Facebook provides two ways for companies to connect with an audience: Business Pages, and Groups. It can be confusing to try to figure out which one would benefit your business more, so here are a few pros and cons of each to help you choose what’s most appropriate for you.
Business Pages
A Business Page on Facebook is sort of like a broadcasting center for a brand. It’s a place where you can develop an official public presence that anyone can see, and when users become a fan of your Page by “liking” it, they will receive your Page’s updates in their news feed. As an admin of your page, you create and control the content, though you can choose to let fans contribute on their own section of the Page’s timeline, entitled “posts by others.”
One big advantage of Pages is the ability to show the visual aspects of your brand through a cover image and profile image. In addition, engagement metrics help you see how people are interacting with your page and content. On the downside, you cannot mass-send things like messages or event invitations from a Page, which can be detrimental if events are a big part of your business.
Groups
Although Facebook Groups do still have admins, the idea of a Group is to make the playing field more level, similar to how forums usually work. As the name suggests, Groups emphasize multi-way communication, allowing members to be equal participants in a conversation.
As such, Groups are usually used for, well, groups of people to talk about a certain topic. This can work particularly well if you want to create a place on Facebook where everyone in your company, for example, can meet online and exchange ideas, or where customers can chat.
One advantage of a Group is that you can choose who can be a member. Membership can be open to all, or restricted to people you approve. Also, you have the ability to message all members of the group, or send them all a mass invite to an event. However, Group pages do not have the same capacity for branding that Business Pages do, so there will be very little in terms of visual indication that the group is associated with your company.
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For most businesses, Pages are probably the way to go, unless you really need to control who is seeing your content. Of course, Facebook frequently changes functionality across the entire network, so it’s important to keep up with the changes and adjust accordingly.
Do you have a Business Page on Facebook, or a Group? What features helped you make the decision for one or the other?
