Facebook Pages and Groups or Both?

Facebook offers different options for you to target your audience in the form of Facebook Pages and Groups. So which one is right for your business or organisation? And with the recent addition of Groups to Pages does this provide you with the ultimate package?

Pages vs Groups

Before the recent launch of Groups to Pages, businesses were left with a decision on whether to represent themselves on Facebook as a Page or a Group. So, let’s take a closer look at the features of both.

Pages

Pages offer business-friendly features such as the all-important data offering. This can found through the Page Insights Tab and allows businesses to understand the demographics, interest etc. of the fans of their page – allowing them to tailor their content and promotions accordingly.

Talking of promotions, Pages allows you to advertise and to also set CTA’s on the Page allowing you to drive sales or other business goals directly through the platform.

You can import email addresses to Pages so that you can hit the ground running with a new page and start to grow your audience based of an existing database through various advertising strategies that make use of Custom Audiences and Optimising for Conversion Objectives.

Groups 

Facebook Groups are very much more a community based feature that do not tend to focus on promotions.  Groups provide a space for people to communicate about shared interests allowing individuals to have a central hub by which to engage in topics related to the greater cause.

Groups have settings that allow them to be public, closed or secret allowing for various levels of exposure and intimacy.

One main issue Facebook users had of Groups was that it denied them branding opportunities to communicate directly between brand and customer.

Groups for Pages

This last point brings us nicely to the recently launched Groups for Pages, allowing brands, businesses and artists to create groups around their most engaged fans. Now admins of linked groups  will have the option of publishing as a Page on their personal profile.

So, which option is the best?

Generally speaking, a business will want to set up a Page, allowing them to be able to promote their brand to an audience through Facebook Advertising.

Although if you are just getting started and have minimal budget then setting up a group around an interest related to your business may well be the route to establishing a core engaged audience that you can drive to your website and later on link to a Page.

A big challenge for many brands with a Page is getting Organic Reach and being shown in the News Feed. This is becoming more expensive. Also, the News Feed is a one to many conversation – and hence brand messaging can get lost easily. This makes Groups for Pages and interesting option as Groups give members who share an interest an ability to join a conversation.

Choosing between establishing a Page, Group or creating Groups for Pages ultimately depends on what you are trying to accomplish on the platform. Make sure to try out the various options to find what works best to achieve your goals.