By Bree Clare
At present there are over 400 million active users of Facebook worldwide, and 50% of those active users log on daily (Facebook Press room).
So it’s no surprise that businesses are now using Facebook groups and pages to promote their goods and/or services.
But what are the differences between the two? And which is more appropriate for your business?
A quick search tells you that groups allow their members “to connect, share and even collaborate on a given topic or idea.”
Meanwhile, Facebook pages help “define the identities of the people and brands with which you interact.”
But what does this mean in a practical sense? This is what I’ve discovered;
- Facebook groups are a space designed for personal interaction to harvest deeper discussion between users about a particular topic area. If you want consumers to become more of a community where they can organise themselves and communicate easily, in relation to a particular topic area, then groups are for you.
- Facebook pages are used to build a fan base for users to congregate to; and where public figures/organisations can broadcast information to their fans. If you’re aiming to create brand or product awareness and want to target specific types of consumers, then pages are for you.
Here is a table outlining more specific differences;
| Features | Groups | Pages |
| Messages | Yes, private messages (restricted to less than 5,000 group members) | Yes, sent to fans as ‘Updates’ |
| Discussions; discussion wall and discussion forum | Yes, focus is on discussions | Yes, available via discussions tab |
| Administrators | Listed publicly on Group main page | Hidden from public view |
| Indexed by search engines | Yes, controlling the content within the information area of the group can aid in external search engine searches | Yes, also provides administrators with greater search engine optimization opportunities when used in conjunction with the Static FBML application |
| Applications | No | Yes, can be added to page |
| Membership restrictions | Yes, groups can be open, closed or secret | No |
| Stream publishing | Yes | Yes, also have the ability to target stream posts based on location in language |
| ‘Related’ event creation and invitation | No | Yes |
| Video and public photo exchanges | Yes | Yes |
| Promotion with social ads | No | Yes |
| Visitor statistics | No, but the average user is a member of 13 groups | Yes, ‘Page insights’ provide administrators with information about the demographic break down of their Facebook Page fan base as well as engagement information – Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month |
| Vanity URLs | No | Yes, for Pages with more than 25 fans |
| Widgets | No | Yes, FanBox and Facebook Badge |