How I grow a Facebook group from 0 to 100K (without ads)

Author

Teerakit Chantrakul
December 10, 2025

Hey everyone! It’s been about two years since I started my Facebook group journey. Back then, when I was launching Telepath (a remote job platform), I was brainstorming ways to bring traffic to the website. One of my big ideas? Facebook groups.

I realized something pretty quickly. There were almost no communities focused on remote work in Thailand. So, I decided to start one.

To be honest, I was going in blind. I didn't know anything about Facebook groups; I’ve never run one before. But I tried it anyway. Looking back, here is exactly how I went from zero members to a thriving community without spending a dime on ads.

Before diving in, I need to stress that the platform matters. I actually tried running the community on Discord at first, but it didn't work well because Discord has zero discoverability. If you're starting from scratch, it’s almost impossible for new members to organically find you.

Facebook, on the other hand, has built-in ways (like search and recommendations) that help a community grow from zero, which is why it served me best for starting out.

The "spaghetti at the wall" phase

Here’s the thing I learned early on, creating a Facebook group is super easy. It takes a few clicks. You know what the magical thing is? After you create it, absolutely nobody sees it. You can do whatever you want there, and nobody cares.

My biggest advice here is to niche down. If you try to start a generic group, you’re going to be fighting against huge, established groups that already have thousands of members. It’s hard to get people to move unless those big groups are totally inactive. Instead, I went specific. Since I focused on remote work, I looked for job types and industries that were suitable for that lifestyle and built groups around that.

I started by creating multiple groups targeting different niches: remote workers, graphic designers, developers, marketers, basically anything related to my business.

You can start as many groups as you want. In the beginning, you won't know which one will take off, so just plant a few seeds and see what grows.

Overcoming the "ghost town" vibe

Once you have the group, you have to post something. It feels incredibly weird to post into an empty room, but you have to do it. If someone stumbles into your group and it’s empty, they aren't going to join.

So, start posting. Say hi, share your vision for the community, and give people a sample of the content they can expect.

Then comes the scary part, inviting people. It only takes two clicks to invite your friends. Some people are overthinking about this. Just don’t.

At that time, Facebook had this weird glitch where sometimes you invite someone, and it spams them with a hell of a lot of notifications. If you’re reading this and that happened to you, I swear, it was Facebook, not me. 😅

But seriously, you need those first 20 members. Even if they are just supportive friends who don't care about the topic, get them in there. It signals to the algorithm (and other humans) that this is a real place.

Content is king

So, what do you post? For me, I just posted job openings from my website. But here is a pro-tip. Facebook hates external links. They want to keep people on their platform. So, instead of posting only links, I created proper social media posts, with job descriptions and a nice image.

I kept doing this consistently. The more content you have, the higher the chance someone finds you when searching.

I also used a little "growth hack." If I found other generic job groups that were huge but kind of dying (unmanaged, full of spam), I would share posts from my group into those. People in those dying groups would see my active, high-quality content and think, "Hey, this looks way better," and click through to join my community.

Cracking the algorithm

Once you hit about 100 members, the magic starts to happen. Facebook will start recommending your group to people searching for your keywords.

This is why your name matters. I didn't use fancy, abstract names. I used keywords. If someone searches "Remote Jobs Thailand" or "Marketing Jobs," my group shows up because those words are in the title. Keep it simple, direct, and on point.

Managing the chaos

Eventually, the members started posting their own stuff. That’s when the group really kicked off. But that’s also when you have to switch modes from "Creator" to "Manager."

Facebook loves active communities where people talk to each other, but you have to be careful. As the group grew, the scammers arrived. If people get scammed in your group, they blame you, and they leave. I had to set up approval processes so I could review posts before they went live.

To keep engagement up, I also used polls and asked questions. It’s an easy way for people to participate without having to write a novel.

The long game

This didn't happen overnight. It took me two years.

Some people think they can start a community and have it blow up in a week. That’s rarely the case. It starts slow. You reach a few people, they share it, and it compounds over time.

Occasionally, you might get lucky and have one post go viral that brings in a ton of members, but you can't predict that. You just have to keep the machine running.

And remember, I haven't spent any money on ads for this. Aside from hiring an assistant later on, this was all just time and consistency.

So, if you’re thinking about starting a group: start in a niche, invite your friends, keep it active, and be patient. It works.

P.S. Here are a few of my communities.

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