Do you know the difference between Facebook Pages or Groups?  AND why you would use either?

Online businesses today have a wide range of resources available to them for purposes of getting their brand image out there, including Facebook groups and/or pages.  These two options offer multiple advantages and benefits.  Though both resources are valuable there are obvious differences between the two.  The most important and obvious difference being the fact that Facebook Pages are intended to allow you to set the stage, and ‘likers’ to join in – a sort of one person to many announcement.   Your Facebook page is home to all your posts, shared content, videos, and conversations.  However,  remember that whenever users post on your Facebook Page, it is only you, as the page owner, and those individuals that visit your Page who will actually see your content. Posts will not be seen in newsfeed of others.  This can have its advantages, but certainly can present disadvantages as well.

Important Advantage of Facebook Groups

On the other side of the Facebook groups or pages coin, Facebook Groups are focused primarily on “group to group”. These are discussions that involve many people not just you as owner and visitors to your page.  The use of this type of business strategy ensures you that any and all posts made by group members will actually go into the newsfeed of all the members.  These activities require no action or involvement on your part.  However, you will still have the capability of deleting or removing any posts or comments you decide are inappropriate.  With Facebook Groups all members of your group share the same level of importance when it comes to creating informative content to be shared.

One of my favourite features is the privacy options, see the graphic below. This allows you to set up groups for many different reasons. EG: Public open to everyone (aka lead generation) all the way to a secret group where people pay you to belong.

Even More Advantages;

1. Marketing to people who have already identified they like what you have to offer
2. Get feedback on existing products and even the ones you have in the drawing board
3. Friends can give access to their friends (depending on the type of group you have)
4. Ideas for new products and or services will come from the conversations within the group
5. You are the leader – the expert 🙂
6. Group chats – Many to Many
7. A free way to build a membership

How to Chose Between Facebook Pages or Groups

The basic structure of Facebook groups or pages is the primary difference between the two and is important to you when choosing your Facebook online presence.  There are indeed several enhanced features that you will have access to when choosing the Facebook Page option.  If you decide you need these options then the Page is the route for you.

These features are not accessible to you with Facebook Groups and include;

• promotion
• analytics
• visibility
• Newsfeed

Facebook Groups have a major advantage in that they allow Group posts which have a higher chance of showing up in member news feeds vs. the single Facebook Page post. Further, with Facebook Groups you have the privacy options available with your group posts that allow you to make the group closed so as to protect disclosure of any sensitive topics if need be.

Benefits of Facebook Pages

1. Increased exposure to all the possible people on Facebook
2. Quickly and easily attract more leads for your business
3. Ability to “super target” your advertising dollars
4. Wealth of information provided by Facebook Insights
5. Put a real “human” face to your business
6. Send traffic to your website
7. Get your Facebook Business Page indexed on Google (this means Google actually found you!)

Overall all the use of Facebook pages or groups is critical to the success of your online presence and the success of your business as well.  Determining which of the two options is best suited to your individual needs is by far the greatest task of all to most business owners. Start with the one you believe will be the most beneficial for you and your business, however you may decide to implement the other later.  It’s absolutely OK to have both Facebook pages and groups!

However now that you have both adding content can be an issue.  Check out this new tool I discovered, I believe you’ll like it.  It’s called Bleu Page Pro and makes it super quick and easy for you to post content to all your social media profiles.  Check it out here http://clickherenow.co/BluePagePro