We all know how big Facebook is and how crazy it has been growing over the years. Over 2.7 billion people use Facebook on a consistent basis to connect with their friends and families and consume content of their favorite content creators.
And if I talk about the income potential and how much money Facebook itself makes as a company, the numbers are freaking crazy.
Just have a look at the numbers year after year. The company is generating tens of billions of dollars every year and the growth will only see an upward trend over time.
Year | Facebook’s Revenue |
---|---|
2016 | 27.638 billion dollars |
2017 | 40.653 billion dollars |
2018 | 55.838 billion dollars |
2019 | 70.697 billion dollars |
2020 | 85.965 billion dollars |
As you can see, that’s a hell of a lot of money. Have you ever thought if you could get a tiny pie of that money?
Well, in this guide, I’m going to show you a way of doing that. Here, I’m going to share with you how you can buy or sell Facebook groups (something that isn’t really talked about a lot), and earn a substantial income online doing that over and over again.
Before we proceed further, let’s first understand the reasons why buying or selling Facebook groups is not talked about very often, why some people are scared to sell their groups’ administrative rights to someone else, and everything else that is important for you.
So, without stretching the introduction any further, let’s learn how to buy and sell Facebook groups and get into the crucial details.
Before we get into the process, I’ll answer the most common and important questions you need to pay attention to.
- Can You Sell Facebook Groups?
- Why Do People Sell Facebook Groups?
- Is Selling Facebook Groups Worth It?
- Should You Buy Or Sell A Facebook Group?
- Risks Involved In Buying Or Selling Groups
- How To Buy Facebook Groups
- Tips To Save Yourself From Trouble
- How To Sell Facebook Groups
- Tips To Sell Groups Effectively
- Pros Of Buying Or Selling Groups
- Cons Of Buying Or Selling Groups
- Why Doesn't Facebook Allow To Buy Or Sell Groups?
- My Thoughts On Buying Or Selling Groups
- In Conclusion
- [FAQs] Frequently Asked Questions
Can You Sell Facebook Groups?
According to Facebook’s updated terms and conditions, selling administrative rights of a community or a group is not allowed and if Facebook finds someone violating their terms, it can lead to permanent account suspension.
So, legally, you are not allowed to sell a Facebook group. On the other side of the table, if you want to…there’s no one who can stop. you.
There are hundreds and hundreds of people who sell their Facebook groups without letting Facebook take notice of it at all. If you are someone who just wants to get rid of your group, you absolutely can sell but there’s a need to be extremely cautious with the activity.
Hence, the answer is yes and no. You can’t and at the same time, can sell Facebook group(s).
Why Do People Sell Facebook Groups?
One of the biggest reasons why people sell their Facebook groups is because more businesses or marketers than ever before are offering huge amounts of money to administrators as groups have a huge potential in terms of generating consistent and sustainable income.
Another reason why someone would sell their Facebook group is that either they are looking for an urgent, as well as quick financial push, or they want to focus on other projects they might be working on.
People also sell their Facebook groups when they don’t find effective ways of monetizing them well enough.
Is Selling Facebook Groups Worth It?
If you read one of my guides about making money with Facebook groups, you probably know how Facebook groups can generate thousands and thousands of dollars in revenue on a consistent basis if you follow the right techniques and strategies.
If you learn how to monetize the group well, there’s no need of selling it because you can easily generate a good amount of money every month.
Hence, after being in the field of online marketing for years, I personally believe an individual should reverse-engineer his/her thought process before making the decision of selling a group (but that’s just my opinion).
But there can be some cases where it can be absolutely worth selling a Facebook group.
Should You Buy Or Sell A Facebook Group?
Well, the answer to this question is definitely – it depends. But I’m not here to provide you with a generic answer like this. If you consider the terms as if you can learn the right ways of monetization, you should not sell a group at all.
On the other hand, if you don’t want to take the stress of managing the group, optimize your sales processes, moderate commercial posts, or if someone’s making a really good offer to purchase the group, you should or can sell the same.
Also, Facebook is used differently by different people. Some use it just a social network website or application to connect with their loved ones. Some on the opposite use it to generate income and grow their businesses.
If you are one of those people who use Facebook for marketing reasons such as building a brand, engaging people, selling stuff, getting more leads, running PPC advertisements, and provide social media marketing services, you can actually get into a lot of trouble if Facebook finds out you have bought a group and therefore, you shouldn’t do it.
But hey, even if you still want to buy a group because it can lead to better business, there’s a clever way of doing that which I’m going to share with you real quick. And yes, it is going to be a step-by-step method so no worries.
Risks Involved In Buying Or Selling Groups
As you already know that Facebook has banned selling groups way before but other than legal risks, there can be various other risks involved in buying or selling groups.
Have a look at all legal and non-legal risks of buying or selling Facebook groups down below:
- One of the obvious risks is that if Facebook somehow gets to know you have bought or sold a group, both the buyer’s and seller’s account can get terminated
- Another risk involved in buying a group is that the audience or members can lose trust get become inactive over time. That’s not a generic sentence I’m writing but I have seen this with one of my health-related Facebook group
- Individuals can also get cheated in terms of payment if a proper platform isn’t used just to save a little bit of commission or fee
- A buyer might not get the admin access at all and can lose the money if the other person is a crook
- A buyer can get to see that the group was made deliberately active with fake accounts and it can come across as a totally inactive or mediocre group that doesn’t have enough potential to turn into an asset
- Facebook can trace your IP address, devices, and other details and never let you create a new stable account ever again
Well, just because I listed a lot of risks involved in buying or selling groups, that doesn’t mean it’s the worst thing to do (at least not according to me and some other marketing professional I know).
Risks are everywhere. Whether it is a brick and mortar business, a blogging business, an agency business, a video marketing business, an affiliate marketing business, or any other kind of business in general.
You can’t be scared of risks for sure. Even the company Facebook itself was built because of risk and Mark Zuckerberg is always known for the risks he took in the process of building Facebook. If you don’t know how exactly he did that, you can check out his biographic film called The Social Network, and get some confidence flowing in (funny, right?).
Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that there are risks involved but there are a lot of pros as well.
How To Buy Facebook Groups
The process of buying or purchasing groups is not as complicated as it seems to be honest. You just have to follow the important steps properly and be cautious before you take every step.
To be able to buy FB groups without any problems or issues, you are going to want to the following:
- Find out your motive/Decide why you want to buy group(s)
- Browse through various groups in the space
- Check the groups’ performances
- Find out the admins and their contact information
- Message and send proposals to the admins
- Negotiate and agree on the pricing
- Double-check if you have left any proof behind
1. Find Out Your Motive To Buy Group(s)
The first thing you should do is to decide why do you want to buy a certain group. What is making you buy the group? How will the purchase benefit you? What will you do with the property? Will you make money with it? Will you build a brand? Are you buying the group to build credibility and social proof?
It is important to have a motive. If you just watched a random video on YouTube about buying Facebook groups and you decided to buy one, that’s not a good decision.
Therefore, you need to find out the motive and long-term vision if you are purchasing a group and paying a huge amount of money for the same.
2. Browse Through Various Groups In Your Space
It is quite clear that if you are purchasing a group, you must have picked a niche or a category. For example, a group in the health niche, a marketing group, a group about music, etc.
And once you know why exactly you are going to buy the group for, you will have to look and browse through various different big and small groups.
To take this step, all you have to do is head over to Facebook and search a certain keyword such as ‘business’ or ‘dance’ and then go to the ‘Groups’ section to see a bunch of groups relevant to the keyword.
You can create a list of potential groups after you have checked and ran through various small and big ones.
3. Check Groups’ Performances
After you have created a list of some good groups, you will have to analyze the groups’ various aspects such as:
- How many people are posting content on a consistent basis
- How many people are engaging with the posts
- What kind of content people are posting
- How many members seem to have genuine profiles
- Do the group/groups have growth potential
- Whether or not the groups are growing organically
These are some important factors an individual should analyze before proceeding. It helps in the long run.
4. Find Out The Admins & Their Contact Info
Once you have come down to a quality list of the best groups, you are going to want to find out the admins of the groups and find out their contact information by browsing their Facebook profiles or other social media profiles.
Majority of the people have a lot of data on Facebook that can be used to find their primary contact info while in some cases, you will need to dig a bit deeper to find out the same.
Though in the majority of the cases, you will easily find the contact info right then and there.
5. Message Admins & Send Your Proposals
After you have the contact info/leads, you will have to message them (not on Facebook) and ask them if they are interested in selling the groups.
Once again, you should even bother to make the mistake of sending a message to buy a group using Facebook. Try using other social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and others. You can also use email or phone numbers.
If you are thinking about what will you ask the group admins…here’s a template you can use:
Hey [Name]!
Hope you are doing good. I was browsing through your Facebook group recently and wondering if you are interested in selling the group?
Either way, enjoy your day!
[Your Name]
You can send this simple message and wait for the leads to respond. If they are not interested in selling, well and good.
If they are, you can send your proposal and ask them to get on a phone call or zoom call (whatever you want).
Hey [Name]!
Thanks for responding. I would love to discuss more and share the details with you in a better way. Would you mind getting on a phone call or maybe a zoom call if possible?
Do let me know if you are down.
[Your Name]
Once you get the conversation rolling, you can take it further and talk to the leads to know what they think and how you will make everything up.
6. Negotiate & Agree On A Certain Price
After the leads agree to discuss more, you will have to do the negotiation and agree on certain pricing. Try to negotiate as much as possible but don’t try to underpay the group owner at the same time.
After agreeing on the pricing, you will have to decide a platform where the payment will be sent and received. There are a lot of trusted platforms you can use such as PayPal, Payoneer, Stripe, and others.
But the best platform I would recommend for sending and receiving payment safely is Escrow.com. Escrow.com operates under a funding system where the company will not release the payment unless the buyer is satisfied. The seller is in the safe zone as well when Escrow is used.
The only disadvantage of using Esrow.com is that they will charge a fee for doing that. I think that the fee is worth it as you will have your money safe.
7. Double Check If You Have Left A Proof
After you have completed everything, you should check if there’s something you have done that can lead to your Facebook account termination.
As long as you have done everything outside of Facebook, you are absolutely safe. And following the steps I have mentioned above, there’s no chance you can get into any sort of serious trouble.
Tips To Save Yourself From Trouble
Some great tips I have for you while buying an FB group are as follows:
- If you are sending messages using Facebook, try to be as normal as possible and bring people outside the platform.
You can send a message like this if you do that using Facebook:
Hey!
My name is [Name] and I want to discuss something important with you regarding [Group Name]. Can I have your best email address, please?
As you can see, this message doesn’t give a hit to Facebook that you are trying to purchase a group. Sure, your conversations are end-to-end encrypted but Facebook can still do anything with your data on the backend. Who knows, right?
2. The second tip I have for you is that add the admin as your friend before you buy the group because Facebook might take notice of that and spot that you have violated their terms.
3. The third tip is that when Facebook will ask you clarification for changing the group admin, you can say something like – “This is my manager who will manage the group as I was finding it hard to do it” or something along the lines to convince Facebook that it is not a violation of their terms and conditions.
How To Sell Facebook Groups
Selling a Facebook group technically the same process as buying but there’s still a little bit of difference included.
Let’s have a look at the steps involved while selling a Facebook group properly:
- Look for potential buyers
- Find Contact Information of the people
- Send messages & proposals
- Negotiate & agree on the pricing
- Check if there’s a clue left
1. Search For Potential Buyers
The first thing you will have to do is to look and search for potential buyers. What is meant by this is you will have to find people who would be interested in buying the group from you.
Some of the best potential buyers that can show interest in buying the group you want to sell are bloggers, affiliate marketers, online entrepreneurs, course creators, small business owners in the space, content creators, YouTubers, and social media influencers.
There can be other interested people as well but these are the ones who will be highly engrossed in the deal. You can find them on Facebook itself as well as other marketing channels.
2. Find Contact Info Of The People
Once you have chosen certain people, you will have to find out their contact information such as their email addresses or phone numbers. The best option would be to find email addresses.
You can find their emails using various tools such as Hunter.io and Snov.io in just a matter of a few clicks here and there.
By the way, if you are interested in finding some great Hunter.io alternatives to find emails, check out this post.
3. Message Leads & Send Your Proposals
Now that you have collected the emails or other contact information of the potential buyers, you can send them a message like this:
Hey [Name]!
Hope you are having a great day. I run a Facebook group with X number of active members in the Y niche. Would you be interested in buying it to add a great scalable income source?
I’m selling it because I want to focus on other projects. If you want to discuss more, we can get on a voice call or maybe a zoom call.
Either way, enjoy your day!
[Your Name]
If they show interest and respond to you, you can get on a call and get into further details.
4. Negotiate & Agree On The Pricing
Once you have finalized whether or not they are getting on the call, you will have to begin the negotiation process and agree on pricing that satisfies both the seller and the buyer.
The transaction could be done using platforms such as Escrow.com, PayPal, Payoneer, Stripe, freelance platforms such as Fiverr and Freelancer, and get everything done smoothly.
5. Double Check If you Left A Clue
Next, you are going to want to check if there’s something you have left that has a clue that can tell Facebook that the admin rights of a group are sold or not.
Make sure to check each and every activity of yours and ask the buyers to do the same to end the task without any issues.
Tips To Sell Groups Effectively
Although all the important steps regarding buying or selling groups have been covered, there are some tips that will make your selling process much better.
- Try hiring a freelancer to search for potential buyers because the process is extremely time-consuming
- Don’t get caught in the negotiation and agree to get underpaid
- Educate the buyer about Facebook’s guidelines
- Try creating scarcity for the buyer to make the purchase fast
Pros Of Buying Or Selling Groups
- Groups can be sold for huge sums of money
- Groups can generate consistent revenue
- People can enhance credibility with groups
- Facebook will only grow and hence, groups’ importance will only rise
- Groups can be used for various marketing activities
Cons Of Buying Or Selling Groups
- Facebook can ban your account if they trace everything
- Sellers and buyers can get cheated
- The audience might start having trust issues with the new admin
Why Doesn’t Facebook Allow To Buy Or Sell Groups?
If we practically see, you can’t and shouldn’t really sell a community group with people who trust you and each other.
Back in 2018, there was a serious issue raised by BBC about buying and selling Facebook groups, and after that, Facebook has become strict when it comes to the practice of buying or selling admin rights of pages and groups to a third-party individual/organization.
My Thoughts On Buying Or Selling Groups
I’m a guy who purely believes in business. I think that if someone has worked so hard to build a community of like-minded people who love sharing ideas and resources with each other…and he has to manage it.
He should have the right to assign someone else to manage the group and can charge a one-time fee for giving access to the audience. This is because he isn’t really selling people’s data or any serious personal information.
Hence, I believe that the practice of buying and selling groups should be allowed but it should have its own standards and regulations.
In Conclusion
Now that you have gotten to know the process of buying and selling Facebook groups the right way, I recommend you follow everything step-by-step and easily get everything done.
Groups have always been profitable and as Facebook is growing extremely well, having a group with a loyal audience can be a lifetime asset for individuals, entrepreneurs, and marketing executives.
I hope you found this guide helpful. If you have got any questions or recommendations to share, feel free to jump into the comments section down below and let the community know what you think.
[FAQs] Frequently Asked Questions
As long as you are getting the right price, it can be a good idea to sell groups.
The answer is, no! You have to be extremely careful before you buy or sell groups. Facebook can ban your account if you do it openly.
Depending upon the size, a group can be sold for anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.