If you’re looking for alternatives to Facebook Groups, you’re not the sole one. An increasing number of prople are opting to shift from relying on Facebook Groups to develop their community.
Whether your community involves people moving to a vegan diet, encouraging people to lift their fitness game or a room to raise a mastermind for an online course, the awesome power and value of community cannot be denied.
Alternatives To Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups were the simplest way to develop and engage an online community and it is sensible that you may have earlier wished to host your community there.
However, times have altered. Repeated algorithm changes, many distractions, trolls, spammy content, zero monetisation options and the growing absence of trust in Facebook with data scandals such as Cambridge Analytica has rendered it all the more difficult to create a buzzing community.
Whether you’re a creator, brand or entrepreneur many reasons exist for you to consider abandoning your Facebook Group.
The following are the most popular reasons:
1. Extent Is At An All-time Low
It’s becoming more difficult to access your audience on Facebook. News Feeds are full of excessive fake news, clickbait and ads making it nearly impossible to link with your people.when you’re depending on a Facebook Group to increase your community, you’re at the will of Facebook’s algorithms to determine what is done by your users and don’t view.
Moreover, Facebook is largely becoming a pay-to-play platform that highlights ads – implying that what might have once been an animated community filled with engaging content now dissipates more down a users feed or worse – doesn’t even access a users feed at all.
Facebook’s algorithm is continuously altering. Only recently, Facebook altered the manner its algorithm highlights and disburses content to groups. Consequently, community managers posts are just accessing 1-2% of their Facebook fans, rendering it truly hard to dispense messages or engaging content to their fans.
2. Absence Of Monetisation Options
It cannot be denied, Facebook Groups are fast and simple to establish but they also present zero monetisation features. No way exists to charge for entry to a Facebook Group.
Facebook doesn’t provide any inbuilt options for eCommerce, subscriptions or donations. If you desire to monetise your community or you’re a charity that depends on donations for your community to sustain, it implies you have to seek alternative remedies for a paid subscription space.
3. You Can’t Include Online Courses Or Mastermind Groups
If you wish to insert value to your free community by inaugurating a mastermind group or paid online course for people who may desire or require greater attention – Facebook doesn’t offer the flexibility or functionality to accomplish this.
This is amazingly frustrating as not just does it restrict you from streamlining your presentation or achieving a passive income, it even implies that you’re needing to spend your energy and time on many different platforms. This isn’t just perplexing for you, it’s also extremely confusing for your fans.
4. You’ve Lost Control
It’s truly important to keep in mind that Facebook is controlled and owned by someone apart from the users. That leaves you with slight control and renders you suspectible to any modifications Facebook decides to apply to its platform.
When you can’t manage the platform, you’ll face multiple problems. If Facebook abruptly decided to remove the group feature or debar you from your group – your whole community and entire content you’ve built could be deleted virtually overnight.
It’s also essential to remember that you don’t control your fan’s personal data on Facebook – this not just prevents you from transferring that information elsewhere and accessing your audience through different platforms. It also halts you from totally understanding your community.
5. Absence Of Organic Growth Through Web
As Facebook Groups are totaly restricted to Facebook’s platform – it implies that search engines aren’t permitted to crawl any data which is posted within your community.
This implies you’re missing out on directing precious traffic to your community as no means exist for bots to find content, index them or dispatch any organic traffic your way.
6. Minimal Customisation
Apart from the name of your group or needing an exciting cover photo, Facebook is hugely rigid and provides you no room to customise your community to adapt to your brand or business.
You’re unable to host your group with a custom domain (e,g. fitnessgals.domain.com) and a Facebook Group doesn’t permit you to alter the feel and look of your community room with color combinations or building your community in a manner which would reflect better your brand style.
7. No Sub Groups Or Sub Communities
One of the best things about possessing a community is the quantity of sub communities that can be built from that one community. For instance if you posssess a photography community, there are different sub niches within it which might be designed e.g.event, wildlife, potrait, food etc.
A Facebook Group restricts you from forming smaller sub communities that split off your main community – this implies if you’re depending on employing one group to enclose everything it can render your community feed appear messy – and may restrict people from developing powerful bonds or associations as not all within it will be pertinent to all.
You are not just restricted in terms of create niche sub groups, this even relates to the point done about Facebook not possessing the ability for monetising your online courses, offering or masterminds since Facebook doesn’t have the ability to permit you to design them.
8. Filled With Distractions
Facebook constitutes a distracting platform. There’s notifications from different groups, business pages exchanging their recent product updates, family members and friends exchanging selfies or photos of holidays, pets and food, people shouting about the current news headlines and ads concerning everything you should be purchasing being thrust down your throats at any offered opportunity.
You’re flooded with a heavy amount of information on your Newsfeeds on a constant basis – not just is this completely mental for our emotion of sanity – it’s also a total nightmare for businesses, creators and entrepreneurs whose aim is to develop a loyal and engaged community.
If you’re getting distracted, think how much your fans are getting distracted also? Not just is your audience getting distracted by similar things as you are, they’re also receiving messages from your rivals who are attempting to draw their attention or from Facebook advising about more ‘related groups’ they can connect to.
The following are the best alternatives to Facebook Groups:
1. Slack
Slack, a business productivity tool employed for work teams, comprises the most popular alternative to Facebook Groups that has come up in the last 5 years.
Pros:
- People are growingly comfortable utilizing Slack since they use it at work.
- Slack is excellent for small groups that know one another beforehand.
- Slack is immediately available on mobile apps and the web.
Cons:
- Direct monetization features are absent in Slack.
- Slack cannot be branded by you as your own.
- Online courses or sub-groups are absent in Slack.
- It charges each member, so it can become expensive fast.
- It’s not built to introduce people who are unfamiliar to each other.
2. WhatsApp
The second most popular alternative to a Facebook Group is WhatsApp, a mobile app minus a website that’s also owned by Facebook.
Pros:
- It’s most powerful for international groups.
- No one will go crazy if you say, “hey, let’s use WhatsApp for our group.”
Cons:
- WhatsApp cannot be branded as your own by you.
- Direct monetization feature is absent in WhatsApp.
- You have to configure your individual separate community website.
- It’s owned by Facebook.
- It’s not built to introduce people who are unknown to each other.
3. Reddit
Reddit constitutes an open-source forum software and social network that permits anyone to build a community concerning anything they love. It is among the most common alternatives to Facebook Groups.
Pros:
- Open source
- Reddit is entirely free to use.
- Simple to use.
Cons:
- One key issue with Reddit is the big risk of spam.
- When you have a vast community on Reddit, you’ll incur difficulties with regard to moderating the content.
- Cliques can dispose of content they don’t approve of.
- If you wish to employ video chats or live streams, you’ll need to utilize third-party software.
4. Open-source Discourse Software
Discourse comprises an open-source online forum software that can be utilized to develop long-form chat rooms and discussion forums.
Pros:
- It has inbuilt forum solutions together with handy features around integration, SSO, notifications and plug-in systems.
- It’s open source which implies you can change it.
Cons:
- Possesses a dated ancient forum-style design
- You need to discover resources for maintenance and hosting
- The primary highlight for discourse isn’t deep-interest networking or community building
5. Telescope Nova
Telescope Nova comprises a free, open-source platform. It offers simple components like comments, posts and forms.
Pros:
- Customisable
- Open source
- Modern technology
Cons:
- You require engineering resources to develop the platform since its base solution just offers the building blocks
- The maintenance, hosting and technical details require to be managed by you
Conclusion
Have you discovered your favorite among the Facebook group alternatives? Then it is suggested you remove your Facebook group and shift to simpler, improved, and more profitable platforms. Your customers and business deserve it!
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