Which is Better for your Business, Club or Organisation
When a business or organisation decides to join Facebook, it can either do it through a page or a group. What is the difference between the two? In general, a page is a public profile that allows companies, organisations, clubs and brands to introduce their services and activities. A group is a community-based feature that gathers people with the same interests to discuss topics and share their opinions.
But the question is, which is better for your business/club/organisation, a Facebook page or group?
Pages beat groups in Google search results
Let’s try something: Go to www.google.co.uk, and search for an organisation’s name or search term, for example “Golf Club Bridgend”. We got a link to Bridgend Golf Club’s Facebook page in 4th ranking of the results page. Notice that no matter how many pages that you scroll through you never get results for groups containing the search term Golf Club Bridgend, or something similar.
After this small test, we conclude that Facebook pages appear in Google search results, whereas groups don’t. So, if you decided to create a group for your business or organisation, you will be missing out on a lot of opportunities coming from Google search engine.
Facebook pages meet people’s expectations
Let’s proceed with another test: Go to Facebook and search for the search term: Golf Club Bridgend. You might see several results (pages, groups, individual accounts…), and if you are not sure which one is the right one, Facebook gives you the option to filter by type. So, to find the right information needed, you will automatically filter the results by page, especially that, at some point, Facebook focussed more on the business pages than the groups.
In order to find specific information related to a business, organisation, club or a brand, internet users will most likely search for the website or for the Facebook page and almost never for the group.
Groups are better to create a community. NOT for marketing the business, club or organisation.
The idea of a group is that those within it, relate to each other, according to a specific matter. Therefore, it creates a certain communication between its members.
Following this concept, Facebook decided to duplicate it and translate it on its platform, to have users discuss specific matters. How it works? When users join a Facebook group, they will receive notifications every time another member posts something. This allows group members to be informed of any activity happening. The logical sequence of this, is an increase of group engagement compared to Facebook pages, which don’t acquire this option. Recently, Facebook started encouraging businesses to create groups within their fan base. Therefore, having both a Page and a Group.
Pages are business-oriented, groups are interest-oriented
When it comes to marketing, Facebook pages are used to promote the business, attract new members to a club, its products or services. On pages, the only obvious content generator is the business itself. Users present on the page can be considered passive, as they only interact with the content received. Therefore, pages are business-oriented, they have for role to introduce products and reply to users’ inquiries.
On the other hand, groups are used not for promotion, (or at least not a direct one) but more for discussions about certain topics. Therefore, people join groups to teach or know more about a specific industry – thus groups are industry-oriented. Group members are active, as they are not only allowed to participate in any conversation but also to start new ones.
Advertising and insights are in favour of pages but…
Due to being a business-oriented platform, pages have more features than groups. Two of the most important ones are: insights and advertising. Creating a Facebook page gives access to data that can help you better understand your activities’ performance and your fans. Also, unlike groups, the page and its content can be promoted with ads in order to reach more audience, in an attempt to attract new fans.
An example:
A golf club wants to attract new members. Which do they choose as the preferred method of attracting new members? A Page or Group? It is obviously a Page, because people will be searching for a golf club and both Google and Facebook favour Pages. Groups won’t show up at all or at least easily. Yet, there is no harm in cross posting items in the group as well. A big issue with Groups is that sometimes you can’t share items outside of the group, and sometimes people not members of the group couldn’t see if they were tagged in a post for example. A group would be a good way of communicating information amongst the people of the group, but not for people outside the group. It would be foolish for a business, organisation or club to have only a Group, and not a Page.
More importantly, a Facebook Page has a variety of useful pieces of information for a visitor of that Page such as address, email, website address, events, jobs, advertising, insights, analytics, ‘people reach’ and ‘engagement’. Groups DO NOT offer all of this.
Conclusion
Now that the difference between a Facebook page and a group is clearer, which one will you choose? Well, both in most cases. At the very least a Page and not a Group. Additionally, if a page wanted to change its name it is very straightforward. A new Page doesn’t have to be set up in this case.
