5 Ways to Convert Your Dormant Facebook Group Into New Paying Members

If you’re not sure what to do with your dormant Facebook Group, we have 5 ways to quickly convert that audience into new paying members.

By Phillip Russell

May 27, 2022

5 min read

So you’ve done the hard work of migrating your online course business or professional network away from clunky Facebook Groups to a dedicated online community platform.

Despite a successful launch of your business on your new platform, there are still thousands of potential paying members that exist in your dormant Facebook Groups. That’s a lot of money left on the table. The good news is there are a number of ways you can convert a portion of that audience into paying members of your new community.

Ahead, we’re walkthrough five concrete ways to convert your dormant Facebook Group audience into excited, enthusiastic, paying members of your new community.

If you’re trying to convert your Facebook Group audience into paying members of your community, your first tool is the banner at the top of your Group page.

Currently, you might be using your typical branding or even old branding from before your migration. Change your Facebook Group banner to utilize whatever your current branding is and make it explicit that if members are still interested in your work then they should check out your new community.

Include the new URL to your community, if you’re using Mighty Pro you can also showcase the beautiful product shots of mobile apps for iOS and Android you have for your community. In your Facebook Group description, update the information to reflect clearly that this group isn’t used anymore, that you have a new community where you’re doing awesome things, and provide the link for members to access it.

One Mighty Pro customer realized they have a great opportunity to convert a portion of the over 14,000 people in their dormant Facebook Group into paying members by changing the banner of the group, as well as leveraging the other tips we’re exploring ahead.

2. Only post teasers

Many successful online course creators and professional network hosts that leave Facebook Groups behind in favor of another platform will be shy about cutting ties with their Facebook Groups for good. What ends up happening is you begin managing both your new community AND your Facebook Group, but wasn’t the point of making the new community so you could leave Facebook in the dust? Do it!

If you have a huge following in your Facebook Group, a good compromise you can make that will save you time, money, and a lot of effort is committing to only posting teasers about the awesome content you’re offering in your new space. This could be a short clip from a workshop you’re offering, a key insight from a reason virtual conference you put on, a screenshot from a document you use in a new online course, or something else.

The most important thing to remember is that your dormant Facebook Group should be a FOMO machine now. It’s not a place for you to be posting your best content in full, it’s another outlet for you to funnel members who haven’t migrated to come on over and join the fun in your new community.

Sometimes even your most dedicated Facebook Group members won’t know about your new community. One way to get your community on their radar is to do a deep dive into your analytics. What are your most popular posts? The ones that have the most member engagement in the comments? Post about your new community offering in the comments section of this post.

This is a sly way to notify everyone in a particular post about your community, and the folks who are in this thread will certainly be some of your most dedicated prospects to target.

4. Use analytics to know which posts to recycle for content and workshops

Another way to leverage your analytics to convert people from your Facebook Group into paying members is to analyze which of your posts performed the best in your Facebook Group and make updated workshops and content related to those topics.

Again, a key effort throughout all of these different ways of converting old group members is to create a sense of FOMO for them. While the experience you provided in the Facebook Group was good, the new ways of engaging with your members on the platform where you host your new community is allowing you to build something better than ever.

Instead of creating all new content and assets with the sole purpose of converting old members, consider reuploading past workshops with a new CTA about joining your new community.

Another option could be taking recordings from a new workshop you did and creating a short clip show highlighting some key insights from the event, but cutting it short so people will have to buy a membership to get the full idea.

In recent years, especially in the health & fitness industry, many successful online course creators, online coaches, personal trainers, and more have used weekly and monthly challenges to engage their members and attract new prospects.

It goes beyond that industry though, look at popular games like New York Times’ Wordle or the Peloton app. Both allow people to post a social asset showcasing their accomplishments on a specific challenge. This builds camaraderie and friendly competition within your community, but it also is a piece of social proof that people are making a transformative change on your app and want to show the world about it.

Social challenges are so effective because they are mysterious, for people who aren’t in the know, they have to do some research to learn about what the challenge is all about, and this is a great way to reinvigorate existing members within your dormant Facebook Group.

All of these methods for converting your dormant Facebook Group into a place to funnel in new paying members for your current community are easy to execute and work. And once you’re able to convert those last remaining members over, then it’s time to pack up the Facebook Group for good.

While it’s great you’ve built something that many people loved, in the end managing both will be an unneeded resource suck when you could be focusing on the future of your business.