How to Create and Grow an Outdoor Facebook Group

Are you interested in creating and growing an Outdoor Facebook group?

There are numerous advantages to establishing your own Facebook group focused on outdoor recreation. Whether you’re aiming to promote your outdoor creator brand or foster a community of like-minded individuals, an outdoor Facebook Group can significantly boost your efforts and enhance brand recognition.

I created a local hiking Facebook group under my Hiking with Shawn brand.

Today, my group, created under the Hiking with Shawn brand, is on the verge of reaching 48,000 members. It’s a vibrant community that has propelled my Hiking with Shawn Facebook page to a total reach of just under a million.

My Facebook page generates revenue through performance bonuses, stars, and ads, with a significant portion of the credit going to my Facebook group.

It’s important to note that the success of my group wasn’t solely due to a large budget or a team of people. Instead, it was the result of strategic planning and execution, proving that success is within reach with the right approach.

Now, I’d love to show you what I did so that you can create your own highly successful outdoor Facebook group today.

Why Create an Outdoor Facebook Group?

There are many reasons to create an outdoor Facebook group.

Firstly, if you’re into the outdoors and you have a good idea for a group that other outdoors people will love, then you should definitely create a group about it on Facebook.

There are many benefits to having an outdoor Facebook group, too.

• For starters, you can build a group to raise brand awareness or even start a fanbase for your business or brand based on outdoor recreation.
• You can use the group to promote new things, announcements, and brand promotion for your outdoor recreation business or brand.
• A group is great for getting brand and business feedback, too.
• A group will enable you to build connections and network with others in your outdoor niche. You can even use your group to connect members with one another. In fact, one of the best ways to grow a group is to master the art of networking with members.
• An outdoor Facebook group can help you generate leads and convert people into paying customers or subscribers.
• A group will help you increase organic engagement and build your follower base.

The only problem with building a group on Facebook is that you can’t own it. You don’t get access to the files and database, and you don’t have your members’ contact information. If Facebook decides to shut down your group or remove a feature, there is nothing you can do about it. Facebook and any social media are and will always be rented spaces.

Planning and Setting Up an Outdoor Facebook Group

To have the best possible outdoor Facebook group, you need to plan it out and set it up to be successful.

The first thing you need to do is identify your niche. Don’t just choose something generic like “outdoors” or “hiking.” You need to narrow it down. There are so many general outdoor and hiking groups that it will be hard to compete.

Choose a core niche, such as hiking or kayaking. Then, as long as there is an audience for it, narrow it down to one or two levels deep. For example, my group is “Southern Illinois Hiking,” which is about hiking but has been narrowed down to a specific location.

Try to define a purpose for your group and set some realistic goals to work toward. The purpose is the “Why does your group exist?” sort of statement. Who are you providing it for? What do you want those people to get out of it?

You should also set a few goals to work for. Make them realistic so that you actually have a good chance of completing them.

Before you launch your outdoor Facebook group, make sure you know who your target audience is. If you launch a group without an audience in mind, you won’t know what kind of content to make because you won’t know who you’re creating for.

I know my audience is people who live in or want to visit Southern Illinois for hiking. I know how to create content relevant to them and their interests in hiking in my region.

Creating a Group on Facebook is easy. Go to Facebook Groups. Create a new group.

Choose a name for your group and add a description. You can change the description later, but you need to try to get the name right the first time. If you’ve planned for your group, this is going to be a lot easier.

For the sake of how your group ranks on search engines, try to have a focal keyword or phrase that matches both the title and the description. My keyword phrase is “Southern Illinois Hiking,” which I put in my group Title and within the Description.

Create a welcome statement to onboard new members. The welcome statement should explain or link to your group rules, set expectations of members, and note any further important information. You could also list who the moderators are on your welcome statement. You should pin your welcome statement so that it remains at the top at all times.

Create guidelines for your outdoor Facebook group. These are community rules. They set the tone for what you allow and do not allow in your group. Cover the basics here. There is no need to write a giant policy.

You need to decide if you want your group to be public or private. Your group can grow significantly if you set it to public. It can also help with branding. You can also choose private. However, if you make it a private group, you will not be able to change it to public at a later date.

Content and Engagement Strategy

The most important factors of your outdoor Facebook group are content and engagement. These two factors are required to have a successful group.

You should plan to post content consistently. You can succeed with this by establishing a content calendar. You can create a calendar to know what to post and when to post content. As your group grows, you’ll eventually want to post content daily.

Use a combination of different content types. Take advantage of all your group features. Create posts and polls. Upload photos and videos. Do live videos on the group. Create group events. Use everything you have been given to use on your group to encourage engagement.

If appropriate, spotlight members of your group and celebrate their achievements. This often makes members feel appreciated and will encourage them to be active and loyal to your group.

Host some Q&A sessions in your group, whether you use the live feature or the posting controls. To make these more valuable to your group members, you should also include industry experts.

Organize virtual and in-person meet events. You can use something like Zoom and enable members to engage using video and a mic. You could also organize in-person events such as camping, hikes, picnics, conferences, and learning events.

You should run some periodic contests and challenges. Try to keep these relevant to your niche. Try to keep prizes relevant to your specific outdoor niche, too.

Encourage your group members to be active. Welcome them to post, share their experiences about the niche, and engage with other members. Encourage them to help new members, welcome people to the group, and be active. You should try to create organic ambassadors with your group members.

Consider scheduling reoccurring content to encourage engagement. For example, if your group is relevant, you could post “Show me your latest waterfall!” on Wednesday mornings. Often, these scheduled themed posts will be ones that members love to participate in, and they’ll come back again and again to post on them.

Make sure that your moderator team also engages regularly. Moderators should never sit back and watch. They’re leaders and mentors of your group. They should set an example of how to be an active and ideal member of the group while also being active in moderation.

Tag members in posts where their expertise is relevant. This helps you network members and develop relationships, which can really make your group successful. You can also tag new members and welcome them to the group to encourage engagement.

Promoting Your Outdoor Facebook Group

To grow your outdoor Facebook group, you’ll have to promote it. There are plenty of free methods and paid methods.

Social media is one of the best ways to promote your group. You should have a page relevant to your group on Facebook. Use that page to promote your group by sharing original content from the group and encouraging people to join and engage with it. You can also share your group on other platforms that you’re a part of. Still, algorithmically speaking, Facebook will likely generate more views as other platforms will put less viewership on external posts, especially on competing platforms.

Create an email list and market your group directly to your followers. Go to Convert Kit and register for a free account. The free plan gives you 10,000 subscribers. Create a newsletter relevant to your group’s niche. Once you start getting subscribers, you can also share content from your group and invite them to join. You should also use your group to invite your members to subscribe to your newsletter.

Collaborate with other groups, websites, and influencers. Find relevant groups, websites, blogs, podcasts, and influencers and network with them. Build a relationship that turns into a friendship. After that, collaborate with them, and you can promote your group. Guest blog, interview on podcast shows, and engage in other collaborative activities to help grow your group membership and engagement.

Consider paying for advertising to promote your group. You can pay for advertising to promote your outdoor Facebook group practically anywhere. However, Facebook ads are going to be your best bet. You’ll not only be paying Facebook money, but you’ll also be promoting something that keeps people on Facebook. Whether the platform will admit it or not, something tells me that you’re going to get more views on your ads. That’s just an assumption, though. However, in reality, you’re promoting a group on Facebook, so by promoting it on Facebook, you’re targeting people who are already using the platform and know how to use groups.

Advertise your group on your website and blog. If you have a website or blog, advertise your group on it. You can use sidebar widgets, blog posts about the group, or even popups to tell visitors and readers to join your group. I suggest you put some sort of group advertisement on every page and post it on your website or blog.

Word of mouth is still a very powerful promotional tool. Tell everyone about your outdoor Facebook group. Tell your friends, family, and co-workers. Tell people you meet at the outdoor store. Tell people you see on your morning bike ride. Tell everyone to check out your group and invite their friends and family.

Cross-promote your group on other relevant groups. If you can promote content from your group to other groups, you should try it out. Stick to relevant groups where the topics are relevant to what you’re sharing, or you could be treated as a spammer. Make sure you know and abide by the rules.

Ask your existing members to invite others to join. Your current group members will most likely gladly accept the position of being ambassadors of your group. Ask them to help you build the group by promoting it to others who might be interested in the topics.

Just like with posting and engagement, you should focus on promoting your outdoor Facebook group on a daily basis if you want to see greater success and community growth.

Community Management Best Practices

The better you manage your outdoor Facebook group, the more successful it will be. Here are some community management best practices used by many community managers around the internet.

Assign moderators to your group. Make trusted and active members moderators (if they want to be) of your Facebook group. Moderators should enforce their rules, ban spammers, engage with members, welcome newcomers, and help ensure the community remains free of drama and toxicity.

Address member issues and conflicts promptly. Try to be on the lookout for issues and conflicts between members and address these incidents as quickly as possible. Don’t be afraid to act. Ban those who need to be banned and turn off comments on posts. Preventing your group from being toxic is an important task.

Welcome new members. When new people join your group, go out of your way to welcome them to the group. You can do a mass welcome post if a lot of people join or welcome people on an individual basis if you want to add a personal touch.

Try to create an onboarding process for your new members. Create a pinned post that gives them important information and resources. You should include your group rules, an FAQ, new member guides, and other important information. You might also list your moderators on this post.

Regularly seek feedback from your members. The more feedback you request, the better your group can be for them. You should always be looking for ways to improve your blog, and member feedback is one of the best ways to do it.

Use polls and surveys to get feedback. Use polls in your group to seek feedback from your members. You can post specific questions about activities you’d like feedback for in your poll. You can also create a survey using Google Forms or something similar to ask broader questions for member feedback.

Utilize group tools that Facebook provides. One particular tool to utilize is Admin Assist. This will allow you to adjust settings to automatically accept and reject memberships based on set criteria, detect and ban spammers, and help you do housekeeping activities behind the scenes. You can set your group up to review and approve new member requests, too. You can set up new member questions to help prevent spam, as well.

Prevent drama and toxic environments on your outdoor Facebook group. Drama and toxic environments are sure to ruin your Facebook group. If cliques form, bullying occurs, and a division is created, it is often impossible to recover from. If you see these activities starting, you should stop them immediately. You might have to ban active members, but sometimes that’s what it takes to keep the peace and save your group.

The best practices listed above will help ensure that your outdoor Facebook group can run smoothly and efficiently.

Growing Your Outdoor Facebook Group

It’s important to do things that will encourage the growth of your outdoor Facebook group. The following tactics will help you accomplish healthy community growth.

Track your community growth, engagement rates, and member activities. Try to identify trends in these activities and what causes them. Mimic these trends and positive growth rates to keep your outdoor growth moving.

Take advantage of measuring and analyzing the insights and metrics on your Facebook group. Facebook wants your group to be successful because it keeps users on the platform. The insights they provide to group owners will help the group grow.

Adjust your strategies and tactics based on your group insights, especially from member feedback. While analytics are important to watch, member feedback is even more important. Member feedback is direct intelligence from those you are actually trying to serve. Pay attention to it if you want to grow your outdoor Facebook group.

Experiment with content formats that you don’t use in your group. Do not adopt a “safety bubble” or “security blanket” as a group owner. Doing those things will likely lead you to miss out on growth opportunities that would have been crucial to your group’s success. You should also embrace any new group features released by Facebook. Most new feature early adopters are the winners at the end of the day.

Consider incentives and lead magnets to encourage community growth. These are benefits and freebies that will make people want to join your group to take advantage of them. How can you create something with your group that solves the biggest needs and wants of your audience? Answer that question and then create a way to offer it to those who become members.

Try to fully understand all your group’s settings and features. When you understand how to use everything, you can utilize all the available resources and settings to make your group more successful. You should also utilize all pages and areas where you can apply content, such as the About page, descriptions, website inputs, and others.

Regularly audit your group’s branding, images, and pinned topics and adjust these areas as needed. Keep things modern, visually appealing, and aligned with trends to keep members interested in your group and its activities.

Focusing on your community and your members’ needs can help you maintain a healthy outdoor Facebook group growth strategy.

Monetize Your Outdoor Facebook Group

Did you know that you can use your outdoor Facebook group to earn money?

For starters, active Facebook pages can be eligible for performance bonuses if they meet certain criteria. You can use your group to promote content from your page for cross-traffic tactics. This can help you earn more from your performance bonuses if more people are seeing your page content.

You can also use your group for sponsored content and paid collaborations. There are many brands and companies out there that will pay you to advertise their products and services or do paid collaborations utilizing your group. In most cases, this is done easier when you’ve built up a very active group.

You can create a private group to offer exclusive content to paid members. Set up an off-site payment processing website. After the person pays, give them instructions on how to join your outdoor Facebook group.

You can use affiliate marketing to get paid with your group, as well. Many outdoor recreation enthusiasts use affiliate marketing to promote gear and other outdoor items. You earn a commission when someone buys something using the custom link you provide. You can utilize this same concept on your outdoor Facebook group, as well.

You can use your group to sell any products, services, or merchandise you offer. It’s your group to promote the things that you contribute.

Examples of Outdoor Facebook Groups

There are many great examples of Outdoor Facebook Groups that are doing really well. You can use these groups as role models for your own success.

• The Shawnee National Forest Group has 113,000+ members. It posts a few dozen new posts a day with hundreds upon hundreds of comments featuring discussions about the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois.
• Southern Illinois Hiking & Outdoor Recreation is one of my groups. It has over 46,000 members and around 25 posts a day with hundreds of replies. We feature discussions about hiking and other outdoor activities in Southern Illinois.
• Tunnel Hill State Trail is another group I run. It has around 3,000 members, about 8 new posts a day, and even more replies. It’s a smaller group, but it’s very active each day. We discuss the 45+ mile rail trail in Illinois, known as Tunnel Hill State Trail.
• US National Park Travel is a very active outdoor Facebook group with over 220,000 members and more than 10 posts a day. This group features discussions about National Parks and Monuments across the United States.
• The Weekend Adventurer is a large Facebook group with over 140,000 members and more than 10 posts a day. It focuses on hiking and other outdoor activities.
• Hiking with Dogs is a more narrowed-down niche example of an outdoor Facebook group. There are 200,000+ members with over 10 posts a day. This group focuses on hiking, where you can bring along your dogs.

Be sure to look around for other larger outdoor Facebook groups within your specific area of expertise so that you can see what others are doing. You should also join them and use them for inspiration.

Final Thoughts on an Outdoor Facebook Group

Building a large and active outdoor Facebook group isn’t difficult. You just have to be passionate about it and spend some time engaging with those interested enough to become members. Use the advice above to ensure the success of your group.

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About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.