Know How Serendipity Led Ruchi To Building Different Facebook Groups And Becoming A Community Entrepreneur

As TD Jakes said – “Destiny is the push of our instincts to the pull of our purpose.” 

It stands true for most of us, and so does for Ruchi.

Ruchi Airen, a former teacher and homemaker, firmly believes that one should work for the greater good of society. She has always been keen on helping the underprivileged section, and her mum has been her inspiration.

It’s this purpose that drives her every single day.

From donating to different NGOs, animal shelters to distributing food among the poor, Ruchi does it all. She is even a foster parent and has taken up the responsibility of taking care of the needs of a kid for one year.

She has been able to do all of this today because of the earnings from her Facebook groups.

No, she never planned on creating communities and becoming a Community Entrepreneur.

Rather, it all started because of an incident that happened two years back.

In 2019, Ruchi was declined the request to post her daughter’s activity video in a kids learning FB group she was a part of. She was disheartened but also did not want to sit back. She followed her instincts and out of disappointment, determination and belief,  went on to create Kids Home Learning – her first-ever Facebook group.

“I believe knowledge is power and it should be free for all,” says Ruchi.

What started as a means to share her daughter’s daily activities with other parents, helping them keep their kids engaged, has blossomed into a community of over 47,000 members today.

As the need arose, Ruchi went on to create three more Facebook groups – Baby Care and Parenting Tips, Active Kids and Woman Zone, Nutrition and Recipes (Kids and Baby).

She’s earning pretty well through them via brand collaborations. She has partnered with brands like ITC, Dell, Class Monitor, Kreto, Nestle, Dettol, Veet, Johnsons, Wella, to name a few.

“Thanks to Convosight for helping me understand the true meaning and power of communities. And also to help me connect with brands and earn a sustainable income from my communities,” smiles Ruchi.

Scroll down to know:

• How Ruchi realised the need for creating more communities
• How Ruchi is earning from her FB groups while providing value to members
• How she is keeping her group members engaged
• Her foolproof way to stay on top of spam
• How her team helps out and takes ownership of things

But first, let’s have a look at what she was upto before becoming a community leader.

Ruchi is a Delhi-based Teacher turned Homemaker turned Community Entrepreneur 

Ruchi completed her Masters in Computer Application, and went on to teach IT and CS to the students of class 11 and 12.

A few years later, she got married and was blessed with a baby girl pretty early. So, she couldn’t get back to teaching.

When her daughter turned three, Ruchi resumed teaching.

Two years down the line, she conceived for the second time, and had to take a sabbatical once again.

By the time she thought of rejoining school, coronavirus pandemic hit, and the world got locked down.

Life happened and Ruchi focused on her kids, taught them, played with them, and took care of them,

“Whatever destiny has in store for us, it comes in expected ways,” tells Ruchi. 

Her daughter studies in Amity International school where they focus immensely on art and craft. Her daughter used to create 5-6 craft pieces and do some artwork, and Ruchi would store all of them.

Since this was a lot to store on mobile, she thought of storing it on Facebook. For the same, she created a Facebook page named it – Janvi Pratham, Art and Craft.

Here’s the catch – Ruchi didn’t know anything about FB pages or groups. In fact, she was someone who rarely logged in to Facebook!

Her daughter’s videos started to reach people organically and would get a ton of engagement.

Unaware of the scenario, Ruchi tried to make sense of things. But at the same time, she was also enjoying the love and validation her daughter’s videos were getting.

Soon after, Ruchi joined a Facebook group, and started sharing her page posts there.

“Members loved my daughter’s work. They would encourage their kids to do the same and would make their videos, and share them,” told Ruchi.

One day, the admin of the group didn’t approve her post and Ruchi reached out to her. The admin responded with something related to payment.

Ruchi got discouraged and went on to create Kids Home Learning (KHL) in April 2020.

Till date, it has grown organically, and has an engagement rate of 50% and activity rate of 18.19.

Engagement rate of 50% means that on an average a member does 0.50 actions per month in your FB group.

An activity rate of 18.19 means that on an average, a post gets 18 reactions and comments in a month in your FB group.

To know more about these metrics and why they increase or decrease, check out this blog👇🏻

How well did your Facebook group perform with respect to last month? Everything explained.

How did Ruchi realise the need to create other communities? 

Parents from all over the world are a part of Kids Home Learning.

They share their kids’ activities, learn about new activities from the community, encourage their kids to participate in the group contests, and more.

“Parents from countries other than India ask me if they can participate in the group contests and activities, and this makes me feel really special,” smiles Ruchi.

She has fixed theme days in her group. Meaning, she has assigned a theme to each day of the week so that members post accordingly.

She has even mentioned those in her group cover photo.

If you are looking for some inspiration to create a new cover photo for your Facebook group, or are someone who’s starting out, this blog will come handy👇🏻

Facebook group cover photo guidelines + templates

Initially, mothers posted parenting tips and cooking recipes in KHL, and others used to actively engage with them. Since Ruchi wanted her group to remain focused on kids learning only, she decided to create a separate group for mothers. And that’s how ‘Active Kids and Woman Zone’ came into place.

“I realised that mothers wanted to discuss and share stuff other than their kids’ activities. So, I created this community where they share jokes, talk about women hygiene, and discuss everything they wish to. This community has helped us all connect even more,” tells Ruchi.

The other two groups, i.e. Baby care and Parenting tips, and Nutrition and Recipes, were also formed out of members’ needs.

“Parents used to seek suggestions about infants’ food and nutrition, and even enquired about worksheets for infants, so I thought of creating separate communities. This way there are focused discussions in each group,” says Ruchi.

Here’s how Ruchi is collaborating with brands while providing value to members 

“I cannot thank Convosight enough to help me earn money from my communities, and enable me to follow my life’s purpose,” says Ruchi.

She further adds, “I started earning when my group reached 20,000 members, and since then there’s been no looking back.” 

In collaboration with ITC, Ruchi shared with members how she engages her daughter in practical learning sessions while teaching her, and how these sessions are important for children.

She also told members about the new classmate origami notebooks that come with colorful tear off sheets and how her daughter uses them.

This post:

• Made members realise the importance of practical learning combined with teaching, and the fact that it improves attention span and enhances creative skills
• Helped brand expand the reach of its new product, i.e. origami notebooks
• Helped Ruchi earn from this collaboration

Because of such successful collaborations, brands like Superbottom, Kreto, Class Monitor, Cuemath, to name a few, expressed interest in partnering with Ruchi and reached out for such purpose-led marketing campaigns.

In the beginning of the year, Ruchi organised a giveaway in collaboration with Class Monitor, who had launched their new skillbooster phonics edition.

Members got to know about this amazing phonics set for their kids that comprises flash cards, board games, activity sheets, and so much more. In fact, the lucky winner even won this gift hamper. The brand was able to create awareness about their new product, and Ruchi could earn.

A win-win for everyone.

3 things that guarantee maximum engagement in KHL 

1. Worksheet related posts 

Whether members enquire about worksheets or share any worksheets in the group, such posts tend to get high engagement.

Sharing an example below.

2. Contests 

Ruchi comes up with interesting contests in her community every now and then.

On the heels of Republic Day, she organised a week-long contest in collaboration with a brand called Blue Sky.

As a part of this contest, kids had to share their drawings, poems, tricolor cooking without fire dishes, draw and colour the Indian flag, dress up as any Indian freedom fighter and speak a few lines about them, and even answer basic GK questions.

Which means they could participate and enhance their skills in almost everything.

Amazing, right?

Each child got a participation certificate, and winners got gift hampers.

Have a look at the engagement on the contest announcement post.

3. Polls 

Polls are not only an awesome engagement generator for any community, but a great way to tap into the needs of members.

She asked members about the age of their children to come up with more learning activities. And the response was very good!

Here’s how Ruchi tackles spam in her FB group 

She uses the Admin Assist feature of Facebook groups that has been around for quite some time now.

Ruchi has set up a criteria to decline incoming posts that have keywords like join, group, whatsapp, bitcoin, etc.

Another criteria she has set up is to decline incoming posts from authors who have been reported 3 or more times in the last 28 days.

“Initially, I was skeptical about using the Admin Assist feature of Facebook. But, now I suggest every admin to start using it as it is indeed a boon. You just have to set up a criteria and rest everything is taken care of by Admin Assist,” says Ruchi.

If you’d like to know more about Admin Assist and how to set up different criteria, this article is all you need to get started.👇🏻

Admin Assist for Facebook groups – Everything you need to know 

Mutual trust and respect between Ruchi’s team keeps them binded  

Ruchi has a team of five people – including 3 co-admins and a moderator.

All of them are very hard-working and capable of taking complete ownership of things.

“You need to trust your moderators and admins. Until you do that, they won’t be willing to give their 100%,” says Ruchi.

In fact, her co-admin, Mrs. Pooja Panjwani was a sponsor initially. She had organised a giveaway in Ruchi’s group sometime back. Since she liked Ruchi’s work and had developed a friendship, Pooja expressed interest in working with her.

Excitedly, Ruchi explained to her about the work, encouraged her to post in the community. She saw how creative Pooja was and the fact that she had a 3-year-old kid, she decided to make her moderator.

Soon after, Ruchi appointed her as co-admin of the Facebook group.

Now, they together manage the community wherein Pooja takes care of all the activities and what to post according to the theme days. And Ruchi is busy working on brand campaigns.

Rekha Shrivastava and Meenakshi Juneja are the co-admins of Active Kids and Woman Zone and Baby Care and Parenting Tips respectively.

Her moderator, Sheetal Birjesh Marken, actively takes part in the community and even pitches to the sponsors.

Ruchi has 2 other moderators that help her manage her other communities. And, all of them are paid.

There is no fixed monthly amount as such. But, Ruchi rewards each of them separately for their hard work by giving them 50% of the earnings through brand campaigns.

If you too are looking for moderators for your Facebook group, but don’t know how to get started, this article will help you.👇🏻

Choosing the right moderators for your Facebook group – An A to Z guide

Ruchi’s message for other community leaders out there! 

That’s some nice motivation!

We have our Facebook group, Growth and Monetisation for Facebook Group Admins, where Ruchi and thousands of other Facebook group admins are constantly motivating each other and discussing ways to grow, engage, and monetise their communities. If you wish to gain some valuable insights, feel free to be a part.🙂

Besides, if you would also like to get your story featured on our platform, please fill this FORM and we will get back to you.

Simran Grover

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! 💛