If you’re a successful course creator who’s done the hard work moving the community aspect of your business off of Facebook Groups to branded apps, congratulations, you’ve made the right decision.
You’re taking control of your brand and unlocking a new level of growth for your business, but there are still a few mistakes you should watch out for as you grow your community on your new branded apps.
Ahead, we’re exploring what the common pitfalls are for course creators who migrate off Facebook Groups and providing insights we’ve learned from the plethora of course creators we’ve helped migrate their communities successfully.
Common mistakes to consider
Now, let’s talk about mistakes. First of all, you’re going to make them. And that’s okay. There are three common mistakes we see successful course creators make when transitioning a Facebook Group. Here’s what we’ve learned from watching thousands of communities, and how (and why) to avoid them:
Mistake #1: Charging a low monthly fee on a new platform when your members have been getting it for free on your Facebook Group.
*“It’s been so much work to build and support this community so I’m ready to turn it into a paying gig! I’m going to move my 10,000 member Facebook Group to Mighty and charge $2/month. That’s less than a cup of coffee for my members, but $20,000 a month for me!” *
Sound familiar? If only this worked. While this line of reasoning seems to make logical sense, we have yet to see this scenario play out successfully in practice. It has two problems.
First, you’re charging for the thing that they have gotten for free. While people don’t expect all communities will be free, if you’ve been investing heavily in making something awesome that people don’t pay for, they aren’t just going to be willing to pay for it now that you want to start charging.
Second, when you tie paying for something they’ve been getting for free to moving platforms where they already have the expectation that they will have to do more work and learn something new to participate, well, it’s a non-starter.
The good news is the solution is pretty straightforward:
1. Make sure that you’re creating something new for your most motivated members first. Once you capture them and their excitement on the new platform, then you have a lot more flexibility in where you can take things from here. This is a great time to go to your most active members and try to understand what their challenges are, and where the opportunity might be to better support them.
2. Make sure that you’ve created something that is different from your free Facebook Group. No one wants to pay for the exact same thing they have been getting for free or can still get for free from someone else in a competing group.
Start with the results and transformation that someone will get from being a part of the new platform. For example, you can focus on the stories and experiences of other people that they can then apply to their own journey to master this topic, or the opportunity to focus and go deep via exclusive events, content, or a course that you’re not offering elsewhere, etc.
Don’t neglect the power and benefits of “going deep” with other members who will now be easier to meet, alongside your time and content.
3. Charge a premium, such as $599 for access to a course or as a year-long membership fee to experiment with payments. While it may seem counterintuitive, you aren’t going to get more people to pay just by making it cheaper.
Rather, you are going to get a set of motivated people who are excited about a new offering, a different offering, where the results of their
investment of time and money simply isn’t possible to achieve on Facebook.
Charging a premium tells people that it’s valuable, special, and can only be accomplished somewhere outside the newsfeed whizzing by them day after day on Facebook.
When you follow these steps, there are a number of positive outcomes that makes it a strong alternative to the “low cost/high volume” option that doesn’t tend to work out that well, but there’s one that stands out:
When you create something different for your most motivated members, and you charge a premium for the offering, you don’t need very many people to buy it to make it a success.
Plot your path from selling courses to building a multi-million dollar membership business
Get instant access to our Mighty Pro Math template. The template includes easy-to-calculate paths with price changes, churn, and units you need to sell to hit your next revenue target.
Mistake #2: Continuing to run your Facebook Group at full speed while also launching something different on a new platform.
When you are afraid of moving your Facebook Group, one common reaction is to just work harder and take on more responsibility. This often manifests itself in the sense that you need to both continue to run your Facebook Group (or have your moderators run your Facebook Group) just the way it is while also launching something new on a new platform.
This is unnecessary and can lead to burnout.
Here’s a better approach. It’s absolutely appropriate as you are transitioning to a new chapter for your community for you to pull back from your Facebook Group and invest more heavily in a new, more holistic, more integrated offering.
You can even keep your Facebook Group open as you make your move. That’s up to you. You can always create the boundary for yourself, your moderators, and your most motivated members that says, “we’re going to invest where people can get the best results, off Facebook, while still telling people about it, on Facebook.
Mistake #3: Paying more attention to the people who don’t want to move, instead of those who are excited about the transition.
It’s too easy to focus on the small handful of people who want to keep things the way they are, even if those things aren’t leveling up the community as a whole.
Focus on the things that you can uniquely do on the new platform, for the people who are excited to be there, and follow “the bright spots”—the successes, the positive feedback, and the unexpected surprises—to evolve what you’re doing into something even stronger than what you started.
Now, speaking of people who don’t want to move…
After your migration
You can expect around 30% of your members will make the move. This might sound scary, but don’t worry, this is actually okay! Here are a few stats to drive this point home:
Remember, this is all on a wide spectrum—15% of Hosts who moved from Facebook Groups said that between 76-99% of their members came with them, and 6% said that every single member made the transition.
66% of Hosts who migrated from Facebook Groups now charge for courses or memberships. Your commitment to this community becomes so much more sustainable when you’re being paid for your time and energy.
96% of Hosts who migrated a Facebook Group to Mighty would do it again.
Here’s what folks have told us who migrated off of Facebook Groups to Mighty Networks:
- 62% said they’re loving the new product functionality and it’s easier to launch new paid programs, groups, and courses.
- 37% said that the quality of their community improved after they moved to Mighty Networks.
While it can be nerve-wracking uprooting the way your business has worked up until this point, migrating your community to Mighty Networks ultimately will allow you much more room to grow, and more control than ever before.