Ascend Life Coach Hub | Privacy and Monetization: Comparing Facebook and Meetup for Group Coaching
Deciding to facilitate online group coaching sessions can be a great way to coach multiple clients at one time. To facilitate online group coaching you need an easy platform for both you and your clients to hook into with as little fuss as possible.
There’s a plethora of online platforms that can be explored but be careful to not get distracted by too many bright shiny things and/or making your life coach business too complicated for you and for your clients. Other platforms might include Google Meet, Skype, Zoom, Teams, Slack, whatsapp. Each comes with different considerations including privacy of personal information or detail that members might not want to share with other people in a group, eg phone numbers on whatsapp or when they’re online checking gmail. Also, be careful making things too technical for clients where they need to download apps or use platforms they may not be familiar with.
It would be fair to say that most people are on Facebook and it’s relatively user-friendly. Facebook is probably the best-known social media platform across the ages, and it’s free. Facebook coaching is when you make use of the platform to facilitate coaching via dedicated private groups where people can posts, pictures, status updates etc. Members can post questions, or just check the page for daily motivation. You could use Facebook as your main information/advertising page and leverage that page to set up closed private groups for private coaching. Basically, it works by creating a closed private Facebook group for your students and then facilitating communication with them through Facebook almost exclusively. This can be a great way to maximize your income, because you can serve many people at once rather than 1:1 .
Of course, just like with any other method of coaching, there are advantages and disadvantages that come with it. Here is what you’ll need to weigh if you are thinking about implementing this style of coaching into your practice.
Advantages to Facebook Group Coaching
Facebook is free other than your internet use. You can log into Facebook anytime you want and be able to update your status or read what your clients have posted. This means that you can work around your job and anything else you have going on that day, particularly if you have a smartphone or a tablet that you can use to access Facebook.
- You can have pretty much as many clients as you want, which means that you can get away with charging almost nothing for your mentoring. Facebook have trialed subscription access for pages over a certain number of followers, although starting off you won’t be ‘there’ yet. With a small, closed group you could effectively manage it by giving access to those who have paid manually. Even if you don’t have a large number of followers, you’ll have the opportunity to make a great deal more with Facebook group mentoring than with many other methods.
- Another advantage is that you are able to take advantage of all of the tools that Facebook makes available. For example, you can post pictures, video content, audio files, text or links to other websites. This can be beneficial when you are trying to communicate something specific to your group. This is also true for the built-in messaging system and live chat function.
- You also have an advantage when it comes to promoting your group. It is very easy to take advantage of Facebook advertising when you have a group already there. People can easily come to your page and see what your group is all about before deciding to join. Also, it helps with any trial memberships you are offering.
- The benefit of setting up a Facebook group rather than just a fan page, is that it is invite only, meaning that you can invite people to the group on a trial basis, and remove them if necessary, plus you can reserve full access to those people who have paid for your group mentoring for that month.
Disadvantages to Facebook Group Coaching Facilitation
As with any online group coaching approach, one of the disadvantages that it is not very personal whatever platform you use, not just Facebook. You are not able to spend time one-on-one with your clients, unless you engage them in a private chat session, so you probably won’t get to know them very well. That means that whatever advice you dispense is probably going to be pretty general and some of your clients may need specific advice.
Privacy may be another concern for group members. If someone’s privacy settings aren’t set properly people may unwittingly give away private information they had no intention of sharing, or feel obliged to connect as ‘friends’ with other group members and being uncomfortable about not wanting to connect.
Finally, you’ll have the disadvantage of people’s perception of being unwilling to pay live coaching or group coaching rates just to be part of a Facebook support group. You will also have to deal with payments from people separately.
Meetup Group Coaching Facilitation
Meetup is a paid subscription designed to facilitate friendships and connections for people with common interests. Meetup is a well-known connection platform used to help people connect in groups globally, and the sole purpose of the platform is to make starting, running, and organising groups and events easy. The platform provides organizers (you) with the tools you need and access to millions of people actively looking for events. Subscriptions vary from month to month to 6-monthly so a coach can set up fresh groups as needed.
The advantage of Meetup is privacy of group members and that it’s an affordable subscription overhead you don’t have to sign up too long for. Meetup has been rolling out lots of improvements since the Covid-19 Pandemic when the world was pushed to phones and devices that have meant a more accepted shift from in-person groups to online via computer or app.
Monetizing your Life Coaching Group Coaching via Meetup
But one of the best features of Meetup for group coaching facilitation is the ability to easily monetize your business with the ability to collect online payments from members as they sign up for events!
The Meetup Connections feature is a contact list of people members would like to stay in touch with There are some special aspects of Meetup Connections that make it different from a friend request on Facebook or Instagram, for example.
In particular people’s privacy is preserved with a Connections feature activated after an event. Within 24 hours of whatever activity members participate in, they’ll will be given the opportunity to “connect” with people who also attended the same event. Here are a few important characteristics that make these Connections unique:
- Connections are mutual — A connection is made when two people who attended the same event select each other from the Connections prompt. What this means is that someone can’t be on someone else’s Connections list unless they also want them to be on theirs.
- Connections aren’t public — There are no public “following” or “connection” “likes” etc visible on anyone’s Meetup profile. As Meetup explain, connections aren’t about ‘prestige’, they are about making friends and attending events with people with the same interests. Only users can see (and contact) with people on a Connections list.
Access your members list through the Connections tab on the Meetup app, or the Connections page on the Meetup website. You can remove a connection from your list at any time.
Conclusion
Both Facebook and Meetup have different considerations when choosing an online group coaching facilitation platform. While Facebook is free, our pick is Meetup for group coaching facilitation because of privacy considerations and monetizing your business with the ability to collect online payments from members as they sign up. We think that the two platforms can be used in tandem: a Facebook page for your business but moving clients to Meetup platform to facilitate the actual group coaching sessions ad collect payments from them in the process.
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