get a link back…in theory. You have to know that many forums or blogs do not allow email address or URL postings or have a no-follow setting.

If you are not a well-known person, you will need to build your credibility online and this means having to offer tons of value and free stuff to get the attention of your potential customers. 

You have to see all those giveaways as investments to build your group. On the long run, if people are satisfied with what you gave them for free, they will be more receptive to your paying products when they come out.

It is the same as when they are offering you free samples at the grocery store. Often, people end-up buying the product.

 

In short, a blog or Facebook group that have a lot of traffic can be very rewarding and create a buzz around your web site and products but you will either need to be a moderator or name people moderators to control what is said or done.

Another good way to create interest on your site and get a feel of what your customers want is to do a survey. People like to participate in surveys and just loooooove to give their opinion.

They then enjoy to see the results and this information is invaluable for you and may inspire you to create other good products you know your customers want.

It is very wise to put your web site address on all your publications and business cards. Even if you have a short and cute web site name, the odds are good that people will have heard many web site addresses and will not remember yours.

 

This is the reason you need to write it everywhere. Whenever you meet a person at a seminar, offer you business card (do not shove it up their throat like some people do though) with your web site address on it.

If you have different businesses, you usually need more than one business card according to the crowd you will meet.

Furthermore, if you have a chance to do an interview (either television, newspaper, magazine, teleseminar or radio) always mention your web site address often.

One trick is to offer a free report that the listeners can get on your website “because you are short on time”.

Have share buttons on your website for all the social media is a great idea.. This way, if your visitors like your site and products, they send a link of your site to their trusting friends and you get a nice referral.

 

HERE IS YOUR CALL TO ACTION

1) Open a Facebook group if you have not done so already. The name of your group should contain the keywords of what it is about. Simple is better.

2) Since you already have a blog, visit it and see if you had activated the comment functions. If you have comments, review them and delete the ones that are not useful. Make sure you have the Akismet plug-in activated on your blog. Set-up the comments on your blog as needing to be approved before posted.

3) Check if your have enough business cards and if your web site address is on them. Such online companies as Vistaprint offer business cards for very cheap.

4) You can open a membership site with GrooveMember and start selling your online course.

See you on the next square!

Nathalie