Bringing a dead Facebook group back to life is awfully hard. I must say, the struggle is real!
Yet some daring community owners choose to walk down this path and manage to turn tables in their favour.
Mohit Mahajan is certainly one of them. His passion, dedication, and zeal to make a difference in the lives of people not only helped him revive an online food community (he now owns) but also turn it into a thriving business.
It was in April 2019 that Mohit acquired Plates2Miles. Right from the start, his intent was clear: to create a sense of harmony among food enthusiasts coming from different walks of life and enhance their overall experience.
Working as a Product Marketer with a startup alongside managing his community, Mohit is really proud of having been able to do it. Hear it directly from him, how!
From that moment on, this young man has been all the more motivated and inspired to do what he’s passionate about.
Scroll down to know:
- How he provides the best experience to his members
- How he provides value to brands/restaurants
- How he earns through his group
- His engagement and growth strategies
- The ways he tackles SPAM
- The skills he has learnt in this journey
But first, let’s talk about what nudged him to walk down the path of becoming a community entrepreneur.
Not just a Community Entrepreneur but also a Corporate Worker
Mohit has been a part of the corporate world for 7 years now. He started his career in 2013 as a Market Research Analyst and went on to work as a Content Strategist for Network 18 Media. Currently, he is working in a Delhi-based startup.
The one thing that has remained constant all this while has been his love for food.
From the mouth-watering street food of Delhi to sumptuous cuisines laid out in fancy restaurants, he likes to savour them all.
It is this inclination towards food that he and his friends decided to bring all foodies together at a common platform. The objective was to share their food knowledge and experiences and learn about others.
That’s when they got in touch with a common friend who was the owner of a (almost dead) food community on Facebook and acquired it.
Capitalising on the perks of social media seemed enticing hence, they created a Facebook page too along with the group.
Since then, Plates2Miles has garnered a lot of likes and attention. So much so that the engagement rate is as high as 166% and activity rate 27!
And, it is this engagement that attracted over 9K members in a span of just one year!
Members’ food stories are what makes his community special
People who are die-hard lovers of food, like to travel and experience the different cuisines and culture are a part of this 34K member family.
They talk about anything and everything related to food, its nitty-gritties, and things that make a cuisine special. Typically, the members tell their stories through their food.
Here’s an example of it. (This post has an activity score (total reactions and comments) of 98. And, since the average activity score of Mohit’s group is 27, it means this post has almost 4x higher engagement than average!😊 )
Not just that, they constantly share their knowledge with each other about a particular region, what makes their people special, and why they are passionate about their food.
Have a look below. (The activity score of this post is 45, which means it has 2x higher than average engagement!)
“Food is a part of culture. So, we talk about culture as well. Basically, our community is an amalgamation of all such conversations and that’s what makes it special,” says Mohit.
How does Mohit provide the best experience to members when collaborating with brands & restaurants?
Mohit has partnered with a lot of brands like Delmonte, Daryaganj Hospitality, Glenberg Teas, China Garden Restaurants, and Tops to name a few.
And, he makes sure to provide members a memorable experience.
In a recent Mother’s Day campaign for Tops, members were supposed to prepare a dessert from just 3 ingredients. They happily took part in it and shared their stories.
(The activity score of this post is an awesome 181 which means it has 7x higher engagement than average! WOW🤩)
“We always strive to bring out the best in our members and this campaign helped us even more,” smiles Mohit.
On the other hand, Mohit also collaborates with a lot of restaurants and provides members the finest experience with tasting tables, a trend that is picking up rage.
As the name suggests, restaurants have a dedicated table for gastronomers who review their food, drinks, hospitality, ambience among others.
Since the concept of tasting tables is heavily focussed on the art of food and mixology, Mohit makes sure that he selects the right people for it.
He and the other admins constantly keep a tab on what the members are posting. The aim is to check their knowledge besides making sure that genuine admirers of fine dining get to experience the cuisine, effort of the mixologist, bartender, and the overall hospitality.
At the same time, they also ask the restaurant owners to offer the most memorable experience to their members. Restaurants too stay on top of their game because they understand that a negative review from members can make or break their reputation.
Have a look at the detailed review by a happy member of Plates2Miles after having been a part of the tasting table at Pikkle restaurant in Delhi.
(Talking about the activity score on this post, it’s a good 142. It means this post attracted 5x higher than average engagement!)
This way the brands work hard to deliver the finest experience to the members, the members get to experience the best, and Mohit is also able to earn through it.
So, it’s a win-win for everyone.
Take a sneak peak into the amazing engagement metrics of Plates2Miles
Mohit tracks these engagement metrics via Convosight to measure the health of his community.
- Engagement Rate: The average actions (posts + comments + reactions) per member per month in his group is 166% or 1.66 actions per member per month.
- Activity Rate: The average number of comments and reactions per post per month in his Facebook group is 27
- Daily Active Users/Monthly Active Users: The percentage of monthly active members that are active daily in his Facebook group is 33%
FYI: The average DAU/MAU of Facebook groups is 53%. So, if your community’s DAU/MAU is along these lines, it’s good news!
If you wish to know more about any of these metrics, feel free to check out our article on “Top health metrics for your Facebook group”.
This strategy is 100% effective in managing SPAM, tells Mohit
‘I really like Facebook’s Keyword Alerts feature. Quite recently, people were posting YouTube links in my community which is not allowed. With Keyword Alerts, I got notified of it that very moment and could remove them right away,” says Mohit.
Alongside Keyword Alerts, Mohit uses Convosight’s Urgent Alerts feature. He marks abusive words and medicinal recommendations as spam for his group and gets notified whenever any member uses them. Furthermore, the platform allows him to take action from the same dashboard.
The most admirable thing is that he manages everything in his community himself along with 4 other admins who are his friends. They don’t have a moderator.
Mohit reveals the secret behind high engagement and growth in his community
Live contests are the best engagement driver of his community.
“During lockdown, we realised that members were feeling low. To boost their morale, we encouraged them to take part in a live cooking contest as cooking is therapeutic,” he recalls.
People didn’t hesitate. In fact, they came forward and told how they enjoyed doing it. Sharing one post from the lockdown days here. Its activity score is 141 which means this post has nearly 6x higher engagement than average! (That’s just amazing!)
Apart from this, there are image posts that members engage with. They tend to ask a simple question (like the one shown below) which creates a feel-good atmosphere.
The activity score of this post is 127 which means that it received almost 5x higher engagement than average! Wow!
“It is this engagement that helps increase the members organically”, he says.
Some of the other ways that have proved helpful in growing his group are:
- Asking members to add only those acquaintances who are passionate about food, associate with food, or travel for food.
- Sharing photos and videos on his Facebook page and encouraging food enthusiasts to be a part of his community
What skill did Mohit acquire while building his community?
Content creation.
He understands the psyche of members and is able to create some amazing content that the members relate with.
His posts are a combination of images and text as people highly engage with them.
And, he was able to figure this out through Convosight’s Post Trends feature.
“I design my image posts via Canva and edit videos on Filmora Go. Both of these tools are really amazing and I have been using them for so many years now,” tells Mohit.
Here’s an image post he created on the heels of International Women’s Day. (The activity score on this post is 59, which means this post got 1.5x higher engagement than average!)
And, here’s the link to the video Mohit edited via Filmora Go.
Apart from this skill, Mohit has been able to grow as a person too while managing his community. He believes he has become more humble than ever.
Mohit’s message for every community admin reading this…
Wow! That’s some nice motivation!
That said, we have our Facebook group, Growth and Monetisation for Facebook Group Admins where Mohit and hundreds of other community admins are constantly discussing about the ways to build their groups and motivating each other in the journey. If you wish to gain such insights too, feel free to be a part! 🙂
Creating value in the lives of others with my content, little by little.✨
Working at Convosight, I do more than just wrangle commas. I’m passionate about innovating new ways to create super valuable and actionable content about Communities and Community Marketing at large, and sharing it with the right audience.
I also happen to manage a global community of power admins on Facebook, and that’s where most of my learnings come from.
Do check out my latest blogs and feel free to share them! 💛