Zero Engagement In Your Facebook Group? Here's Why...

You set up a Facebook group, invited people to join, and started posting consistently… but no one is engaging. Sound familiar?

Many coaches assume that creating a group equals building a community—but without real engagement, it’s just another dead space online.

 In this episode, Paul Gowder, founder of a 130,000+ member community, reveals why most Facebook groups fail and what it really takes to build an engaged, thriving community that grows itself.

By the End of This Episode, You'll Know:

• Spark real conversations.
• Create loyal fans.
• How to stop wasting time on posts no one sees.

About Paul Gowder:

Paul Gowder is the founder of PowWows.com, a thriving online community with over 130,000 members. With decades of experience in community building, he helps coaches and business owners grow engaged, sustainable communities that drive real impact—without relying on social media algorithms.

Want to build a community that actually works? Paul’s insights will show you how.

📍 Connect with Paul Gowder:
🔗 Website: paulgowder.com
🔗 Free Resource: paulgowder.com/emailtools

Next Episode Teaser:

Next time on Coach Smarter, we’re diving into how to master your time, talent, and treasures as a coach. My guest, Scott Maderer, shares the mindset shifts that help coaches take control of their time—without feeling guilty. So if you ever feel like you’re drowning in your to-do list, be sure to hit follow so you don’t miss it.

Chapters

• 1:24 How Paul built a 130,000-member online community
• 3:08 The mindset shift that leads to real engagement
• 6:20 The biggest mistake coaches make when trying to start a group
• 8:05 How to build connections before launching a community
• 10:31 Why your email list is your most valuable community tool
• 14:49 How to turn engagement into monetization (without spamming your group)
• 16:10 How Paul created a thriving book club community from scratch
• 19:07 Public vs. Private groups—which is best for your coaching business?
• 20:08 How to build a community without relying on Facebook

Transcript

Stephen Box: 0:00

Have you ever attempted to build a community group on something like Facebook or WhatsApp, only to end up hearing crickets and feeling like you're talking to yourself? Well, if so, I just want you to know you're not alone. In fact, this is something I personally struggled with for a very long time. And that's where today's guest Paul Gowder comes in. Paul has built a thriving online community of over 130, 000 members and helps others do the same. Today he's sharing the biggest mistake that coaches make when trying to grow a new group and the real key to turning followers into fans. By the end of today's episode, you'll walk away knowing exactly how to build an engaged community without constantly posting or trying to force engagement. Plus, Paul will reveal the one mindset shift that changes everything. Hey guys, If you're new around here, this is Coach Smarter, the podcast that helps health, fitness, and nutrition coaches sharpen their skills, stand out in a crowded market, and build a more efficient coaching business. I'm your host, Stephen Box, and today we're diving into how to build a real community that grows itself with Paul Gowder. When it comes to community building, Paul has built something truly unique, and I asked him how he got started. This is what he had to say.

Paul Gowder: 1:24

community has been at the really at the heart of everything I've done with my website, powells. com communities, what keeps us going.

Stephen Box: 1:33

So how did you go about deciding that community was the route? Because there's a ton of different ways you can grow a business, right? What was it about community building that made you say, this is the route that you should go?

Paul Gowder: 1:48

let's, I'll be fully transparent. I started the business or started the website in 1996, not as a business, just as something to do, It was, just a way to teach myself how to do web pages. It was community that kind of took it from just being a static web page to the next thing. And at the time it was because people were emailing me and asking, and I was at, when I would go to events, people were like, Hey, we want to talk about this. And so I. The users wanted it. So I figured out a way to build a forum. of course, it's back before Facebook and everything else. So we had a forum. And from there, that's where the community grew. And so really the first probably seven years of what we were doing, we were primarily focused on building the community, Figuring out ways to help people interact with each other, and just being a facilitator of helping discussions go. and then social media came, and of course that changed our whole way of doing it. But it was still, we just had to figure out the different platforms over time. Platforms have changed a lot. and it's just figuring out how to use the platforms, but it's always been that I, I have a community first mindset. So whether I'm writing a post on social media, whether I'm creating a new Facebook group or writing an email, I want to talk to people like they are part of the community. I treat them that way.

Stephen Box: 3:08

And outside of your own community, you do also help other people create communities as well.

Paul Gowder: 3:12

Yeah, I do a lot of one on one coaching. I'm working on some courses, but right now I do a lot of one on one coaching, and helping people build their social media, and email marketing, those kinds of things. Yeah. I'm speaking at PodFest and, and another conference here in the next month. And one of the things I'm really focusing on, and I think this is so important is, I think so many times on social media, people focus on growing their followers and they want the big metrics and they want the numbers. What I want is, first of all, I want email subscribers, but I want people to be fans. I want to see them reply to my emails. I want them to message me back. If that means I'll only have, 10 followers, but I've got, I'm getting 20 emails a day. That's the important metric, right? So I'm really focusing on helping people build fans and instead of just. Metrics of, vanity metrics of followers.

Stephen Box: 4:02

I'm going to sidetrack here for just a second. Because you said something that ties in perfectly with the conversation I was having with a friend this morning, where you talked about building that community first, right? Building those fans first. And one of the things that I was talking with my friend this morning was people don't realize how little trust is involved with anything online. If you're going to ask someone to hop on a call, and in my mind, as a coach, I'm going to say, if I'm offering you a free 30 minute call, I'm giving away 30 minutes of my time. There's nothing more valuable than 30 minutes of my time. And I feel like people should be jumping all over that. But I also recognize the fact that I'm not just giving away 30 minutes of my time. I'm asking for 30 minutes of theirs. Yes. And their 30 minutes is just as valuable as mine. So in their minds, it's unless I feel like I'm going to get more value out of your 30 minutes, then they give me theirs. that's what people have to understand. And I think the same thing when you're talking about emails and all this other stuff. If you don't have a community or fan first mindset where you're giving them that value, they're not going to want to give you anything.

Paul Gowder: 5:20

They have to have a reason to trust you. so many people are trying to be a brand and build a brand. Just be yourself. in my emails, even in my weekly broadcast, the first part of my email is, a little something from me. whether it's, telling. That last week I went down to Disney World and while my wife was at a conference, I got to go and visit our daughter, that's a quick little thing, but again, it just helps you relate to them and they'll read that. And, if they're a parent, maybe they'll catch on to a little something. And again, it's just a way for people to be, to relate to you and form that connection with you a little bit more.

Stephen Box: 5:56

So I want to talk a little bit about some of the mistakes that people are making when it comes to community. And the first one I want to touch on is one you actually brought up in our pre interview. Yeah. Which is that people tend to try to say, I'm going to go start a community and then build it up, as opposed to creating connections, and then once you have enough connections, starting a community.

Paul Gowder: 6:20

Yes. Yes. Community is not a Facebook group. I can't tell you how many people that, okay, so I build my website, I build my Facebook page, and then I have to have a Facebook group. Why? Why are you worried about those things? let's focus on, okay, you have your website, you have your Facebook page. Okay, let's figure out how do you actually make a connection with the person looking at your social media post, right? Are you asking questions? Are you looking at the comments and replying to them? Are are you engaging in a real way? Or are you just shouting at your audience, right? That's the first thing to worry about. I listened to a webinar the other day and I thought this was so important. it was Pat Flynn talking about how to build up your email list. He's like your first 10 subscribers. He's if you can't get your first 10 subscribers from the people you've already talked to through social media or whatever, then What are you doing? You should already have connections before you try to do these things. And that's how you do it, right? You're posting on social media or maybe you're not even you're not. You don't even post it on your page. Where are you going? Anyplace on social media? Maybe it's another person's Facebook group and adding value. They're not selling your services. But are you present in the community in which you want to be a part of? are you adding value anywhere? You've got to make those connections first before you try to build a Facebook group or, whatever it is, you've got to have some kind of connection first. That's why I think it's really important. And I tell everybody, let's start with your email list because that's a much easier way to have these one on one connections. And once you get somebody's email, you can talk to them, right? You can actually message them and say, what do you want? what are you looking for? And then you can actually. Build off of that.

Stephen Box: 8:05

Yeah, one thing I noticed in looking at your group was And I see this with a lot of Successful groups. It doesn't look like you post a lot, right? Like you personally you're not into trying to drive conversation It's just happening organically Yes I think that ties in with what you're just saying if you don't already have those relationships if you haven't Been emailing people and connecting with them or talking to them on social media or whatever But you haven't been connected with them. And all of a sudden you try to go open a group and you invite two or three people to the group, those three people aren't going to talk to each other. You're now trying to, do everything. And I see a lot of coaches struggle with this, right? Where they're I'm posting every day and no one even responds to my post and what am I supposed to do? And it sounds like what you're saying is look, go build these connections. And then maybe when you have a few hundred people that you can invite all at once, now you can actually have a community.

Paul Gowder: 9:01

Yeah, nobody wants to join a group where there's 10 people and there's silence, right? now when you have 100 people and you can get them in there, in the beginning, yes, you're going to have to be very active. You're going to maybe have to be the one that's posting the questions and doing that, but at some point, you just have to get out the way. once you've established and built these, this trust and on and have a good, safe space and your community feels welcome and open, get out the way, right? and that, I'm very fortunate in the group you're looking at. that's what we've been able to do. but again, it's, one of the biggest things that I've loved Facebook groups is, not to get too technical, but, and I'll tell a story here. It's been about a month. I had another Facebook group, which was a buy sell group on Facebook. We had about 80, 000 members and lots of people in there posting their regalia, their beadwork, all that stuff for sale. Facebook deleted it overnight. I've tried to appeal. There is, it is unappealable. The group is gone forever. 80, 000 members gone, but because I use some tools like, my favorite group leads to capture people's email when they joined that group. I still have, I don't have, of course, I don't have all 80, 000 because not everybody opted in, but I still have a way to communicate with them. So again, for me, it all comes back to the email list, right? yeah, again, and groups are not your community. It's a place where your community can hang out, but please don't think that a Facebook group is your community.

Stephen Box: 10:31

So you mentioned the group leads. So what is that? a again or what is

Paul Gowder: 10:35

it? It is a chrome plug in. and so if you're a group facebook group administrator, you can ask questions before people join. And so if you ask them for their email address and saying the question, hey, if you want to sign up for my email newsletter, put your email address in here. Group leads as you approve members, you We'll capture all of those and automatically put them into convert, get flow desk, whatever you use for your email provider. so I'm able to do that with multiple groups and then put them into automated sequences that connect, they get a welcome and here's what our group is about and those kinds of things. So I'm able to capture all of those people and put them into something.

Stephen Box: 11:11

And I will just say, if you are a coach who's still fairly new, you're trying to get stuff like this going and you maybe don't have a lot of money, you can't afford to pay for a service. You can also just use the Google spreadsheet. Yes. Ask these questions. It's going to be more work. You're going to have to type in the information yourself or copy and paste it over and then put it into your email. But.

Paul Gowder: 11:33

Yeah, that's what I did it first, right? When I was first building the group, it was literally me copying and pasting and then it got too big for there. So I hired a virtual assistant and they were spending an hour a day copying and pasting email addresses. and then I found an automated tool. um, When you're starting out though, you only have, a couple of, of new requests a day. it's easy. Yeah, just copy, but make sure you're asking that question, right? Go ahead and see if you can capture that email at the beginning.

Stephen Box: 12:00

I also noticed on yours that you have, this AI, custom AI for your group. Is that something that Facebook is offering now or?

Paul Gowder: 12:08

Yeah, and I've been playing with it. I don't know how it all works yet. But yeah, Facebook is offering some moderation tools and some like an AI chat bot and some stuff like that. I really need to dig into it more. I'm not sure all of them. I don't know if I like all of them yet. But yeah, it's something that I'm experimenting with. So check back with me. I'll let you know if I recommend it or not.

Stephen Box: 12:31

Okay, I just had to ask. And it's just you're looking at it just now. So what other problems or mistakes do you see a lot of people make when they're trying to build a community?

Paul Gowder: 12:46

Oh, again, I think it's. When you're building a Facebook page, and like you said, you don't see me posting a lot. I think a lot of people want to build a Facebook page because they feel like that, or a Facebook group, I'm sorry. They want to build a community because they feel like that's going to be a lead generator for whatever their monetization model is. And maybe it can be, but that shouldn't be your sole purpose, right? if your group is nothing but a place for you to push content, to make sales pitches, it's not going to work. It's not going to be a true community. It's just going to be another, just a subset of whatever your page is, right? It's just another place for you to throw things out at people. I, Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a jab, punch. And I think. If you want to use your group that way, you have to continue to deliver value, get out of the way and let the community work. And then every once in a while, if you want to, post a link to something you have for sale or an offer or whatever, then it's valuable because people know, and trust you at that point. But that's a big mistake I see people make is that they think the group is just going to be this, I'm going to form a group and all of a sudden I'm going to have a thousand people that are buying my products because I'm going to. Posting there five times a week. Here's my, here's my sales pitch. And that's not what a community is about.

Stephen Box: 14:03

Yes. It's funny that you mentioned that because I think, I don't remember where I heard this from, but I know I heard this somewhere. And I think what it comes down to is if you were trying to post. Things that you want to sell to people and you haven't really built that community, you haven't built that trust. You're more or less guessing about what you think people want and they may or may not want it. But on the other hand, if you let that community grow and you get people talking, they're actually gonna tell you the things they're looking for. Yes. And now you can go create that product and you can come back and say, hey, I noticed a lot of people in the group lately have been asking about this. So we went out and created this product for it.

Paul Gowder: 14:49

Yes, and I'll give you a great example. over the last year or so, I've been fortunate to interview a few book authors and I'm working with some of the book publishers and, when a new book comes out, they give me access to their authors and we were able to promote it and whatever. That content has done really well, even when I post it in the group or posting the page, and there's been some discussion around some books. And so I. talk to some of the folks in the community and said, is anybody interested in a book club? And so we, it's been about three months. We created a Facebook group that is the Native American book club sponsored by powwows. com. And we have over 1000 people in the Facebook group. I have, six or 800, something like that. Subscribe to a special email list for the book club. And now we're, again, we're working with publishers to get authors and more content into those groups. But that was, it was a subset of my existing community that was interested in this topic and I was able to then, I'm just serving them, right? They wanted another way to interact. It wanted a place to discuss books and authors and that kind of stuff. And here you go, I'll provide it. And, Then, what's the monetization plan? with the email newsletter that I'm able to write to them and maybe I can offer them a book for sale or when I interview an author, their book will be available for sale, those kind of things. but I saw that the community was really discussing it and liked that kind of content. So I was able to extend that to them. I'm curious

Stephen Box: 16:10

with your book club is especially. Consider how many members you've gotten into the group already. Is that something where you're hosting like a live call to discuss the book or is it just, everybody reads on their own and then you talk about it within the group.

Paul Gowder: 16:25

so we're still developing how we're going to do it. The first month, that we had a book discussion, we just posted it in a, in a thread and kind of, I here's the book we're gonna read this month and here are some opening discussions. And then I just let people go from there. as it develops, we may do some zoom calls, some things like that, especially if we can get some authors lined up to, jump on some zooms. That's some things we may do right now. We're just doing it all in the group, just in the threads in the post and letting people discuss the books there.

Stephen Box: 16:51

Okay. And that's something I assume it just going pretty well for you. Then you're having good luck with that.

Paul Gowder: 16:56

Yeah, so far the people really like it. it's been growing really well. So yeah, we'll keep doing it and hopefully we can, develop these relationships better and really provide some great content in that group.

Stephen Box: 17:08

That's interesting because I actually have a book club that we're relaunching in January. And. I've been debating on the time to do calls, and it's you know what, maybe just don't do calls at all, use that as a way as an excuse to have the community, for people to be able to get in there and talk about it. Are there any other big mistakes that you see people making that you would tell them to be cautious about?

Paul Gowder: 17:39

I think that, you need to be careful, like really think about what the purpose of your community, especially if you're going to create a Facebook group right before you create a group, make sure you know what you want that group to be, niche it down as much as possible. Because with Facebook and everything else, especially with public groups, it's going to get promoted automatically by Facebook. And you really want to know who your members are. I moderate heavily, and in new members, right? We don't let everybody into these groups. that's something you want to figure out first, really Think about what the, what's your tone and what's your environment going to be like in the group and then, create the space that way and then enforce it, right? don't wait too long to moderate. Don't be lax on it. you really got to run these things tight or they will get out of hand. And I think that's a big mistake is just letting things run wild in some of these groups, then again they're not going to know and trust you. you make sure you set some expectations ahead of time, a couple

Stephen Box: 18:44

of quick questions for you here in terms of some of the technical things. I know. One is that your group is actually set to public. Yes. And I know for a lot of people, especially coaches, you know They're gonna be maybe discussing some of their specific stuff that they want for paying clients or whatever Do you have a preference between public and private groups?

Paul Gowder: 19:06

So we have both and obviously you can't see the private groups, but we it depends on the topic, right? I think it so if you're a company like powwows. com and I think you want to have A more broad general group that's public because Facebook is going to promote It's going to get shared and all of that then as you niche that down further So we have one we have a private group About people who are interested in doing genealogy And so we have some resources for that and then we have a place for them to go and discuss it Obviously that's very personal information that they may be sharing that so that's a private group. The book club is while we invite people and I'll share the link and everything, but that's private because we want people to, that to be a little bit more intimate discussion, right? so we do that private. So it depends on the topic, but I think if you, again, think about how you want to run your business, maybe you have one big, Overall group that's public and that's the one where people can share the content and let Facebook promote it and then niche it down and have private from there.

Stephen Box: 20:08

Okay. And then my other question was specifically about Facebook. I know there's a growing number of people out there that do not want to use Facebook. Yes. What is your advice for them? Because it seems if you try to create a community anywhere outside of Facebook, it is very difficult to get people to sign up for it. And then even more difficult to get people to engage in it,

Paul Gowder: 20:33

right? it's because there's so much friction, right? It if you're on Facebook's going to show you what the latest post in the group was so it's really easy for you to click on it engage But yes, I get the same thing a lot of people that don't want to be on facebook So with the book club, that's why I have a facebook group and an email list There are a lot of people that will join the email list and I can talk to them there They I still say you're part of the book club community Even though you're not part of the Facebook group. So I, right now I have both, we're experimenting with the Facebook group we lost. We're trying to build a website, like a classified ads website and use that to, to redo the buy, sell trade. But it is very difficult again, to get people over there, to get the traffic, to get the artists to post. that's going to be a much harder lift for us. but we're trying, but yeah, So offer them the group and an email list and you can still at least you have the one on one engagement in the email list and you can do it that way.

Stephen Box: 21:34

Okay. And if somebody wants to learn more about marketing themselves on social media or building a community, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Paul Gowder: 21:42

Yeah, I'd love to help you out. If you're looking to level up your business there, paulgatter. com is where I do all of that. And if you're interested, I talked a little bit about group leads. I have a video where I share my favorite tools for building my email list and that's paulgatter. com slash email tools. And that concludes my conversation today with Paul Gowder. I really love the way that Paul broke down community building today. And if this conversation got you thinking, Go back, check out his links in the show notes and connect with him. You'll find everything that you need there. and if you enjoyed today's episode, please do me a favor and share it with another coach who could use it. All right, before we go, let's hit a few quick takeaways on today's conversation. Number one, a Facebook group is not a community. It's just a platform. The real community starts with relationships. Number two, start by building fans, not followers. Engagement comes from real connections, not just vanity metrics. Number three, your email list is your safety net. If social media shuts down your group, you need a way to reach your people. A perfect example of this, recently was the TikTok ban where a lot of people started freaking out that, TikTok and what am I going to do? I have all these followers. You need to have that email list so you can reach out to them and make sure you also tune in for our next episode Where we're gonna dive into how to master your time talent and treasures as a coach My guest Scott mater is sharing the mindset shifts that help coaches take control of their time without feeling guilty So if you ever feel like you're drowning in your to do list Be sure to hit follow so you don't miss it. That's it for today. This is Stephen Box reminding you that coaching smarter creates a lasting impact for you and those you serve.