Facebook Groups? Make It Work For You! With Dorien Morin-van Dam

Episode Summary

This week we dive into the world of Facebook groups with Dorien Morin-van Dam. How to use groups to our benefit without getting lost in the abyss? Is this just another Facebook phase? Do we join the bandwagon or let it pass?

Learn
-a ninja trick to protect your inbox
-what you need to have any success in your group
-how to leverage groups for different reasons
-when to join a group and why
-what to do next with groups!

Join The Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WinTheHourWinTheDay/
Win The Hour, Win The Day! www.winthehourwintheday.com
Podcast: Win The Hour, Win The Day Podcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/winthehourwintheday/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/win-the-hour-win-the-day-podcast

Find Dorien on:
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Twitter @MoreInMedia 
Instagram moreinmedia 

WTH Guests_Transcription – Dorien Morin – van Dam

LEGEND: 

GREEN – best lines of the guest

CYAN – Links to the guest business

YELLOW – Introduction of the guest

RED – opening teaser

TIMESTAMP Starts: Kris: (05:26)

Hey everyone. Welcome. To now your business. This is Kris Ward. And this week we are going to have an really interesting conversation with Doreen Morin. Vandam. She is a social media consultant, trainer, community manager and key note speaker during regular featured in expert on CBS where she shares social media strategies, live video tips and the latest marketing news for small businesses aren’t we lucky you’ll recognize online and onstage by her signature orange glasses and a nod to her Dutch heritage. And that’s how we met. Right. I just stopped doing new tracks cause I loved it. Not only did you have orange glasses but you had all kinds of accessories. It just tied together so beautifully. You really did stand out.

Dorien: (06:13)

Thank you. Yeah, I always wear my orange shoes when I’m at conferences. I have a pair of Nikes that are orange and I have an orange bag backpack. Uh, the more orange better. And uh, I think this time it was definitely the shoes that stood out.

Kris: (06:28)

Yeah. And you know what I mean? I certainly don’t pull it together like you do, that’s for sure. But I have to say, man, I don’t know if this is op top off topic or not, but I made a choice about two years ago. I looked at my closet and I thought, I look like a funeral director. Everything was black and gray and I felt we need to add color. And I would now say like 90% of my wardrobe does have color. And I think when we’re online somehow we all get like maybe it’s almost like a, for me anyhow, it’s like I didn’t want to stand out too much or you think, well I’m not an expert yet so I don’t want to be too loud, too aggressive and you know, you just strolling through a conference, brightly lit. That to me just translate to such a bigger discussion.

Dorien: (07:14)

Thanks. Yeah. Um, and especially if you carry it through online, right? Because that’s one thing to be recognizable, um, when you’re at a conference, but you know, to have that same picture that you see somebody posts on LinkedIn profile or Facebook that it matches the real person that you then meet. Cause that’s the other thing that happens. People will come up to me and go, I know you from Facebook and they might not remember my name cause that’s a hard name to remember, but they’ll, they’ll be like, I’ve seen you, I know what you’re about. I know your orange glasses. So for me that, that’s really been a great branding tool. Um, and I know within my industry, social media and social media management, digital marketing, there are quite a few people who have recognizable things about them, but some are like funky suits or funky socks. Well they don’t translate that well with a profile image. So the glasses really are cool. Uh, you could do a hat or a scarf or earrings or something, but the orange glasses have been a hit right from the beginning.

Kris: (08:18)

So tell us, you said, you know, they, they know what you’re about. Tell us a little bit about what you’re about and a little bit of your journey that got you to be the expert that you are.

Dorien: (08:27)

Okay. So, um, funny story, uh, actually was a stay at home mom for a long time. Uh, and I have four kids and they’re all teenagers. And beyond now. And, uh, when my youngest started kindergarten, uh, I was kind of like, what do I do now? And that was 10 years ago. So it just happened to be the right time to jump into social media management. So, um, never having been somebody who shy, I just put out a sign on LinkedIn that said I was social media manager, took an online and started helping people. And one of the first companies that I helped, it was actually a local nonprofit where I lived in South Carolina. They had no social media presence they gave me, um, it gave me the title of social media director, which I could then put on LinkedIn. And I started helping them with their fundraising event and um, worked out really well. And from there I gained some local clients. And then within about a year or two, I went out of state, went national, started going to conferences, speaking at conferences. Um, I was a very active blogger at that time, so people kind of knew me from the articles I was writing. And so I just feel super fortunate that I was kind of in the beginning and the trenches of it. I think, um, quite a few people now are coming to social media management, uh, with lots of, um, knowledge and schooling, you know, whether the patient or marketing, but they don’t have that experience like I do. I’ve worked in probably 60 to 75 different industries as a social media manager. Um, so I feel super fortunate that I’ve had that great start and that I really have a big picture of how things have changed and how things have shifted because that’s really the essence of what’s happening now. If you just got in it and you’ve only been on one road, what’s happening in the world right now is going to turn you topsy turvy. But I’ve already had several, have had to make several pivots along the line along the road. So I kind of saw some of that coming and I think that, um, having had that experience, you know, I went from social media management to social media consulting, to speaking to teaching, to training, to community management. I’ve done a lot of different things and I’m able to pivot a little quicker than somebody who’s focused on one thing and then not have a second or third or fourth stream of income.

Kris: (10:48)

So when we talk about the pivot and we’re always here, but you know, what’s the next thing you could do now for your business? So with a pivot as you mentioned, the big thing, the big push right now, we all know is about Facebook groups. I mean, Oh my gosh, the, you know, the plus and the minus to that is I, I, I understand the value in them, but I have to tell you my inbox is choking with, I mean there is groups coming at me all day every day. I could find a group for like, you know, if your right sock doesn’t match your left sock group, I don’t know. It’s just getting out of control. Like, and you just can’t, you can’t. So help me navigate, you know, what should have I be doing if I wanted to create a group or, you know, is there things that should be thinking about before I join a group? What, what help. Can you give this here because I know I’m, I’m overwhelmed myself.

Dorien: (11:39)

Okay, so you should do both, right? If you’re a business owner, I usually tell people to start two groups. One is going to be your general group. That’s going to be your cold leads, your maybe warm leads. Those are going to be people who might’ve touched your business in one way or another or might be interested in something. You’re selling a serve as a product and you’re just really going to use that group to have fun conversations. And I use this example all the time. When I lived in South Carolina, a local realtor started a group for our small town and it was called surf city and the town is called Surfside beach, sort of Citians and over 25,000 people later, that’s the group when anybody wants to move to that town, it comes through. That group asked the same question. She is the only realtor in the group that can answer the questions, right? So think about that. That’s not what she makes her sale, but that’s where she gets her really hot leads. Then for her own clients, she probably has a much smaller group, maybe 50 or a hundred or 200 people who’ve maybe look for houses with her or maybe she sold their house. So now they’re her client and then you have a smaller group. But the big group is really a great place to get leads. Now if you’re, say you’re a pizza, a pizza owner in a fairly big town, you can start a group like you know, um, Bostonians who love pizza or you know, Vermont pizza lovers, you know, whatever it is, but make it more of a general group because that will get people that are just somewhat interested on the, on the fringes of what you might offer and to draw them in and then have really engaged in conversations. And from there you’re going into, and I always use this visual, like you have a baby, teeny baby customer and then you’re going to really turn them through in a way, in a nice way through the group to make them a brand ambassador. Ultimately you want somebody to tell all their friends for free how great your product or service is. And that’s what you can do in a group. You can’t do that on a page. You can’t, if you do it one on one, it’s gonna take you a lot of years. But in a group where all these other people are going to talk about how much they love you and what you offer, and of course you’re gonna offer special discounts or you’re gonna offer a special, um, uh, and it’s something like special content of the group. Um, they’re going to feel like they’re really nurtured. And so you can take that, that first contact and take it over to, um, you know, to be, have them become your brand ambassador. Now on the flip side, if you’re a consumer and you have all these groups and you know that when you go to Facebook, you can prioritize the groups and um, you know, kind of have your main groups feature your groups. You can also turn off, uh, notifications on your girl. 

Kris: (14:30)

I have no notifications. I made sure you, cause I wrote this book win the hour, win the day, and I’m telling you on page one, which it’s not, but it should be, I have notifications will make you insane. So I personally don’t have that. But when I do go into the messaging it’s like did you do teaching? And I just skip them. But then I think, well am I missing out? Because now it just is, you know, big clump of that I no longer have. There is probably value in some of them, but there’s so many coming at me, I don’t even pay attention to it anymore.

Dorien: (14:57)

Right? So here, here is, here’s one tip. The more you’re active and engaged in a group, the more you’ll see it in the newsfeed. So if it’s a group you want to know about, if it’s a group that you know, you, you’re learning, say you’re in an exercise yoga group or you’re in a remote working group and you want to have that be top of mind, go in there every day and answer questions and look for that engagement because the more you engage, the more you’ll see it.

Kris: (15:23)

Yeah, I apologize. Let me be clear. These are just the group invites. So I do have some groups where I’m like, okay, I’m all about them and I’m learning from them and this is great. And the others I ignore, but I, I’m choking on group invites every day and it’s getting to the point where somebody, you don’t even blink twice and say hi and they’re sending you an invite like that. They don’t know anything about me. Like there’ll be like how to lose severe and sudden weight loss if you’re over 60 or like, okay, offensive I am not over 60’s. You should have not sent that to me. Right

Dorien: (15:53)

Right. Well, one of the things that I teach is don’t invite everybody you know, to your group. It’s just, it’s just really rude. It’s like going to target. Right. And um, seeing somebody that you meet for the first time and invited them over to your house, you know, basically kidnapping them and saying, I’m selling something. Why don’t you come in my van, I’ll take you home and here’s [inaudible] pottery would you like, you know, it’s like that you don’t do that to strangers. So don’t, don’t do that online. It’s just really not a good way to do that. But one of the tricks that I tell people go when your friends invite you in, those invites are just kinda hanging. I go and join the group and then while on there immediately leave the group and block them from inviting me back. So I joined for about two seconds and then leave the group and then they can invite me back. So that’s what I do.  

Kris: (16:41)

That is a tip like that was worth the price of admission. Every everybody write that down, boys and girls. That is a good dip cause sometimes it is like annoyingly offensive. Like, you know who said I was overweight and I hope you didn’t think I was 60 from looking at my picture. Thank you so much. But okay, so what about now I’m running my group and I look at some of them and they just look like a maintenance nightmare. So we’re, you know, I get the idea of these groups matter, but how do you, where does that begin and end as far as nurturing or maintaining your own group?

Dorien: (17:12)

Okay, so it’s all about strategy, right? It’s all about figuring out what the purpose of the group is. What is your ultimate goal? If you don’t have a goal, you just have a group, you’re just going to have a party and you know, there’s no end date. There’s no like you can’t get them out the door or you forgot on the foot on the invite that everybody has to leave at 11 o’clock at night. 

Kris: (17:32)

Right? 

Dorien: (17:32)

It’s really, you know, then you’re gonna sit there and open the door and you’re like, okay. You know, but you can’t get people out the door because you don’t have a purpose. You don’t have an ed. So I’m not saying that you have to end your group. I’m just saying you have to set up the rules before you start the group. You have to figure out what your strategy is. So if your strategy is to get people from the big group into the paid group [inaudible] once they’re a client, you can put them into the next group. Then once you have a goal, you can figure out what are some of the strategies, the tactics you’re gonna implement to get them there. What are you gonna offer to get somebody to be from that baby customer to like a raving customer or brand ambassador or somebody who’s gonna pay you to be in another group where you offer even better content. Because that’s the ultimate goal, to put them in that separate group where they are actually a paying customer. Whether that’s like a realtor and the, you’ve bought our soul, you know, you help them buy or sell their home or if you offer a product or a service, um, then you want them in that other group. Um, so if you don’t have a strategy, then you’re just turning, you’re just, you know, ticking off the boxes of, you know, Hey, I want to grow, but you have to have a purpose. A small group can yields, um, business if it’s done right. So, um, with that comes, you know, once you know what your goal is and how many people you want to move over, how many people you want to grow. By then you can figure out what you have to do to get there. You know, if you want to grow your group by a hundred people a month, what do you have to do to get there? And what kind of people do you want it to grow by? Do you want the people that are in there to invite their friends or do you want new people in there? Do you want your blog a say you have a blog, do you want them to come over? You have log readers. Do you want the people that are on your page to come over? Do you want local people to come? So once you know what you want, you can come up with a bunch of different tactics to get people in the group. Once they’re in the group, their scores, different things that you can do to get them to engage, to get them to comment. Um, and so you just have to offer value. I guess that’s, but it all starts with a strategy and

Kris: (19:40)

You know that’s super important. Cause I know I was sitting with someone one day not too long ago and we were talking and she said, Oh should we, we had this discussion about groups and she said she’s got this huge group and there was something like, I don’t know, 600 people in it. It was huge for her little organization and they were very active and stuff, but she had no plan. Like she said, it took a lot of her time and she wasn’t selling the main thing. She wasn’t moving them anywhere. So you know, I, with no expertise in the area thought that doesn’t seem like it didn’t seem like a business plan. So what are some things that you’ve learned? You know, we’d love to hear your expertise, but also you’re like, Oh, okay, in this group I’ve got to do something different now. You know, what are some things that even yourself, that you, you’re the expert and we had you here, we’re so excited to hear from you, but even your path where you went, Oh, okay, we’re going to do this a little differently now because things are changing. Can you share some of those with us? 

Dorien: (20:32)

Yeah, I actually had something happen to me. I’m, I’m a paid community manager, right? So I’m, I am a community manager of a group. When I took over at 17,000 people in it and we made, we put a strategy together, we really wanted to grow this, the feed or group, this is the group that feeds into the page, um, and into the paid group. So we want it to bulk up the volume. So we, you know, it’s a numbers game, right? The more people in the group, the more we’ll go over to the student group, to the paid group. So we put, came up with all these strategies, the problems, so to speak. If there is a problem is that the group was super engaged. So the older members, it’s a, it’s an old group, one of the first, uh, social media, um, groups that have been out on Facebook over nine years old. So people have been in there for a long time, so they, they knew what to do. So as a community manager, I found myself on the fringes of the conversation. I was watching them have conversations. I was, um, I was really kind of the cheerleader, but I’m also, it was also the police woman, you know, uh, when things went bad I’d have to like, you know, go in there and talk to them. And um, so I did a lot of stuff behind the scene and then in October, November we had some sort of event we want people to attend. And I decided to go live in the group as the page because you can be in a group as a page as well as, as a personal profile. I wouldn’t live in a group at that point. We had grown from 17,000 to 37,000 in two years. So that added 20,000 people live in the group and I had zero people see my life. Zero, okay, zero because I had not been active in the group. So Facebook was like, we don’t know who you are, uh, as the page. So after 20 minutes I’m like, okay, I’ll believe that I want in the group live as Doreen as me and only my friends in the group saw it. That was kind of like a wake up call. Like here I am the pay community manager and I have zero zero like influence in this group. So starting January 1st I made a plan to post every single day as a community manager. I didn’t paint posts, I did questions, I did, I answered questions and my engagement went through the roof. The whole group went crazy. And now when I go in, people see me, people hear me, people listen to me. So even though I knew that I had become complacent in that, and so my reach, my influence within my own group had really diminished. So that’s an important thing. Even if the group is going well, you really want to be the one to steer that conversation. And even if other people are having conversations, still initiate some of those conversations so you don’t lose that breach. 

Kris: (23:25)

That’s a really valuable lesson because you would think like, I can relax. Things are going well, there’s engagement. Let me just fan myself while the world is, you know, on its own course. And then the backlash. So that is really, you know, and sobering. I bet you as you started to talk five, six, eight minutes in your voice, like okay 

Dorien: (23:46)

Oh, and it was, it was crazy. And I just, and I shared this with several other people and they just couldn’t believe it. I’m like, you’re a member of the group. You didn’t see it either. So it was definitely eye opening and it made me change my strategy. So the strategy for the work now is every day I post something. So sometimes I’ll schedule it, but sometimes I’ll just go in there. But it’s, it’s been an effective strategy. So then I went live again and lots of people came and we had over a thousand people eventually that saw the video. So now we’re going to build that up. We’re going to go live twice a week. So now we’re going to keep, you know, we’re going to take that and we’re going to just keep rolling with it. But that was kind of a sobering thing because we have in that group, as you can imagine with 37,000 people, um, sometimes we have over a hundred submissions a day of questions, 

Kris: (24:41)

Right 

Dorien: (24:41)

And we have post approval set up. So not all questions go in, but it’s a very active group. And for me not to have that voice, it was not good.

Kris: (24:50)

Right 

Dorien: (24:51)

So we, we are, we’re working on, on fixing that and I think we’re on the right path, but that’s, uh, that’s certainly is one of those things that, um, you know, it’s live and work. 

Kris: (25:00)

That’s a good. Thank you for sharing that when it does. I appreciate it. When you’re doing stuff like that, what’s your position on if you put it, whether it be, you know, it can be group or otherwise, if you put a post up and you’re like, huh, this is not catching on like I wanted to do you take it down or just let it ferment?

Dorien: (25:18)

Um, I don’t take it down, but I usually do take notes. I do lots. I have, um, what I call a a swipe file. So, and I’ll do that for myself too. When I see something that works or doesn’t work or something that catches my eye on social media, I take screenshots and I’ll put it in there. So if there’s like an ad that that stands out in my news feed or, or something that just is cringe-worthy, I will take screenshots of it and then I’ll put that in a file. And so if I am doing something that’s not really working, I certainly want to take a screenshot. I know it’s in special on Facebook. It’ll be in my insights too, so I can go look. But often it’s a little, it’s, it’s a, it’s a little tweak. I could ask that same question just five hours later and would do better. Or I can ask that same question and tag three friends and now 100 more people see it because I was friends of influence. So those are just some things within the group, um, that that can work. Like if you have people in the group that have bigger influence and you know who they are, your most active members, you ask a question and you tag them, then they will see it. They’ll start commenting and the quicker they comments, the more people will see in the group. So those are just some little, little tweaks you can do. I usually don’t delete things. I just will be like, well, if nobody saw it then, then I can repeat it.

Kris: (26:38)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m fixing it. And that’s a really good point. Uh, I have a platform called when the hour, when the day, and I’m always talking about productivity and building a team. So a couple of things you said that I kind of want to unpack really quickly is it is, so, you know, this is something all on its own and so many people out there, whatever it is you do, whatever your primary zone of genius is, you’re like, okay, I have this and then, Oh, I’m going to completely run my social media group and this and that. So, you know, it’s really powerful how important it is to build a team out, even in the smallest, even if you can’t, you know, hire someone with your amazing gift or talent. You can have somebody a couple of hours a week and things like that where you can grow and nurture and manage that. So I’m going to throw that in the show notes. We just made a new resource, 12 reasons you need a team. And I think this is a good discussion just to remind people that, you know, you can’t be doing this all day and then delivering your service. And the other thing too is, um, that’s something I do as well when I, I’m scrolling and I see anything that looks like, Oh, they caught my attention, whatever. I just screen capture it on my phone and then I have an album on my phone. I just added to my swipe file on my phone so I can go back later when I have to do my own posts and look at stuff and go, Oh, this really caught my attention. Or you could really see how their wording was impactful. So that’s a good reminder for all of us is, you know, because I think it’s just when you’re standing there looking at the ceiling, trying to make a post that’s wonderful and dynamic, it just doesn’t flow the way you’d like it to.

Dorien: (28:03)

Right, right. Yeah. And I use both texts that stands out to me as well as images as well as colors. I look for fonts. Um, I look for things that, Hey, this looks familiar. Where did I see that somebody might’ve mimicked, you know, a logo or something that, you know, feels good, makes me feel fuzzy and warm. Or, um, you know, makes me whatever reaction I have that definitely, you know, everybody should have a swipe file like that because it will help you become a better content creator.

Kris: (28:33)

Yeah. Well thank you. Okay, so listen, I know you’re a in demand woman, so you are actually leaving to hop on another podcast. We’re so lucky to, to steal your time. So tell us where is the best way for people to see your excellence and to reach out to you? Where would my audience find you?

Dorien: (28:53)

Well, since I’m a community manager on Facebook, Facebook is great and my name is pretty unique. So if you look for Doreen more in bend dam, um, you’re probably just going to get one. Um, same on LinkedIn. My business name is more in media, so that’s also all my handles on Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn. They’re all more in media. Uh, it’s a play on words with my last name. Uh, it’s actually more M O R E and then I N media. But uh, she’d be able to find me. And if you see somebody with orange glasses, you know your rights. So, yeah. 

Kris: (29:26)

You know you’ve landed. All right, well we will for sure make sure that’s in the show notes and those were some really just a nice little bowl of nuggets that you left and left us with today. So I really thank you for making the time and everybody let’s get out there and just do these face Facebook groups much better than we’ve been doing them so far. So thank you again. 

Dorien: (29:46)

Thank you for having me. 

TIMESTAMP End: Kris: (29:47)

No problem.