How to choose Facebook groups to post in, and what to check first

Relevance before size

The first question is not how many members a group has, but who the members are. A group of 3,000 parents in your neighbourhood is worth more to a kindergarten teacher than a national group of 200,000 people looking for "everything".

Ask yourself: could someone reading this group become a customer? Do they live in the area you serve? Are they looking for what you offer, or did they join for something else entirely?

An irrelevant group does not just waste a post. It produces comments like "what does this have to do with anything", reports to the admin, and eventually removal.

Size versus activity: how to tell if a group is alive

Many large groups are in practice a notice board nobody reads. A post goes in, gets buried under twenty other posts within an hour, and nobody replies.

Before adding a group to your list, scroll through it for a minute and check:

• Are there real comments? Questions, recommendations, conversation. Not just likes, and not just "DM me" from the same three people.
• What is the ratio of questions to ads? A group where people ask "does anyone know..." is a group looking for providers. A group that is all ads is competition.
• When did a regular member last post? If everything from the past week is promotion, the audience has already left.
• Is there an active admin? An unmanaged group fills with spam fast, and a good post gets lost.

How to read the group rules

Every group sets its own rules, and admins enforce them as they see fit. The rules are usually under the "About" tab or in a pinned post at the top of the group. Look for these things:

• Whether business posts are allowed at all, or only on certain days (for example a weekly "promo day").
• How many posts are allowed per person per day or per week.
• Whether links are allowed, and if so, where.
• Topic and area - for example rentals only, or local businesses only.
• Format requirements - price in the post, a real photo, a phone number.

Approval queue: not a failure

In some groups a member's post does not go up immediately but waits for admin approval. That does not mean the post failed, and it is not a bad sign. Sometimes it actually signals a well-run group with less spam.

Two things matter. Do not post again to the same group just because you have not seen the post yet, because a duplicate after approval is what gets you removed by the admin. And watch for groups where posts are never approved. After a few attempts, take them off the list.

Local versus national groups

For a business serving a specific area, local groups almost always win: the neighbourhood group, the town parents' group, the city notice board. The audience is small, but every reader is a potential customer.

National groups suit those who sell online, ship nationwide, or provide a remote service. Even there, a topic group (a recipes group, a dog owners' group) is better than a general "buy and sell" group.

What does not work: sending the same local post to groups all over the country. A hairdresser in Haifa does not need to appear in a group in Eilat.

How many groups to start with

There is no official number. From practical experience, 10 to 15 groups you have checked with your own eyes are a better start than 100 groups you joined yesterday. A small list lets you see what works and stay connected to the groups.

There is also the account side. Posting to places you only just joined looks very different from posting in groups you have been a member of for a long time. And how many posts per day suit your account depends mostly on its age. The full scale is in the guide on posts per day.

Grow gradually. Each week, add a few new groups and remove the ones that brought nothing.

Tracking: which groups actually bring enquiries

After a few weeks, it almost always turns out that most enquiries come from a small minority of groups. That is the most important information you have, and it changes the whole list.

Even without a tool, you can keep a simple table: group name, date, number of comments, number of real enquiries. After a month you will know where to invest and where to stop.

Note the difference between comments and enquiries. A group where every post gets twenty likes and zero private messages may be pleasant, but it does not bring customers. What you count is people who asked for a price, requested details or booked an appointment.

And give each group a fair chance. One post that brought nothing does not say much. Three or four posts, at different hours and in different wording, already tell a story.

How POSTEMA helps organise it

The extension scans the groups you are a member of once, and from there you choose in the dashboard. POSTEMA does not post in groups you are not a member of.

You can split groups into folders by topic or area, and send each post only to the folder that fits it. The system keeps a direct link to every post that went up, shows what failed, and shows which groups generate enquiries and which only use up your quota.

It does not make the choice for you. Relevance and rules are something you check with your own eyes.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• How many Facebook group posts per day is safe
• First-comment links in Facebook groups
• How to post in many Facebook groups at once
• Guide for real estate agents: folders by area