Facebook Groups vs Pages: What You Need to Know and How to Use Them.
Facebook Groups Vs Pages: What You Need to Know
Facebook is the biggest social media platform to date; it has provided individuals and businesses with the opportunity to reach a wider audience. With more than 2 billion people on Facebook, it’s sure a platform to utilize in promoting your brand or business.
Facebook has been innovative in providing individuals and business the opportunity to interact with their audience, especially with the creation of the Facebook page and Facebook group. But it has always been a difficulty deciding which one of them is best to use; is it a Facebook page, Facebook group or both?
Well, this depends on some factors, in this guide, you learn what you need to know about Facebook groups and pages, their advantages and disadvantages, and how to know which one is best for you.
What is a Facebook Group?
A Facebook group is a feature created by Facebook that allows people to gather in a place where they share their opinions and thoughts about specific areas, subjects, topics and also a place where you can promote your activities. There is no limit to the amount of people you can have in a Facebook, and they can be divided into three types; Secret, Public and closed Facebook groups.
Secret Facebook groups
Secret Facebook groups don’t appear on search results for users to join, the only way to join these types of groups is when you are invited by the admin, moderator or any other person who is a member of the Facebook group. Whatever is shared or discussed in the group is only seen by the members.
Public Facebook groups
Public Facebook groups, on the other hand, are visible in search results and available for anyone to see, whatever is being posted and shared in the group is made public. As long as the person has a Facebook account, he/she can see members of the group as well as the admins and moderators.
Closed Facebook groups
Unlike public groups, a request must be made to join closed Facebook groups, they also appear on search results, but the content and discussions of the group are only seen by the members of the groups.
What is a Facebook page?
Just like you have a profile for yourself on Facebook, you can also have a profile for your brand or business, a personal profile for your brand, business or entity is known as a Facebook page. Facebook pages operate differently from Facebook groups as they don’t have members. Still, they work like your personal profile except that they don’t have friends; instead, they have fans and just like what you post appears on your friends feed, your Facebook page posts also appear on the feeds of its fans.
Facebook Groups Vs Pages: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages of Facebook groups
- Easy to find
One of the pros of having a Facebook group is that they are easier to find than Facebook pages, members who belong to a Facebook group usually have the name of the group shown on the sidebar of their Facebook dashboard. This can’t be said for Facebook pages which are difficult to find if the page doesn’t post consistently.
- Better engagement
Facebook groups create a sense of community among the members, there are frequent interactions, comments among the members, and so the engagement is better.
- Self-Sustaining
Another advantage of having a Facebook group is its self-sustaining nature, with many members in a group you don’t need to post every single time as content also comes from the group members which keeps the group active.
- Source of idea
With so many different people in a Facebook group, you are sure to get a variety of thoughts that will give you ideas on how to improve the group. This is particularly useful if the group is for your business because you get feedback from your customers on how to make your product or service even better.
- Control
With Facebook group comes control, you can set rules for the groups, you have control over what is posted in the group, and you can remove members who violate the standards set for the group. This makes sure that the group is healthy and decent.
Disadvantages of Facebook groups
- Not visible to search engines
Facebook pages tend to appear on search engine results when a user searches for a query, Facebook groups, on the other hand, do not have this kind of visibility as they don’t appear on search engines like Google.
- Problem of moderation
When your Facebook group starts to get big with more members, moderating such a group becomes difficult; this means you’ll have to get more hands in keeping the group regulated.
- Policy changes
Another con of Facebook groups is that, since you don’t own the platform, Facebook can just come up with a policy change that might affect your group operates. Also, when your group goes against Facebook terms, it could be shutdown.
- Spamming
Facebook groups are usually more prone to spammers; this can be a problem when you have large numbers of members running into thousands.
Advantages of Facebook pages
- Wider reach
A Facebook page has the potential of reaching a lot of people who will notice your brand and what you have to offer. You can reach almost all type of audiences with your Facebook page, including your target audience, and you can engage with them.
- Targeted Advertising
Advertising with your Facebook page gives you control over who you want to see your business ad. You can achieve this with Facebook’s targeting options, with a page, you decide who your ads should reach based on their interests, demographics and their location.
- Build Brand image
Having a Facebook page makes your business looks professional on Facebook and also builds your brand image. You can project what your brand is about to your audience and also build customer loyalty for your brand with a Facebook page.
- Audience insights
Facebook pages provide you with analytic reports on how your audience engages with your posts, and this is important to enable businesses and brands to make crucial decisions on their Facebook marketing strategy.
Disadvantages of Facebook pages
- High cost
Building and maintaining a Facebook page is a hard task, and it takes a lot of investment, especially in the aspects of ad costs. Facebook has recently significantly reduced the reach of Facebook pages which means you have to be ready to promote your page through ads to reach your audience.
You also need to get someone to manage the page when it gets bigger, especially to answer comments made on your posts.
- Building a page take time
To grow a Facebook page takes time and effort, especially as Facebook has reduced page reach due to their Edgerank algorithm. This means your page posts would not always get to your fans; this is why you need to boost your page with ads for a start.
Facebook Groups Vs Pages: The Differences
- One of the distinguishing factors that make a Facebook page different from a Facebook group is that in Facebook pages only the person who owns that page or an editor of the page can post content directly to the page. No other person can post content to the page; People can only follow the page to see its content.
On the other hand, a Facebook group is more like a community where anyone who is a member can post content to the group. Here members of the group can discuss things and comment on posts made in the group.
- Another difference between a page and a group is that for a page you can only see the content when you like the page, that way whatever post made by the page gets seen by you because it appears in your newsfeed.
This is not the case for a Facebook group, you can only see and engage with what’s posted in a Facebook group when you have been approved by an admin to become a member, usually a request to join the group has to be made before you are approved. Only approved members of a group will see the content of the group in their newsfeed.
- The third difference between a Facebook page and a group is in the area of analytics. A Facebook page provides you with all the necessary analytics you need to keep track of how your page is doing, with these analytics you can know how far your posts reach your audience and the amount of engagement the posts receive.
This analytics does not come with a Facebook group, you cannot know how many people have seen your posts; you can only know your engagement by the real likes and comments that the post has garnered.
- In terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Facebook page has the edge over Facebook groups, this is because Facebook pages appear on search engines when they are being searched for, the case is different for Facebook groups as they do not appear on search engines.
- The fifth difference between a group and a page is visibility; a Facebook page is public by default, so anyone can see it and follow it, but a Facebook group can be made public, closed or a secret one.
- The final factor that differentiates a page from a group is that a page is made for entities like brands, business or public figures. A group is created to serve as a place where many people can talk about anything that is of interest to them.
Facebook page Vs group: Which is better?
Now that you know what Facebook pages and groups are and their respective pros and cons, you need to decide which is better for you. Determining whether a Facebook page or group is best for you depend mainly on what you want to achieve and what your intentions are.
Below are situations where you can use a Facebook page, group or even both.
When to Use a Facebook Page
If you are an entity (business, organizations, public figure, etc.) then a Facebook page is better suited for that, in fact, it is created for that purpose. For example, a public figure like a model, comedian, musician or any celebrity will be better off with a Facebook page than a Facebook group.
Businesses will also perform well on a page than a group, this is because of the reach and other tools Facebook pages offer to you that groups do not. You can also create ads for your brand as a page, but you cannot do so as a group, your page also appears on search engines which means you can reach people outside of Facebook if you operate a page for your entity.
When to Use a Facebook Group
Now that you’ve known when to use Facebook pages, what situation is it better to use a Facebook group? If you want to bring people together to discuss a particular topic or cause, then a Facebook group will be better in such an instance.
The idea of a Facebook group is to have people gather in a place where they share thoughts and rub minds on a specific topic; it allows for more than two persons to collaborate in a single space.
When to Use Both
As an entity, a Facebook page is better, but there is always an opportunity to grow and engage your audience with a group. A group could provide you with a platform to interact with your audience so you can know them better and meet their needs.
An example of a brand that operates both a page and group is Mediavine. This ad network operates both a Facebook page and a private Facebook group for their publishers where they assist them in maximizing their ad revenue on their website.
With that being said, you can join our Facebook group on social media selling where we teach you how to grow your business through buying and selling online.
Conclusion
Facebook groups and pages are great tools you can use to boost your brand on Facebook. With the information about Facebook groups and pages in this article, you can choose which tool is right for your business depending on the purpose of your entity.
If you find this article interesting and helpful, share it with your friends; don’t also forget to join our Facebook group on social media selling.
