~by Haley Lynn Gray~
I started a Facebook group a few years ago to help grow my business, largely because every other business coach was doing it — and decided to do it my own way.
That group became the Women’s Entrepreneur Network, now more than 77,000 members. I made a great many mistakes on the way, and the early months were genuinely discouraging: almost no interaction, very few joins, and a lot of silence.
Here’s what I actually learned.
Growing it
Post several times a day, even to silence. Three to five, especially early. People are watching without responding, and if there’s nothing to come back to, they don’t come back. This is hard precisely because nobody replies at first — which is why most groups never get going.
Invite people; don’t add them. Send a private message with the link rather than adding friends without asking. Being added to a group unasked is irritating, and irritated people leave.
Get help early. One other person posting and moderating in the first months roughly doubles the sense that something is happening.
Vary the content. Questions, jokes, videos, articles, prompts. Staying on topic matters; being monotonous kills it.
And be patient with the curve. Growth is slow, then it isn’t. Most people quit during the slow part.
Keeping it worth joining
Set the rules and enforce them. Especially about self-promotion. A group where everyone advertises is a group nobody reads — and members leave quietly rather than complaining.
Give people a reason to post. Regular threads — introductions, wins, questions — do more for engagement than anything clever.
Answer people. Personally, by name, especially in the early days.
And remove the people who need removing. One aggressive or relentlessly promotional member costs you many quiet good ones.
Participating in other people’s groups
This is where most business owners get it wrong.
You can’t automate it, and you shouldn’t. Posting identical content into many groups quickly gets flagged as spam — and it marks you as a spammer for future groups too.
Read the rules before posting. Most groups have specific days or threads for promotion. Ignoring that is the fastest way to be removed.
Answer questions without pitching. Be genuinely useful ten times before mentioning what you do once. People look up who’s helpful; nobody looks up who’s advertising.
And pick two or three groups, not twenty. Being recognised in a few beats being invisible in many.
What it’s actually for
A group is not a sales channel; it’s a room. What you’re building is the reason people come back — and business follows from being the person they know and trust in that room.
Research on women’s networks found that a close circle sharing real information — rates, what worked, what went wrong — predicts how well women do. That’s exactly what a good group provides, and why it’s worth the years it takes.
Start posting. Keep posting when nobody answers. That part is the whole job.
