Both Facebook Page and Facebook Group allow you to post news and updates, attach photos and videos, include wall posts and discussion, and send messages to members. But why should you choose one over the other to create a Facebook presence? As similar as they appear to be, there are subtle differences between the two that will answer your question.
Before you start, you should identify what your personal or professional goals are for creating a Facebook presence in the first place. Are you trying to increase your brand visibility? Generate discussion? Or publicize your blog or website? Once you know your primary reason for creating a Facebook presence, you can decide which option provides you with the features that closely align with your goals.
Why Facebook Page?
If you’re looking to promote your business – go with Facebook Pages. It has an obvious commercial feel to it. But beware of using a Page if updates are important to your business. I haven’t conducted an official poll, but people tend to become a fan of a musician/website/company to let others know what they’re interested in, or to show their support. They do not necessarily become a fan for the updates. From personal experience, I have actually turned off Page updates for some of my subscriptions because some came too frequent, and they were irrelevant and became borderline annoying. (Update: Jan 12 2010 – This is not really relevant anymore due to the new changes on Facebook which allow Facebook pages to show up on people’s feeds, creating more interaction. I actually like this feature for Pages that I want updates for). Frequency of updates is also an issue you should take into account if you go the Page route. I could see it working very well for restaurant/bar/lounge though, which can send updates regarding discounts or special events that people would be excited about.
If you want to publicize your blog - I would suggest Facebook Pages because of the RSS feeds capability, and also the flexibility to embed apps. This feature is highly useful if you want to include blog updates that will show up in the timeline. It’s also a great way to attract new members to your site.
Why Facebook Group?
Facebook Groups allows you to send messages directly to members’ inbox, which increases the chance they’d read your message. Facebook Pages has that messaging feature as well, but it shows up as an “update” next to a member’s pending friend requests and event invitations. These updates tend to be ignored, or at least, delayed in reading. You don’t want that if updates are extremely important.
If you want to generate discussion around a controversial topic or leverage the power of the crowd - go with Facebook Groups. Groups has more of a grassroots, bottom-up undertone to it. You can tell by the sheer numbers of some groups – over 800,000 for the Six Degrees experiment. Another group called “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike Bush” has over a million members.
I would only suggest Facebook Groups if you want to get a discussion going – as that’s what Groups are good for – but I would highly recommend you use your blog for discussion. Any discussion on your blog are yours and permanent, but the ones on Facebook can’t be extracted or compiled together.
I hope this helps you decide whether to go with Facebook Page or Facebook Group! Here are some related links you may want to check out for further reading on Facebook:
- Tim Davies has a really great breakdown of the differences in his post on Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups.
- Why Organizations Should Join Facebook Group Land Rush
- How to Create a Successful Facebook Group
