 I've been asked why I don't have my own free Facebook group. Like a lot of people do who try to grow an audience through Facebook and they create a free group and invite a bunch of their friends to it and hope that their friends will also invite other friends so that they can have an audience to talk to. So I used to have a free Facebook group. A couple of years ago, it was called Our Highest Work. That was the name of the group. And I ran it, I think for about a year or two. But eventually, what happened was it kind of became my blog. I just started posting my content to it on a regular basis. And because I didn't allow other people to post their content to it and their offerings to it. And you might say, well, George, why didn't you allow the people to do it? Well, this is actually a normal rule in a Facebook group is when you have a Facebook group, you don't allow other people to just post their content, their blog posts, their videos, their offerings, their products and services to the group. Because if everyone were allowed to do that, guess what happens? It becomes a dumping ground for promotions, basically. So that's why as a group owner, it's wise to say, listen, promotions are not allowed here. Content even is not allowed here unless you are directly addressing the group or you're mentioning something to other group members really or if it's part of a thread. Anyway, long story short, I decided to stop my free Facebook group because it had just become basically my blog. And the purpose of a group is to build community rather than promote yourself, right? I mean, if you're gonna promote yourself, which there's no problem doing online for your business, then why not just create a Facebook business page? Why not just create a Facebook fan page and use Facebook ads? Listen, $30 a month will do you a whole lot of business, a whole lot of good on Facebook ads. It's not that much money. Don't give me the whole line of, well, Facebook ads cost money. Well, $30 a month, do you not have $30 a month to spend on advertisement? You are a business owner. It makes sense to be advertising your business. $30 a month on Facebook ads is the best spend for advertising that I know of, okay? So don't do a group. Just do your Facebook business page and spend $30 a month using ads. You're gonna spend your time a lot better. So let me just talk you through this, okay? People say they wanna start a Facebook group because they have this fantasy that, oh, they'll build a large community and people will love them and they'll be able to promote their services and their content, right? Okay, let's talk about the reality of it. Number one, when you have a Facebook group, okay, and you post things to your Facebook group, your postings are at the mercy of the Facebook algorithm, okay? I mean, really, have you tried having a group? Do you see what happens? You post stuff there and you find that a lot of group members don't see it, okay? Most Facebook groups are very inactive, like nobody posts on there because the group owner started it really with the ulterior motive of trying to promote their own thing, which I understand, you have a business, you're trying to promote your own thing, which is why start, do what is intended on Facebook, which is a Facebook business page, a fan page. That's how you're supposed to promote your things. Purity in marketing, purity in marketing intentions is what I try to cultivate within myself and what I try to preach, right? A Facebook group is really meant for friends and family to share photos and talk about what's going on within the family or within a group of friends or within a particular cause. You have a particular hobby or a cause and you don't care about making money. You don't care about necessarily your message getting out there. You just wanna try to build some kindred spirits and kind of talk about something. That's fine. You can use a group for that, but really, even if you have a cause or a hobby and you don't care about money or marketing at all, I would recommend that you just have a Facebook profile. Just use your own profile to post about your things publicly and then people will share your things. I mean, just keep it simple, people. Forget Facebook groups. Seriously, seriously, forget a Facebook group, okay? Use a Facebook business page. Your time would be better. Let me keep, let me talk you through this. Number one, you can't reliably reach your members in a Facebook group. Tell me how. Tell me how you can reliably reach your members. Now there's such a thing as a Facebook announcements in a group, but still, that doesn't reliably reach your members. And if you're using your Facebook announcements to promote your services and your content, it's disingenuous, right? An announcement in a group. I mean, if your group was marketed, the purpose of it is to build community and then you're using your announcements to promote your stuff, it's disingenuous. I wouldn't want to be part of that group. It would be like, well, George is just promoting his own thing here, it's not really a community, right? It's just George's fan page. Why don't he just create a fan page? Yes, I recommend that because you can more reliably reach your fans through Facebook ads, okay? So number one, in a group, you can't reliably reach your fans. Number two, do you have the time and the energy to moderate an active group? So first of all, let's get clear on this. If your group is an active, which is most Facebook groups, your postings aren't going anywhere. People aren't seeing it anyway, okay? It's kind of like shouting into a black hole, okay? So if your group is an active, what's the point? And you can't even spend advertising dollars to reach your group members. So what is the point? Please tell me what's the point, okay? Number two is if you have an active group, then good luck. How are you going to have the time and energy to manage it? Do you, have you seen active Facebook groups? The managers and owners are always trying to say, no, please don't market here. Please don't promote here. It kind of gets tiring, right? You keep hearing the group owner be super like, you know, right? It seems seemingly really strict about no promotions. Well, as a group owner, you will understand why they're so strict about promotions because if they allowed promotions, everybody would be, it would be just be a dummy ground. It becomes the worst of human nature in a group, okay? That's why the owners and moderates have to be so careful about keeping the discussion on point and preventing promotions, except maybe in one weekly thread or whatever like that. So number two, do you have the time and energy to really moderate a group? If you've ever had a group, you know what I'm talking about. You don't, I mean, unless like you're just on Facebook all the time, okay, even if you have the time and the energy to moderate a Facebook group, why don't you take the same time and energy to build up your Facebook fan base? I don't, I honestly don't get it. I think people are doing Facebook groups because they don't understand Facebook advertising. They don't get it. I mean, the same amount of time spent in a Facebook group, I mean, sorry, moderating. Now I think it is actually a good strategy to use somebody else's Facebook group. If somebody else, pardon my language, is foolish enough to have a free Facebook group, go ahead and use theirs, right? Hang out in there, you know, participate and make friends there and maybe you'll get some clients. It's a real strategy, okay? But to be an owner and moderator of your own Facebook group, it's foolish, okay? The time and energy can be spent again in somebody else's Facebook group. You'll get clients that way. Or number two, building up your own Facebook business page, fan page and promoting your own things there. It is totally, again, purity of intentions in marketing. When you have a Facebook fan page and business page, your fans expect you to sell things there, to promote your content there. It is straightforward. It is pure in intentions rather than the group. I'm trying to create a community here, but secretly I'm trying to promote my stuff. I just hope you don't know that I'm promoting it too much. Come on, come on, okay? Let's get pure in our intentions, but not even purity. I'm just talking pragmatically. It's foolish to moderate a Facebook group, just do Facebook business page, participate in someone else's Facebook group and do Facebook ads for your business page. Done. I think that's pretty much all I wanna say. I wanna keep this video, not too long. By the way, in case you're wondering, I got back from vacation last week, so I didn't have time to make my outdoor dog walk videos. So this week, my videos are gonna be Facebook lives. And I actually might just start doing Facebook lives going forward because having to, you know, schedule with my wife to go out for the dog walk, to make my videos, sometimes windy, all that stuff. I'm just gonna start testing doing more Facebook lives going forward. You can let me know what you think. Do you prefer my dog walk videos or these videos? The benefit of these videos is I've already written a blog post. I did that earlier today. So I, maybe the content's a little bit more focused. You don't have the benefit of nature though, except you have the benefit of my, see, get my right, get my correct thumb up. That's my cat mango in the picture. And that's, well, that's a cute picture of a dog on a skateboard. Buddy, my dog used to hate skateboards, you know, barking, barking whenever they go by. So it's funny that we actually found a picture of a dog on a skateboard. It's a very cute picture. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. I hope this will inspire you to finally drop that Facebook group that you've been trying to build. Like I said, I did the same thing and I finally stopped it too. And spend your time and energy building your Facebook business page and fan page. Now I had to say one thing though, if you have a paid membership, a Facebook group makes sense. So, you know, my friend, Paul Zelliser, he had used to have a free Facebook group called Awarepreneurs. And now he has a paid Facebook group called Awarepreneurs, right? And that makes sense. Now for me, I have a group coaching program where people pay $111 a month. It's really my clients. And I have a Facebook group for that. And that, that makes sense because, you know, if it's part of your business and you're paid for it, then you can make the time and energy to manage a group and there's certain expectations because it's a service. So that makes sense. But as a free Facebook group, I just don't get it. Not for business purposes. Again, hobby for just for fun, for family, for friends, great. But as a business strategy, no, no. It's not the smartest use of your business strategy in time. Okay, so I hope that helps. And any questions, just make a comment there. And I wish you the most joyfully productive use of your time and energy to build your authentic business. Take care, be well.