The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

Facebook Groups for Audience Engagement with Fiona O'Neill

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 21

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In this episode of the Social Media Takeaway, I interview Fiona O'Neill, the founder of Count On Us Recruitment, about using Facebook groups for expanding audience reach and customer engagement. Fiona shares her journey as a family carer turned entrepreneur, discussing how she identified a gap in the Irish labor market for family carers seeking part-time work. She explains the inception and growth of her Facebook group, which now has over 4,000 members, and offers valuable insights into engaging and expanding Facebook communities, addressing employer misconceptions, and balancing personal boundaries in social media interactions. 

The conversation touches upon effective strategies for group management, the importance of clear messaging, and the evolving role of AI in social media. Tune in to discover actionable tips that can help you use Facebook groups to their full potential.

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Louise McDonnell:

Welcome to the Social Media Takeaway. I'm your host Louise McDonnell and today I'm speaking with Fiona O'Neill about using Facebook groups for audience growth and customer reach. Fiona O'Neill is the founder of Counting Us Recruitment, Ireland's only recruitment service dedicated to helping family carers return to work. She is a social innovator and a change maker. Fiona is a family carer herself and she saw a missed opportunity by the Irish economy around labour and skills shortages. So it's 500, 000 family carers in Ireland, not being given the opportunity to apply for part time employment. Employers were missing out on this untapped workforce. And so that was really what encouraged you to set up count on us recruitment. Fiona, you're very welcome to the show.

Fiona O'Neill:

Thank you very, very much. God, that was some intro. Thank you so much.

Louise McDonnell:

Do you want to maybe give us a little background on your journey so far?

Fiona O'Neill:

You've really summarized it all there. So I'm a family carer myself, so it's a a carer for my son. And when you're a family carer in Ireland, You get it's called a carers allowance. Now, I won't even go into, there's a whole debate on that because of the 500,000 family carers, there's a hundred thousand of us that qualifies for the care allowance. So that's a whole other conversation in itself. But with the carers allowance. there's a limit of 18 and a half hours per week that you're allowed to work. So that's a government rule that with this payment, it's the 18 and a half hours. So when I, I had to give up work, because as I often say is that my son had more hospital appointments than I had days holidays. So I was nearly 20 years for an insurance company and had to give up work. And I know that's what I said, there's, there's, Thousands of people across the country that have had similar journeys that they have qualifications and skills to give but have had to give up work because of sickness at home or maybe a parent getting older or whatever it may be. But when I was trying to find my own part time work because I could still work around him going to services and, you know, that he would have, wouldn't have appointments five days a week and things like that. I knew I could still work part time, but when I tried to find work, I could not find a part time job that matched that 18 and a half hours. Could not find it for love nor money. So that's where kind of the ball started rolling. So, well, if I'm finding it this hard to find a part time job, someone that has an edge, like I have my degree, I have my skills to give, I was part of an operations team, consider myself a good head on my shoulders. That I couldn't find a job. There's so many thousands of family carers like me that were out there same journey. So that's kind of where it started. I suppose the Facebook group started because before it became a proper business, before I actually went down the road of we are now a limited company. It was me of finding jobs would say could be 17 hours or 18 hours and sharing them into Facebook groups of already established community. So it could be maybe you know, a group of parents with children with autism, maybe. And I'd find the job in Cork and I would share it into the Facebook group. And I'd say, here, I'm after finding 17 hours in Cork or share something into Waterford. And it kind of started there. And then I said, hold on a second. Now, if I centralize all this, and we start with our own Facebook group that's where I'll start sharing the jobs. That's kind of where the whole, like I said, the seed was planted from there. And from there, being able then to kind of really bring the idea to fruition and, Even starting a community that I had people to brainstorm with. Then, like I said, the company became established and is now a a limited company national aid, you know, so. So yeah, it was my own personal journey that really kind of instigated it all. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Louise McDonnell:

You know, and I, we, I talk all the time about being very clear on the problem that you solve and the pain, the problem and the pain that you're solving. So yeah, you take that box and you're very clear on who it is you're targeting. A perfect example of, you know, solving a problem and a real problem for people and building a service around it. tell us about growing your Facebook group.

Fiona O'Neill:

So so like I said, it started off and it's still very much is a Facebook group. So we have a community of or there's over 4, 000 in our Facebook group at the moment of all family carers. And even something as small as this, when we started to, within month of having the Facebook group, we had our first thousand. But even in the Facebook group, before we, we were called Count On Us Recruitment, we used to be called Jobs for Family Carers. But it was using my Facebook group that because I had a community and already a following of people who wanted to use such a service to help them find part time jobs. When it came to having to put a bit of a rebrand it taking a step back to why the rebrand was needed is again, I have learned not to make assumptions on anything because I was a family carer myself. That's the, I, the blinkers on about family carers. So that's why it was jobs for family carers. But when I would approach then companies, Asking them, maybe, do they want to advertise their vacancies with us? They didn't get what we were doing because when they saw the title of the company, they thought I was hiring for caring jobs. They thought I was like, you know, like a comfort keeper or Bluebird care or one of them. because they saw the title of jobs for family carers and they thought it was a caring company as in trying to place home care people. So again, this is a learning for me. So again, I assumed by the name, I wasn't looking through everyone's eyes. I was looking through just the family carer's eyes. So here was now me approaching employers and they're not getting what we were doing.

Louise McDonnell:

that happens all the time, Fiona, that people in there, like, that's another thing I talk about all the time, messaging. you know, if your messaging isn't clear, like, and remember somebody's got, they're making a decision in a, in a split second. And over whether they're going to read the next line or talk to you or respond or whatever. So yeah, that's like, it's jobs for family carers. So the people that weren't their family carers just didn't get it.

Fiona O'Neill:

Yeah. Didn't get it. Family carers got it. Yeah. The, the paying people. Like I said, we approach employers who have vacancies. Maybe sometimes even people that would have part time jobs would be maybe 21, 24 hours. And we would say, look, if the right family carer with the qualifications and the skills that you need was to apply for the job and we're not asking for a family carer to come in the back door. They still get interviewed like everyone else. But if they're the ones that score highly in the interview, are you open to 18 and a half hours? If you're, they're the ones that you want in your, on your team, are you open to doing 18 and a half hours? so that's where employers then pay through us then to be able to find people for them in their vacancies. So that's another piece of our work is educating employers that There's 18 and a half hour contracts or something that's needed in the workforce. so as you mentioned, there's 500, 000 family carers, even if a third of them, so even if, I think that's all like 160, 000 or whatever it may be, even if a third of family carers were to work 18 hours a week, that's 3 million labour hours per week that's not being used in Ireland at the moment, that employers are missing out on. So again, like I said, that's where we have those conversations. But again, like I said, the jobs for family carers, when we were approaching these employers, they weren't getting our service was. And again, that was a huge learning for me. It was not to assume that you run with a name, you run with an idea. you're run with, this is going to work, but you haven't looked through everyone's eyes and gotten everyone's opinion. And going back to the Facebook groups, that's where I was able to put it back to the family carers themselves to say, like literally to give them maybe four options of name choices, say we're going to have to I know because it was such a, and it still is my baby, like anyone who owns a business, it becomes your baby to, to remove the name family carers out of it. I didn't want family carers to feel that nearly I was ashamed of taking family carers out of the title. So that's why I wanted them involved in the naming of the service that was going to advocate for them. And it was within Facebook groups. On a monthly basis I always start my, my post in the group saying, like, you know, I'm, on a poll rampage again, because the facility within groups to use polls, your voting polls, Again, it's just within that, rather than being maybe survey monkey that a lot of emails bounce back or whatever it may be. Because we have a community now of about 4, group. I ran a poll last, was it about a fourth night ago? The last time I'd run it was 2022. So again, to be able to have my numbers to compare, to see what has changed about, What benefits a family carer gets from having a part time job? It's not always about payslip. So is it mental health? Is it, you know, using your skills? Is it meeting new people? But to be able to reuse that poll and I actually screenshotted, I don't have the image here for you, but within an hour, I had 300 responses in a poll.. That's amazing. No, it's, it's, it's just phenomenal. So I do, I, that's one thing I owe was to any business owners. I would say if you could build a community within Facebooks, within Facebook groups, Now you'd know the, I have got through the algorithms and things like that, but there is a lot more engagement within a group than there would be if I had to maybe put a SurveyMonkey link on a page.

Louise McDonnell:

And in a group, I suppose for anyone who's maybe not familiar with Facebook groups, if it's a private group, it means that you can go into that group and you can interact in that group. And you're not worried that your, you know, your family or your friends or your neighbors are going to see, you know, anything that you're writing, you know, it's private. So even though it's on social media, nobody can see it. Just for a moment, I just want to explore, like, so for somebody who has a group and they're struggling to grow the group, what advice would you give them?

Fiona O'Neill:

For you to interact and first of all, like I said, I think every once in a while to put in something in the group and then expecting this influx is not going to happen. So you need to lead by example. So you to be frequent in the group and whether it be polls and to slowly see the response rate start to increment. Or even Facebook live into a group. So again, it's a privilege to be part of the group rather than it be a live out on a page. That you're actually getting by being part of this group. You're getting this information delivered to you. Do you know what I mean? but definitely I think even if someone has a product or a service that they're delivering, that you get to find rather than, shouting to everyone that when you put a post out that it's, You know, you're hoping it will fall on the right ears. Because when you build a community of people who want your service, use your service, maybe want change, wants the particular product, you're speaking to the right people then in that group. So rather than it being just a random group of people that you've, you've built it. So definitely you be the instigator of the interaction and the promotion of it as well. Like I said, use it as a, not a VIP area, but use it as like, this is, you're part of this community. Mm-Hmm. Like I said, it doesn't even have to be, it doesn't have to be a service. It could be a, a product, even like I said, as in holding your hand product. Mm-Hmm. You know, we're the users of this, do you know what I mean, that, you know, that spread the word, spread the word to your family and friends and be an advocate for this piece or whatever it may be, you know, but but it just makes it a special community when it's part of the group.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay, so, so what you're saying is that in order to grow your group, you as the, as the leader, you as the owner of the group, you need to be active. So it's not something you can outsource to a team member or to

Fiona O'Neill:

I don't think so. I think it's because they want to see you on video and because sometimes a brand You are the brand. Mm. You know, like you are the person behind the service, the person behind the product, it's you. Mm-Hmm.. They want to know who's the person that they're buying from, who's the person that they're dealing with. So now I outsource it, like I said, maybe to do the videos or whatever it may be from an efficiency point of view. But I think do think it needs to be you that's on the videos and doing the talking. As I said, whether it be networking, business networking, events and things like that, I'd often say to people, like, have you started a Facebook group? You know, that's where, and even be, even if something in a business is at idea stage, again, before you have a product to launch, before you have a service to launch, that's your space to ask questions. Like my assumption at the very, very start was that find a job, find an 18 hour job, find the family care, get the job, easy peasy. That's it. You know, one plus one equals two. That was it. But when I actually asked in the group, how can I help you find a part time job? It was an open ended question basically. And all these other responses came in about but who's going to hire me? I haven't worked for 10 years. So it wasn't just as easy as finding the job, finding family care and getting them employed. And that's where we developed then further services when it comes to workshops around maybe self belief or confidence or someone who doesn't even have a CV, helping them with their CV. But it was by asking that question in the group. that people came back then with all these other things that I had, I assumed. And again, it was something I keep saying over and over again to assume nothing. It's a space in a group to be able to ask your clients, ask your customers, is this what you want? Is this going to help you? If I was to do this, if I was to offer this service, Would it work?

Louise McDonnell:

So great for research, but so in terms of like, so are you active in the group every day or how do you work it?

Fiona O'Neill:

So I would be active every day more in the comments. So again, it's a space where people would put in it might ask a question to say you know, I'm in Kildare. I'm a teacher. Does anyone know of any jobs that are in the Kildare area? Now we have a jobs board. On our website. So it's in the comments then to be able to talk to someone and say, well here's the jobs, well here's all the jobs in Kildare. Have you registered with us? Because that's a, another topic even we could talk about is that trying to migrate people from groups into being registered people with us. And because it was, I can't, you, you know now as well yourself, was it two or three years ago that Facebook went down for two or three days? Was it like a global outage? And because I was so Facebook group based. Oh. How do I get back to my people? Like, how do I, if I lose this audience, I have no way of getting back to them. So again, it was an eye opener to me. I need to migrate these people from Facebook groups into a database. So again, it's in the comments. when people put it in a question or rather than it be the post itself being the interaction, it's the comments then that if people put in a question, having those conversations in the comments. So like, so getting them to register with us even other people that when you build that community, other people will actually reply to that. So it's nearly like a peer to peer. Yeah. So again, even if someone had a product to say, you know, I can't get this to or it's too hard to open for other people to say, well, this is how I open it. This is how it works for me, or I use such and such a thing and it opens it easier that way. Do you know, when, when you have a community of people, people, Help each other. So other people then in the comments then would say, Oh, I saw a teaching job, Newbridge or whatever it may be. And again, it's even to that comment again, chat to that person saying, Thank you so much for getting involved in the conversation. I love this. And it's all that. It's that You know, that building of relationships then when it comes to not just the service side of things in the community, it's the relationship building.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, so if somebody's sitting here and they're thinking about starting a group or they have a group, like if they're thinking about planning some posts, what type of posts are working the best right now in Facebook groups?

Fiona O'Neill:

For me, definitely the polls. People love to give their opinion. Even if it's a bad opinion sometimes and, and they'll tell me if something's not working. Do you know what I mean? That if I'm taking too long to get back to them on CVs. So there's a team of us, there's three of us that, there's two business coaches or two life coaches that are with us as well. They would help with CVs. So they would say, you know, we can't wait a week for a CV. If we see a job, we need to get the CV out ASAP kind of thing. So, polls and asking for feedback. People love to give their opinion. They love to have their voices heard. So that's what I would be in. That's where I would go with polls is asking people about does this work for you? Could even be about a post to say I'm thinking of going, you know, putting this post up on the Facebook page. Which post would you prefer? Do you know, people love to give their opinion. Do you know and, and that's where the interaction starts. And I think they value being asked. Rather than going off and doing something and thinking, everyone's going to love this, or everyone's going to need this. When you ask their opinion, they appreciate that. They know that they were involved in it to a certain extent, you know.

Louise McDonnell:

And tell me you know the feature, the tagging everyone. What do you think about that? Do you use it? Does it work? Does it annoy people?

Fiona O'Neill:

I do use it. I do use it. Yeah, I think it's working. I think it's working. I see the difference in engagement when you use it, whether it be a normal post or whether it be a Facebook poll. It definitely, it definitely does. And it's up to the person themselves then to whether they want to engage or not. Because again, like I said, the joys of Facebook is that there's so many things that will never land on someone's screen. You know, it depends on whatever Facebook decides to send to that person that day or whatever it may be. Now I'm on the other side of it as well, is that there's many, many posts that I get. you see in the words that Mary Murphy has tagged you and others. And then I'm kind of going, okay, well, that's an everyone, you know, and it's up to me then whether I decide to go in and have a look at what is actually going on or not, you know, but it works from a business point of view. Definitely. It's a great little tool to have. I haven't found anyone that has unsubscribed or unengaged. Like that's one thing I found in our groups. Our numbers haven't dropped.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay.

Fiona O'Neill:

Whether it be to do with the tag and everyone. Or whether it be to do just with our activity in general.

Louise McDonnell:

And actually for anyone listening in, who doesn't know what that means. It's when you're an administrator in a group, you can just write the at symbol and start typing the word everyone. So, and everyone. That's in the group that has their notifications turned on for that particular feature gets a notification to say Fiona O'Neill has tagged you and others in a post. And then they know, Oh, there's a new post from this group. So yeah, I use it as well. I kind of, I'm kind of careful with how I use it. I don't use it for every post. Cause, I think if you use it too frequently, then people won't bother checking it out. Whereas if they know, Oh, every time that she uses this, it's worth checking out. So that's, that's how I use it. And tell me like the changes that came in very recently with Facebook in terms of, you know, they've changed the API permissions with groups. Have you noticed any difference there? Or do you just go live directly in the groups yourself, you know, for the third party apps?

Fiona O'Neill:

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. No, I just go directly into the group. I'm not a third party user at all. I'm just go directly into the group. And it's then about using those videos. No more than what you, you would do as well, is using them for other tools and using them for other, whether it be a pull a 30 seconder from it or something to put, to use it on something else.

Louise McDonnell:

And how do you find going live? Because I used to find going live directly in a group from Facebook was horrible. I used to find, I'd never knew if I was live or not. And I'd be like, "Am I live? Am I live?"

Fiona O'Neill:

I know, I know, I know. And I see a lot of people struggling with that. Even your, your conversation starts with that. People kind of checking their technology.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fiona O'Neill:

You can see people doubting themselves. Like all technology, there's area for improvements and everything. Do you know what I mean? But but no, I use it and I get the engagement. The engagement might be during the live. Yeah. It could be the after. The aftermath and because people and again, it's going back to what time suits right people and checking and that's one thing that I've hugely to do is, you know, to track my insights and things like that. And it's something that again, it's when you come to efficiencies and time, it's something that we need to do and we're not doing so we, we need to be looking at those things to know what but yeah, no, I, I use the lives and. reusing that live For other pieces throughout, whether it be moving that across to Instagram or putting it on, on the Facebook page itself. Because it's in the group that I find more, but even though our, our page is, is quite active, the engagement is better in the group than it is on the page.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. I'd say that's a privacy thing. the people just don't want people knowing their business. Yeah, you're right. And also, yeah,

Fiona O'Neill:

because there's so many people that will kinda watch from a distance and never interact. And they could love a post and never hit the like button.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember doing a story. I remember a few years ago, I decided I was doing 10 tips over 10 days, you know. And you know, I was all enthusiastic on, you know, on day one and day two. And then I was on about day six and I was going, Oh crikey, this is painful. But anyway, the tips were great, but it was just, and then I was in a shop paying, in the queue. And this lady that I didn't know she came up to me. She goes, I am just loving your tips. And as I walked away, I was going, well, take care. Would you like your comment? You know, she's watching them. And then I said, no, you know, you've got to learn from that. You know, the people will not, you know, sometimes display their, you know, that they're there, but they are there.

Fiona O'Neill:

that's society. That's the way people, As themselves are just starting to change, as in that they're not interacting, but still watching.

Louise McDonnell:

That's social media though. I think though people will tell you, oh yeah, I'm not on Facebook. I'm not on Facebook, and I say Facebook in particular, but if you put something on Facebook that is wrong or there's an issue with Yes, my goodness, you'll know all about it. Very, very, I mean, I put up a I put up a post a few weeks ago I was on a page that I'm a volunteer on. And I had written the post and then I went, I went to my, go to my chat GPT. And I just said, check syntax and grammar. It's my favorite prompt just to make sure that everything was fine. And it changed very little, but anyhow, I just copied and paste what I thought was that just the updated one, and I put it in the post and published it. And within a few minutes, my sister had texted me. And they're like the whole chat GBT thing is in the post, you know, but I was like, don't tell me people that people aren't there. They are absolutely. That's happened over years. Like that trend has emerged over years, like years and years ago, people would be, Actively sharing photos of this is what I did at the weekend, whereas some people do now, but most people don't, but they're, the are the trends which you have noticed? Like you're a social media user, a Facebook user. Like apart from people just kind of just watching more that rather than interacting, any other trends you've noticed?

Fiona O'Neill:

I don't know if this is a trend, but it's something that I'm having to start to do. And again, it's back to audience. So as I mentioned, we have our family carer side of the coin and we have the employer side of the coin. So our employer side of the coin is LinkedIn based. So we have started a group in LinkedIn. But this is, again, a group, so that privacy piece, that you know, that VIP ishness group and again, it's about thinking of the audience, the difference in topic. So family carers, again, it's about, you know, employment the benefits of employment, how to get the job, the LinkedIn group for employers, it's about labour shortages and skill shortages. So it's, again, thinking about who you're talking to, what's important to them and then through those conversations of labour shortages and coming up with sharing ideas of those challenges, the conversations that come out of that then about, well, actually, did you know that there's 3 million hours not being used per week because family carers aren't being hired. So again, like I said, it's about knowing where your people are. Now again, there's nothing to say that there's, you know, a business owner that's using Facebook that's not going to pick up on our message on Facebook, is there? But it's just about broadening the net a little bit. That in LinkedIn, it would be more people that are in the group are maybe recruitment managers with larger businesses, employers with maybe government agencies even. You know, they're a different group. But again, it's just about You have different audiences, different places, different messages, who you're speaking to, what are you, what you're saying. But I don't know if that's a trend or it's just something that we've started to kind of really kind of branch out into.

Louise McDonnell:

I suppose it kind of is because I think that LinkedIn has really changed in the last, maybe, A few years, certainly like there was a time when I think LinkedIn you know, had such potential, but it was a bit of tumbleweed, you know? So I remember like, I'm going back years ago now, like eight, nine, 10 years ago, where, you know, you fill out your profile and you might create content, but like, nobody was there hanging out there. So it was nothing going on. So but it's totally different now. Like, you know, it is different. Yeah.

Fiona O'Neill:

Another thing I'm after thinking about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's a challenge that I'm dealing with that of certain boundaries as a business owner, that when you're on social media, people contacting you privately. looking for your product or your service when you have other channels. So whether it be email or whether, you know, get your business WhatsApp or whatever it may be. So people send new messages on your own private Facebook account or your own private Instagram about business related work related things and a message coming in at nine o'clock at night. Do you answer? Do you not answer? Do you redirect them back to the company email? So it's those boundaries as a business owner when social media is there and people have an access to you as a person and how to manage that.

Louise McDonnell:

Very important.

Fiona O'Neill:

Yeah. So it's something that is starting to come up over and over again. then because you don't want to damage that relationship with the client then either. You don't want them to feel This one has fobbed me off, but at the same time it's nine o'clock at night and you're sitting on the couch with the kids, do you know what I mean? So you have to set boundaries, but it's just again when it comes to social media, you are there as a person, as your own, as me being a mammy and a family care, I'm there as a person and then there's the business side of me. So setting boundaries as a business owner is a huge one when it comes to access, you know.

Louise McDonnell:

And you talk as well about list building, like to grow your email list because you made the point earlier on that if Facebook was gone away in the morning and you have that lovely group with four or 5, 000 people and that was gone in the morning, you know, what would you do? So how do you then, grow your list using your group?

Fiona O'Neill:

So again, just the promotion of it constantly. Now at the start, and do you know what, maybe I should be saying it more often, it was that. Event when I said to my family carers, I don't want to lose you. You know, that if Facebook goes down in the morning, we have no contact. So maybe I should be saying that more often, as in that's the reality of it, that if you want to stay in contact. like I said, we've just over the 4, 000 in the group, of about 1, 000 that have, that have signed over, and I want to, committing to, and even in what I'm saying, building the list, it's that registration piece of them Kind of nearly like a mini survey of what kind of job would you like to work in? Where in the country do you live? So it's me kind of data collecting at the same time.

Louise McDonnell:

what kind of tools do you use for that then Fiona?

Fiona O'Neill:

Very basic HubSpot. So it's HubSpot that I'm using and it's HubSpot that I'm using for email campaigns and things like that as well. I will say it's very slow to take, as in people are, I don't know if it's a fear of committing to give an email address. Is it that it's just one more email that I'm going to Like again, as the, the business owner, I would love to say. Get over 4, 000 emails, you know what I mean, but it doesn't happen. And do you do like,

Louise McDonnell:

like a free guide, a free guide for, you know, 2024 guide for Irish family carers. Here you can download it here. Give me your email address. Do you do that?

Fiona O'Neill:

So what we have is it's a download of transferable skills. so when they're writing their CV for family carers that they think, well, okay, I'm dealing with five different consultants. But that follow up with different consultants and having to diary management different appointments and to follow up on appointments that those skills, this is how you transfer them into a CV to make them business related, as in when it comes to following up on clients or, you know, time management or diary management. So it's a document on. You know, here's the skills that you can use in your CV as in not to leave a gap on your CV. So a lot of family carers say, sure, I was, I was just minding my parents for the last three years. Sure. That's not something to put on the CV. So that's what this document does is say, well, these are the skills you have as a family carer that are very CV worthy. So yeah, it is that piece that's there. To say, well, if you register now, there's a lot of people actually that will register without that download piece that they come in another backdoor. So it's not always the, carrot. I would use it as a carrot, maybe like I said, if there was a campaign going, now, again, I don't know when it comes to numbers in comparison to others, but every day I'd have at least two or three new registrations. Just drip, drip feeding in and a lot of the time, again, going back to social media is that when you have your community built a lot of referrals come in through the Facebook group being tagged, not the page. So it's people finding more value from the group than actually from the page. So even when I see an influx, so I have the setting on it that I have to approve people that come into the group. Because again, like I said, there's, and there's questions that they have to answer about being a family carer and things like that. Because at the start, the floodgates were open and sure there was everything and I didn't come into it. So you do need to have that bit of restriction around your group. because it's pride in your group as well, do you know what I mean? That you want to have. Do you know that the people are in the group for the right reason? So when does you see an influx of people being, wanting to join the group? And again, it's one of the things is that when people are joining the group, you can see what other groups that they're in. So if you're in similar groups, so sometimes I can kind of go, Oh, I'm after being mentioned. If I see the same kind of group in their list, It's like I see note as a trend and say that's the group I have to be mentioned in now. Do you know that they're, it's from the same group that they're coming in from. But like I said, it's the group that I get, that gets tagged in conversations rather than the page. So sometimes it's the other way around is that I have to promote my page inside the group. To go out and like the main page.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, I think, I think though that the pages, they say on LinkedIn, like that the pages become like a destination. So they'll never really get huge organic reach or they get much less. But at the same time, if somebody is going to check out your brand, they'll go check out and they'll have a look down. So it's kind of the people checking out your social media approval. And I think Facebook pages are going to go the same way, to be honest, because I think the organic reach on pages is so low, it's they're useful for when you're running ads or if somebody is going to check you out in the end, they want to see what you're doing right now. Yeah. Check out your website to see who you are and they'll check out your social media to see what you're doing right now. So I think absolutely.

Fiona O'Neill:

And if you're active, because if you were on your Facebook page and you haven't put something up since 2022, for me, even as a customer on the other side, if someone's not active on their Facebook page. That's a decision made in me nearly that I'm kind of going, I'm not going to use them because they're not with the activity, do you know?

Louise McDonnell:

Oh yeah, or it just looks like, like, you know, even your question, is the business even still operational?

Fiona O'Neill:

Absolutely. You know,

Louise McDonnell:

another thing which drives me a bit crazy is when people have pinned posts. I see it on Facebook and on Instagram actually, and I have a few times gone, Oh, they haven't posted anything since like in a few months. And then I realized. Yeah. That was a pin post, so be careful with your pin posts, remember like anyone coming to your profile is that you've got milliseconds until they decide they're gone again. So yeah, I'll be careful about the pin posts. Really good point. Yeah, sometimes it looks like you're inactive. okay. Brilliant. Do you know what I was thinking? It would be a great idea for you, Fiona? Just thinking I feel like if you did an annual survey of, of family carers on, get their opinions on how, on how things are issues that are important to them, change over and get them to contribute to it. Then publish a report and so they don't have to see the results and then you, then you get your email addresses. So brilliant. Oh,

Fiona O'Neill:

as in that the results would be their, their incentive for the email address. Is that a, so. Very good. Yeah. And like I said, I, there are things that by talking to people like you that these ideas that come up with, you know, so I am definitely robbing that one.

Louise McDonnell:

So they'll say you, you should have about three or four lead magnets on the go at any one time. Three or four. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I

Fiona O'Neill:

didn't know that. That's really interesting.

Louise McDonnell:

You're appealing to different people. And at the end of the day, as long as they're set up and you have your, Everything automated in your emails, sequences, all working in the background on your, in your HubSpot, it'll work out, it'll work perfectly for you. So any other advice you'd give to people then around Facebook groups? So build your community, be present yourself.

Fiona O'Neill:

Yeah.

Louise McDonnell:

Use it for research, ask questions, run polls, go live directly on, cause you've no choice now I don't think, go live directly in the groups, use them to grow your email list and yeah, yeah, do use the

Fiona O'Neill:

tag everyone, absolutely, yeah. But no, definitely, and it's just to be consistent, because like I said, I was very blessed that the group, it snowballed, it really did. And that just even going back to when my business was at idea stage, it just reaffirmed that I was on the right track with this idea. So like I said, when you go, even before you go to launch, I would say rather than running with your idea, bringing it to market, build that community, test it out there, ask the questions there, so that when you're ready to move forward, to say, well, actually. I have, even if it'd be 500 people, I have a group of 500 people that I've been picking their brains on for the last six months or whatever it may be. So I'd say start there before trying to build an audience after you've, the product built. Yeah. Because that's what works for me.

Louise McDonnell:

It's because it takes, it takes months to grow, to grow traction. So yeah, you're dead right. That's, that's super advice. If there was one feature that you could ask Mark Zuckerberg for within groups, what would What would it be?

Fiona O'Neill:

Oh, that's a good question. Give me a few ideas. What would you, what have you seen?

Louise McDonnell:

I'll tell you what bugs me about groups. I hate that it always has to be me that posts into them. As the admin. Because you can have other people that are admin, but if they post, it doesn't really have any impact. I used to like when you could post as the group, as opposed to a person. So they took that feature away. Wow.

Fiona O'Neill:

Yes, yes, yes. I'd forgotten that actually.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. So yeah, so that, they took that feature away. So I'd like if they could bring that back because, you know, sometimes you just can't, sometimes you cannot, you know, you have to get, you know, you can agree content with your team, but sometimes somebody else has to, has to do for you. So that's one feature that I would love to see change. I have to say, I used to like the BeLive or the BeLive or the what else did I use? StreamYard for, for going live into groups. I didn't like that feature. What other features do,

Fiona O'Neill:

where do you see I know you mentioned about like chat GTP and things like that, like, where do you see Like, is AI going to have an impact on Facebook, do you think, as in, are we going to see bot posts come just to generate some sort of interaction? I don't know, is it going to, or is it all going to have to be person based or person generated?

Louise McDonnell:

I think the AI is already there, and we haven't We haven't really noticed it. And I think it's, it's there in a different way. So for example there is like the AI image creation features. When you go to create a post, it's going to present you with Facebook's, you know, you know, suggestion

Fiona O'Neill:

on what to go with this post,

Louise McDonnell:

or you'll be able to write in and say, girl on a swing. Yeah. And so, that's already. Here. whether we use it or not. I don't like, to be honest, I'm, everyone knows this. I don't like AI generated images or videos. I think that they, they just don't get engagement. So I don't know if that will ever take off, but I could be wrong. AI is, def is here. I was doing ads this morning and it was using what I had written and then it was suggesting, you know, here's an, here's five or six different alternatives to what you've written, Do you want to use them or not? So AI is there from that perspective, AI is also there in terms of the algorithm. this is something that's just really good about Facebook in terms of Facebook ads again Years ago, I would have been teaching people how to create retargeting audiences. So I would have been saying, Oh, if somebody watches your videos or if somebody interacts with you on Facebook or on Facebook or Instagram, or if somebody visits your website, this is how you create that, you know, an audience and retarget those people. But it just does it automatically now. so that's something we started to notice coming in about maybe two years or so ago, I noticed that there was ads that. We were running as a company and I wouldn't have been in the target audience that we had selected, but I was being served the ads. So we started to notice that. So that retargeting happens automatically. So that's called their, they have these advantage plus, you know, audiences where they will go find the people for you. And it's a brilliant, actually, it's a super platform for that. Wow. I didn't realize that was going on. Yeah. So if somebody, if somebody regularly interacts with your ads, then they're always going to be served those ads. Yes, yes, yes, you know, so it's, it's quite clever. I think AI is kind of, is creeping in and we're not noticing. Yeah. It's under, under the radar. Yeah. on the other side, how has Facebook changed and I think Facebook needs to stay more like Facebook. So I think it's trying to be, it's trying to be a little bit. More like TikTok. So, you know, you go on, you're seeing these, you know, cat videos and whatever, you know, you know, the, the reels and, you know, the funny things. what I liked about Facebook was community. So I, I wish it would stay in its lane and remain, you know, as community, but in saying that they say that their at time spent in app has increased by something like six or 7 percent since they started changing the type of content. I wonder, will be a short term gain because I think if people want to go and look at TikTok videos, they'll go to TikTok, you know?

Fiona O'Neill:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I totally agree with you on community because that's what I firmly use and believe Facebook to be is community. So again, going back to groups. It's the community based. Yeah, definitely.

Louise McDonnell:

Well, look thank you so much for all all of your insights into using Facebook groups. If somebody wanted to find you then, Fiona, where would they get in contact with you?

Fiona O'Neill:

So from a business point of view, like I said, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or X, sorry, I have to get up to, up to date on x Facebook. It's count on US recruitment and and like I said, our website is there even to email. It's hello at count on US recruitment dot, ie.

Louise McDonnell:

Fantastic. Well, I just want to just acknowledge, like, I have seen you over the years, I've seen that business develop and, you know, fair play to you, like, it's really wonderful, like, that you're solving a problem, but it's also a problem for people who really need help. That problem to be solved for them because they're selfless. They're I know they're carers. They're selfless. So well done you. Thank you very, very much. Continued success to you in the future. And I'm sure our paths will continue to cross.

Fiona O'Neill:

You're a star. Thank you so much. Thanks so much.