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| By Jessica Lee | 28 Comments » |
Some of the world’s most well-known brands are launching marketing campaigns on Facebook, but many just getting started on Facebook may be wondering which is the best way to go: Facebook Pages or Facebook Groups?
While it used to be the case that either would work, these days the decision is clear. For businesses large and small, Pages (now also known as “public profiles”) are the way to go for four important reasons:
- Pages Allow Marketers to Publish to the Stream
- Pages Allow Marketers to Engage Fans with Rich Media
- Pages Let Marketers Analyze How Fans are Interacting with the Insights Dashboard
- Pages Let Marketers Increase SEO
Sorry Groups, but the future of marketing on Facebook will be through the stream.
1. Pages Allow Marketers to Publish to the Stream
With Groups, admins have a few different ways of communicating with members: sending messages to their Facebook inboxes, starting discussion topics on the Discussion Board, posting on the Wall, and uploading photos, links, events, and videos. However, none of these actions automatically make their way to the News Feed.
Compare this to Pages: admins can post status updates, links, photos, and videos to their Walls and get direct access to the News Feed – not to mention get instant feedback when fans like and comment on Wall posts. Pages are a must for organizations who want visibility in the stream.
The New York Times’s recent video generated 128 likes and 50 comments.
versus
A university’s Class of 2008 Group: here’s the Group’s Wall, which doesn’t allow for photo, video, or link attachments; posts are not placed in the News Feed.
2. Pages Allow Marketers to Engage Fans with Rich Media
Not only do Pages have more powerful access to the Facebook home page, but they also have better integration with rich media. Page admins can attach links, photos, and videos to Wall posts – and more recently, application content with the Publisher coming to Facebook Pages. With this Publisher integration on Pages, Pages can be used by organizations in increasingly creative ways, as suggested by the Developer Blog:
- Promote philanthropy, coupons, or sweepstakes. A Page admin can solicit a charitable donation, publish a coupon, or announce a sweepstakes, and the resulting post appears in the streams of its fans, driving traffic to an appropriate tab on the Page or an external site.
- Gauge fan interest. Polling applications are a good way for a band or brand to gather information from its fans.
- Encourage fan interaction. The many artistic applications out there can give fans the ability to create works of art directly on a Page to show their appreciation.
- Host live events. Bands, brands, and public figures all want to interact with their fans and supporters in real time. Use the Publisher to announce a live event and drive traffic to the event.
3. Pages Let Marketers Analyze How Fans are Interacting with the Insights Dashboard
In early May, Facebook announced an upgrade to its Facebook Insights dashboard for Page admins. As we shared back then, new features to the dashboard include:
- A new graph showing different types of fan interactions with the Page over time. Here, you see that the graph combines comments, wall posts, and likes to show relative volume of interactions.
- A new count of active fans this week, with full age/sex/location breakdown.
- A new count of total interactions this week, broken down by type.
- A new post quality rating, from 1 to 5 stars.
- Graphs for Interactions, Interactions per Post, Post Quality, Stream CTR, Posts, Page views, Media Consumption, Reviews
For all organizations, from nonprofits to big corporations, tracking how users are interacting with content is vital. Knowing numbers and seeing trends help Page admins constantly improve their Pages; by contrast, there are no such tools for Groups, leaving Groups admins guessing what they’re members are thinking.
4. Pages Let Marketers Increase SEO!
Increasing your organization’s rank in Google search results is another reason to choose a Page over a Group. When Facebook added Pages to users’ default public search listings, Pages such as Gap, U2, and Obama saw a dramatic increase in their Google search ranking in just one weekend – with over 112,000 new links pointing back to Gap’s Facebook Page, 188,000 to U2’s, and 3.1 million to Obama’s. This is especially true for larger organizations that get vanity URLs for their Facebook Pages. (The latest news is that vanity URLs may be given away in a land rush.)
Conclusion: The Future of Groups?
It’s evident that Facebook Pages are evolving alongside the Facebook Platform in ways that Groups aren’t: Facebook has integrated Pages with the stream and rich media, as well as provided benefits to Page owners in the form of greater analytic tools and SEO. But that said, Groups still have their place among tight-knit communities that want to leverage the social graph in more intimate, exclusive settings. If Groups continue to be popular among users as they have been, then in time we should expect to see them evolving in ways that provide members with a more integrated user experience.
For more comprehensive details and best practices on marketing with Facebook Pages, check out our industry leading Facebook Marketing Bible.
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June 8th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
You can also do things like send message to members of Congress directly from Facebook pages:
http://tr.im/confirmsonia
Click on the “Take Action” tab.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Thanks for the post…
It makes absolute logical sense to me that every business must start a Facebook page in addition to a group. I’ll be doing that soon
June 8th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
[...] 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 1:07 am
[...] Facebook-Werbung 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups Insidefacebook.com [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 6:05 am
[...] 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups " 1. Pages Allow Marketers to Publish to the Stream 2. Pages Allow Marketers to Engage Fans with Rich Media 3. Pages Let Marketers Analyze How Fans are Interacting with the Insights Dashboard 4. Pages Let Marketers Increase SEO " (tags: facebook marketing socialnetworking) [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 11:30 am
[...] 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
[...] Perchè il marketing dovrebbe scegliere le pagine di Facebook invece dei gruppi per fare campagne. Sei [...]
June 11th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I agree strongly. Also, groups began as more of a novelty and as a result they have no been written off by most long time users. They still are great for causes or keeping people up to date on events though.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Having set up a page on FB, I have found it very difficult to work with. Setting up apps to have posts don’t go there they go to my profile. Other apps simply do not have an option of which page to apply. It has been a very frustrating experience with FB — wondering if they could make it easier to use for non-techy people?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
[...] changes in Facebook her conclusions need some revision. Jessica Lee from Inside Facebook also gave 4 reasons why marketers should choose Facebook pages over Facebook groups. Also worth reading is Howard Greensteins article on Mashable – Facebook Pages vs [...]
June 27th, 2009 at 2:57 am
After reading this article, I sat down this morning and was motivated to create a Facebook Page because before I didn’t realise it existed or it’s benefits to my humble business.
Thanks
Now just wondering how you would link to it?
July 6th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Thanks for this article. I must now create a Facebook page for my small business.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
[...] 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups From Inside Facebook: Advantages of Facebook Pages vs. Groups for marketing your business. [...]
July 15th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Our company does have a facebook page and facebook group, but the problem is the group was created before the page, and now I’m struggling to direct all the members from the group to the page. any advice?
July 21st, 2009 at 10:41 am
This article is very helpful. I’ve been tasked by my company to figure out the best way show a presence on FB and I think Pages is the way to go.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:00 am
[...] can use Facebook: either through pages or groups. In a nutshell, you should use pages, not groups. This article tells you why. Filed Under: Circulation, Digital [...]
August 14th, 2009 at 12:03 am
I just translated this arcticle in Italian, please take a look at http://www.nonconvenzionale.com/2009/08/14/4-ragioni-per-cui-le-aziende-dovrebbero-preferire-le-pagine-ai-gruppi-di-facebook/ .
Ho tradotto l’articolo in Italiano, fate un salto qui http://www.nonconvenzionale.com/2009/08/14/4-ragioni-per-cui-le-aziende-dovrebbero-preferire-le-pagine-ai-gruppi-di-facebook/ .
August 17th, 2009 at 7:04 am
[...] want a Facebook Page, not a Group. To decide the best for you, see a post a Mashable and at Inside Facebook. This entry is filed under Blogging, social media, corporate blogs, Twitter, YouTube, social [...]
September 14th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Thanks for pointing out the differences. Always wondered which was better. Pages seems to be the way to go for sure.
September 18th, 2009 at 7:15 am
[...] 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups [...]
October 20th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I actually think that both should be used. For your general brand, Pages are great and I agree with all of the points in this blog post. There may be different product pushes or causes within your brand so a Group works in that instance.
We currently have a page
http://tinyurl.com/yl5aph9
But will start a group for our upcoming book, Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts
http://www.TheFacebookAddiction.com
October 29th, 2009 at 7:11 am
[...] 29, 2009 · Filed under Social Media Thanks to Jessica Lee for her post about the effectiveness of Facebook pages. Between SEO benefits and news feed postings, it’s hard to imagine why marketers [...]
October 31st, 2009 at 1:46 am
It make sense. Thanks for the tip. Having facebook page is like having an interactive room in Facebook- suitable and adjustable for Facebook’s new innovations.
How about for blogs? Is it better to have your blog a page on FB or you can create it through application like the networked blog application?
November 18th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
[...] According to Alexa rank (as of posting of this article), Facebook has already surpassed Yahoo as the number 2 (next to Google) website on the face of the Internet. No wonder there are millions of Facebook addicts worldwide… am I included? Maybe. Facebook has already become a haven for big and small companies and marketers who want to promote their products and services online. What I love in Facebook is that you can promote locally through your local friends. The site’s many effective applications can be useful in promoting your blog and increasing its traffic. Your profile in Facebook is your foundation to that success. You need to get real friends and make yourself a real friend to them. You can do that by meaningfully writing at their walls or commenting on their posts. Once you get tons of real friends, you can have the chance to introduce them to your blog through your Facebook blog page, group and through sharing of your blog posts in their walls or inboxes. However, you should be prudent to preserve your authority and integrity by providing them with articles that are interesting and can become useful to them. Here is a good comparison of using Facebook’s groups and pages to promote your blog – 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups. [...]
December 14th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Great tips and insight into the advantages of pages, I am creating my page tonight!
December 17th, 2009 at 1:22 am
So much more you can do and totally geared up for organisations, and you can keep your personal stuff separate from your organisation.
This is a good article because a lot of people are still confused and can’t distinguish between the pages and groups functions and suitability.
Great features for businesses wanting to interact with their market and it’s still a fairly well kept secret.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:16 pm
[...] » 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups [...]
January 5th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Good article. Thanks