You're ready to make the social media jump and want to set up a presence on Facebook. You've heard all about Groups and Pages, but which one do you choose?
For many, Facebook is the virtual extension of who we are: our history, our friends, our actions - and most important to us marketers - our likes. Since Facebook's inception, millions of Groups have been created, and act as sub-communities in the Facebook realm. In November 2007, Facebook introduced Pages, a more robust, feature-rich version of Groups that is geared towards formal businesses, products, and entities, but has seen resistance due to a few major drawbacks. Let's have a look at the pros and cons of each in depth.
The Facebook Groups and Pages Comparison Table
|
Facebook Groups |
Facebook Pages |
Unlimited members |
Yes |
Yes |
Mass-message members |
Yes (up to 1,000 members) |
Yes (via Updates) |
Headline image |
No |
Yes |
Post images |
Yes |
Yes |
Host conversations via Wall and Discussion Board |
Yes |
Yes |
Host events under profile name |
Yes |
Yes |
Message hosted event attendees |
Yes |
No |
Additional applications (e.g. music players, stores. etc.) |
No |
Yes |
Appoint Admins to manage and promote profile |
Yes |
No |
Type-specific invites |
Yes (Group Invites) |
No |
Visitor statistics |
No |
Yes |
Promotion via Social Ads |
No |
Yes |
Privacy (hidden or closed) Options |
Yes |
No |
Available to non-Facebook visitors |
No |
Yes |
Appear in search engines |
No |
Yes |
Appear in Mini-feeds |
Yes |
Yes (Appears to have higher preference) |
Appear in News Feeds |
Yes |
Yes (Appears to have higher preference) |
Appear on Profile pages |
“Groups” Section (Clustered with all other groups) |
“Pages” Section (5 Pages randomly chosen and rotated) |
Appear in other Groups / Pages |
“Similar Groups” |
“Favorite Pages” |
The Verdict Between Groups and Pages
Groups lead the way for community-based conversation on Facebook, though within the limit of 1,000 members. Breaking that ceiling disables a Group owner’s ability to mass-message its members. Groups should be considered carefully if your organization, product, or person hosts a large number of events as Pages are unable to send messages to event attendees. Lastly, groups hold a superior set of social hooks; group owners can appoint Group officers to help manage the community and members can send Group invites to evangelize on your behalf.
While Pages offer a more robust feature set, they lack some of the viral hooks Groups own. However, in lieu for word-of-mouth promotion come other opportunities. Pages can be promoted to hyper-targeted niches based on demographics and psychographics with Facebook’s Social Ads. The chatter can be enhanced and value can be added by installing applications to the page. Pages are also open to the public, meaning non-Facebook members can see them and search engines can list them. Finally, pages are more frequently featured in news feeds, and more prominently featured in profile pages.
Though similar in many ways, the real question to be asked is whether you want to build a community or a formal presence. Either way, success on Facebook takes a great deal of commitment, resources, and two-way conversation.
Interested in help to get your Facebook campaign kicked off? Please give us a shout for a free Facebook marketing quote and we’d gladly sit down to chat.