Facebook Group v's Page (The battle)

[bober]

Here's one....

I have a Page on Facebook with 3000 fans of common interest. I'm creating an extension of this page to concentrate on Events & Club Nights.

Should I create a GROUP instead? I don't want to answer my question but If I create a Group I will be able to contact all the fans/members directly unlike a Page where you can not contact fans directly. (pages are only through newsfeeds/update).

Here's the Pro's & Cons:

Page Pro's
More flexible in terms of development
Add in lots of cool tabs
create a friendly url > www.faceboook.com/yoursitename
Have nice fan badge
Facebook connect added to your website
Page Con's
Members can NOT be contacted directly via Facebook/personal mail

Group Pro's
Members CAN be contacted through Facebook/personal mail
You can create events for members of the group
Target driven
Group Con's
No friendly url
No plug in
I think, no facebook connect fro your website.
I think pages are the future for facebook.

Here's another issue - I don't like the way everyone is "page crazy" lately including Facebook - is there some sort of secret we don't know about? What's Facebook's plans for groups & pages. Faze groups out & just have pages? honestly pages are becoming so mainstream now there almost like website.. If I was able to contact my 3K fans I 100% would have created a revenue stream from it..

Pages are only extensions of a websites.
"Group are groups" & are self contained in terms of communicating with your fans.

After reading over this I think I'll create a group.. solely based on being able to contact my members.

Any input would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Satanta]

The messaging benefits for groups are only available up to 5k fans (if I remember correctly), so if you believe you can/will exceed this in the near future, I'd give a little less weight to that benefit. If you don't believe you will exceed it, then it's an obvious advantage for a group.

Some find the anonymity of pages to be an advantage, as there's no direct link between the page and the facebook profile of the owner (again, may or may not be a factor for you).

Groups provide far more options in terms of who can join (i.e. needs to be approved by an admin), but if you're looking to grow the page/group probably not a major concern.

While both pages and groups can be indexed (depending on the settings), pages offer far more options for SEO optimisation so a definite advantage there.

Most of the recent focus has been targeted at 'pages' (due to them being more prominent for corporate users and therefore potentially more valuable to FB), so all else being equal I'd personally err on the side of a page. If some of the other differences make a major difference to your specific case, then go with the one that best suits your needs.

 

[mailmrluke]

I agree with all that Satanta said. Also pages were set up to function for business so besides having the ability to add tabs that can help your business, such as an online shop, you also get access to analytics for your page that will highlight what content people are watching or interacting with.

Also, you can send a mail to all fans of a page. Go to the page your admin of, click on edit page, then under the 'promote your page' section there'll be a link to send an update to fans. This update can be sent to everyone who likes your page, or just those in a certain location, age, gender. You can also include links and video in the update.

If thats not enough, groups were set up for groups of people to discuss topics or share information, not of a business nature. In the future pages will continue to evolve and include more and more features to make doing business on FB easier. Which might be worth noting especially with the arrival of Facebook Places. These places will be linked to pages, so if you don't have a page now FB might automatically add one (as they did in the USA) so people could 'check-in'. So you'll end up with a group and a page, and more than likely unable to link the two.

 

[mneylon]

It looks like Facebook has revamped how groups function in the last few days. Does anyone know what has changed ?

 

[Satanta]

It looks like Facebook has revamped how groups function in the last few days. Does anyone know what has changed ?

It's not something I've looked at in enough detail yet to speak with any great knowledge, but it looks like quite a strange change.

On the surface of it, the new 'group' features aren't directly related/connected to the old 'Facebook public groups' feature, more a tweak on how the old 'friend list' system used to work. It's designed to accommodate small groups (<100, at certain numbers [~250 I believe] it starts to lose/limit functionality), rather than being used to market/interact with a full customer base (i.e. it's not directly competing with the old groups or pages, just giving businesses a new way to interact with the different 'groups' of friends they have on their personal profiles - having said that, changing how people use their personal profiles will have knock on effects across the board).

In theory it's a helpful tweak that gives users more options (being able to share something with a very specific sub group of friends easier than you could in the past), but I'm not sure they got it quite right at launch given the huge number of negative comments it has already gotten and the large security/privacy concerns that have arrisen for a change that was meant to give users 'more control' (but appears to have done the opposite in many cases).

Something I need to play with a lot more before forming a real opinion on it though.

 

[mneylon]

So I'm not the only one who doesn't like all the email notifications?

 

[bober]

here's the link, I'm sure you'll find everything you need there. >>> New Groups Launched on Facebook

I haven't fully researched the changes but it seems to be more 'group friendly' in the sense that actual group members can interact with each other. Here's some new features I like:

1) When a group member posts to the group, everyone in the group will receive a notification about that post.
2) There is now an option to Group Chat.
3) Group users can share documents & edit them together.

While were still in the 'battle' thread I'd say that groups are moving towards family, Common interest groups, Social clubs & stuff like that so every group member is really specific & has an interest in the group. Now Pages are more suitable to business and are really an affiliation of your own website.

*I didn't see a mention of having a friendly url for a group which is a shame.

 

[mneylon]

There are several "features" that are already annoying me. NextWeb has a good summary: The New Facebook Groups: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

 

[bober]

After reading that article - it's a bit shocking alright.

When someone adds you to a group, you automatically become a member without any need for your consent is TOTALLY crazy. So you could find yourself getting notification & invited to events you had no interest in the first place. (So basically FB are saying well just because your friends with someone you must have the exact same interests, madness). Thank god I only have 70 friends, hah. Whats gonna happen to those people that have 5000 friends, there gonna be part of about 2000 groups & get mails & notifications from each group - That couldn't be?

*I have a group that I'm trying to build up, I'll test it now & invite my friends to join.

 

[Satanta]

That couldn't be?

It could. It is.

There have been a number of very high profile stories about this aspect of the new 'groups' already. The FB line is "if you trust these people enough to be your friends, you should trust their judgement", one of the things that prompted one of Mark Zuckerberg's friends to do it to him.

To mitigate the impacts, once you remove yourself from a group someone invited you to, they lose the ability to make you join any group in the future. So there is a safety valve of types on the thing. Having said that, it's still a major issue with the new feature and one that has left large sections of the community feeling like FB put their foot in their mouth on this one.

 

[bober]

I just invited my friends to jon my group & they have not been added to yet.

 

[Satanta]

I just invited my friends to jon my group & they have not been added to yet.

Is this a new group, created under the new group design and with the new group functionality (such as group chat)? Or is this an old group you had prior to the changes?

If it's the latter, the new changes aren't included in your group. At the moment, there is no way to transfer an existing group to the new system (another oversight in my own opinion).

 

[bober]

It's an 'old group'. I don't really mind as it was just a test group as such.

For all Groups & Pages, pro's & con's. It's not really the case any more of comparing both as they have separate identities. I now know that it's all about self-requirement. Like myself & 1000's of others I'm sure people will choose the wrong option for their need & Think why didn't I go with the other.!

For example, the company I worked for recently joined facebook & the owner set up a group. When I was asked to help, the first thing I mentioned was 'you do know that's a group'? In reality what we required was a Page. I'm sure loads of people have gone through with the incorrect application & had to more or less start over again.!