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At a seminar the other week one of the audience members asked me which was better for their business: a Facebook Group or a Facebook Page. The answer really depends on your business objectives as each function offers something the other does not. In this post we’ll take a look at the differences between Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages, suggest a few questions to ask in deciding which is right for you, and then wrap things up with my reasons for choosing a Facebook Page for My Media Labs (click here to Like our Page).
Facebook Groups v. Facebook Pages
Facebook Groups
Here are the primary features of Facebook Groups:
- Accessible only by members of the group.
- Allow bulk messages to be sent out by the owner to all members.
- NOT indexed by Google.
On their FAQ page, Facebook says the following:
Groups are meant to foster group discussion around a particular topic area while Pages allow entities such as public figures and organizations to broadcast information to their fans. Only the authorized representative of the entity can run a Page.
Think of groups as the democratic option. While group owners have control over membership and can moderate content posted in areas like the discussion forum or the wall, really everyone has the floor. Members can comment, rate, and start threads on topics related to the group. Groups are attractive to members who want to share the spotlight with the owner and are looking for interaction with like minded people.
Facebook Pages
Here are the primary features of Facebook Pages:
- Good “broadcast” option for organizations, companies, causes.
- Indexed by Google, meaning the pages are public and searchable even by non-Facebook members (the public facing nature of these Pages make them fantastic tool to boost a company’s SEO).
- Analytical data available for owners of the page
The analytical data mentioned above is gathered through an intuitive set of built in Facebook tools called “Insights.”
Facebook Insights provides Facebook Page owners and Facebook Platform developers with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook.
You can access all this data from the Administrator dash board on Facebook. We can write a whole post on Facebook Insight (hey, that sounds like a good idea for next week!). What you need to know is that you can use the data gleaned from a page to measure and report on how your business or organization is reaching the intended viewer.
Page or Group: Questions to Ask
So which is right for you, a page or a group? It is going to depend on your objectives – ask yourself the following questions to help guide your decision:
- What is the purpose behind creating a Facebook presence for our business? If it is a broad marketing function, like promoting the business generally, then a Page makes sense because it can rank high in Google searches, permits interactivity, and allows you to track stats on customers accessing and viewing the page. If it is a narrow marketing function, like a customer feedback or think tank forum, then a group would be better – you benefit from the more exclusive nature of the group and the requirement that people accessing the content on it are registered members you can follow up with.
- Do you have resources available to dedicate to managing the Group or Page? When you set up a Group on Facebook, you are in essence creating a mini-community that requires management to maintain. Community management is a specialty area that many businesses are not equipped to handle – it requires someone who can supply content, maintain engagement among members, and coordinate how the business interacts with the people that join the group. The public nature of Pages make them less of a “community” that needs managing, but you’ll still want to give it some TLC from someone who understands the business objectives of the Page.
- What would success look like? Too often we define success as open rates, members acquired, or page views, but there are perhaps better ways to define success and progress over time. If all you care about is traffic then obviously a Page makes more sense. They are easy to join (using the “Like” button), you can track the numbers on them, and they are a low commitment for the people who opt in. If you are looking to solve a problem, speak to customers, and disseminate exclusive information to a smaller group then the Group option makes more sense – you would measure success in the number of questions answered, downloads of the coupon, ebook, or whatever it was you wanted disseminated, and so forth.
I think if you are clear on the three points above, then choosing between a Group or Page will be an easy decision.
Why My Media Labs Has a Facebook Page
The reason we chose a Page over a Group at this time was a matter of resources, syndication strategy, and reach. Let’s use the three questions from the last section to explain:
- Our purpose in creating the Page on Facebook was to provide a resource to current and potential customers in the place where they already are. Since we sell to corporate clients and small businesses, many of whom have Facebook accounts (over 350,000,000 users), it made sense to put up a Page where they can easy “Like” it. Also, we wanted an SEO play. A search for “My Media Labs” on Google returns our Facebook Page higher than our blog (primarily b/c our blog is only 4 months old and our Facebook Page has over 25 fans)! This helps our visibility and getting our message out.
- Right now we are a small company with not a lot of resources to dedicate to the management of a group. As we start to offer classes and workshops, using a Facebook Group will start to make more sense to share information, do virtual lessons, and interact with members of our classes. Stay tuned for more details on this in the next few weeks.
- For us, success is driving traffic from our Page to our blog. We also want to hit 100 “Likes” in the next 3 months. Ultimately we’d like to have more comments from people on our page – modest goals, but to hit them in our timeframe spells a success to us (then we can set more goals!).
So given our goals, resources, and measures of success the Page made the most sense to us. So now that you know we have a Page, check it out, and if you like what you see please let us know.
What about you? Do you have a Facebook Page or Group for your business? What are you doing with it? If not, what would be your reasons for starting a Page or Group?
