Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups – What’s the Difference?

Facebook provides both Pages and Groups. What’s the difference and when does it make sense to use one or the other? 

Facebook Pages enable businesses and organizations to extensively showcase what they offer without visitors having to leave Facebook. Often this information will mirror what appears on their websites. Pages are administrated by individuals or teams who can remain invisible to visitors if they so choose.

Facebook Groups are usually formed around a shared area of interest such as topic or project and are designed for community building. They enable members to have discussions, share information and belong to a community within the Facebook walled garden. Groups are moderated by individuals who are visible to the community.

Page Advantages

• Extensive analytics (Insights) enable you to track what is working and make improvements.
• The Like feature automatically increases their reach and there is no limit to the number of Fans a Page can have.
• They are a channel for directing traffic to your website.
• Pages give visitors the opportunity to engage with the Page by posting comments.
• If you include an opt-in tab on your Page it can help you grow your email list.
• There are numerous apps available for Pages which enhance their functionality.
• Administrators have control over what appears on the Page.
• Pages are indexed by search engines.

Disadvantages

• They are not conductive to dialogues between visitors.
• Updates posted to your Page are shown to less than 20% of your Fans. To get more exposure you need to buy Facebook ads.

Group Advantages

• Group members are more likely to return to their Groups than Page visitors are to return to Pages.
• Groups are more interactive than Pages.
• Groups can be open (anyone can view and join), closed (publicly visible, but require administrator approval to join) or secret (invisible to the public, you must be invited to join). Consequently Groups can  serve as public or private discussion forums.

Disadvantages

• You can look at metrics such as growth in membership and engagement, but there are not analytics like Insights.
• Groups must remain active in order to keep visitors returning.
• Group administrators can send updates to a maximum of 5,000 members.
•  Groups are not consistently indexed by Google.

In summary, if your goal is branding, building awareness and engagement with the largest possible audience then you should use a Facebook Page. If you want to build a community of those who are already aware of you, host a discussion forum or work on projects as a team, then Facebook Groups can work well.

Please let us know how you have used Facebook Pages and Groups in your business.