Understanding the Power of Local Online Community Groups
Facebook and Nextdoor offer communities a chance to gather online and share local events, businesses, and recommendations. These groups offer you a great opportunity to not only reach out to prospective clients but to also ensure that your name is familiar to your target demographic. Neighbors trust each other more than they trust an ad on the internet or a random message from a stranger, which is why any kind of business can experience rapid growth if they can start getting mentioned in local groups.
Online groups on platforms such as Facebook and Nextdoor allow people to connect with their neighbors and find reliable businesses that they can trust. If someone is just beginning to look for a specific service, there’s no better place to start than with their neighbors that have already had that experience. Make sure that you’re the one that they’re recommending to start growing in a concentrated area.
How to Find Local Groups on Facebook, Nextdoor, and More
When you join a group that’s made up of people who match your target customer, you’ll have multiple opportunities to improve awareness of your business by being helpful.
To find local groups, simply create a profile on one of these platforms and type in a keyword or topic into the search box of the home page. Once you’ve located a group to join, you’ll see that people are asking a lot of questions within these groups. Look for questions that allow you to demonstrate your expertise or highlight your specialized skills.
You can choose to answer the questions outright, share helpful blog posts, or even mention your own products and services. This kind of marketing is so effective because it’s highly targeted. People need answers to their questions and if you can provide them with solutions on a regular basis, your business will be the go-to for people within the group.
Promoting Your Business on Nextdoor
Local business owners and casual service providers are all welcome to join Nextdoor. To list your business, you can create a business page that displays basic information about the goods and services you offer. Adding your business information to Nextdoor allows your neighbors to easily find you when they’re searching for recommendations on local goods and services.
By creating a business page on Nextdoor, you’ll be able to see your neighbor’s recommendations for your business, advertise Local Deals, and post on your companies behalf. However, it's important to be aware that certain actions such as responding to comments about your business are reserved only for those that have a verified business profile. Nextdoor does offer a complete list of which actions are acceptable for personal and business profiles on their website.
How to Leverage Facebook Groups for Your Business
Whether you create a Facebook group or join one managed by someone else, it’s easy to use these groups to establish your authority and find new customers.
Think of a Facebook group as a mini-community. There are groups available for virtually anything and everything, so there’s no shortage of opportunities to connect. Once you’ve joined a handful of relevant groups, spend some time looking through previous posts to understand how the group operates. Once you understand how members are communicating and offering advice, you’ll be able to successfully do the same.
Understanding the Power of Local Recommendations
The vast majority of people are more likely to trust peer-reviews when it comes to their decision making process. A survey conducted by BrightLocal in 2019 found that 91 percent of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews and 85 percent trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
With this in mind, it should be no surprise that people are more likely to trust the recommendations found in their local groups on Facebook and Nextdoor because they know that those being recommended are less likely to do a bad job because they’ll risk having a bad reputation within the community. Receiving positive mentions within these groups is one of the most effective ways to boost your business.
If you do come across a comment that mentions your business in a negative way, it’s important to immediately acknowledge the issue and make a sincere effort to remedy the situation. By showing that you genuinely want to correct the negative experience, you’re more likely to regain their trust and the trust of anyone who comes across the post.
As word-of-mouth recommendations continue to move online, the key to success is determining how to best leverage and engage in your opportunities. Consider joining and becoming active in online groups on Facebook and Nextdoor so you can continue to build relationships and find people to advocate for the work that you do for the people in your community.