Facebook Fan Pages & Groups - What are they and Which Should You Use?
For businesses, there are two main methods of propagating information about brand identity, products and events using Facebook - the dominant socia media website. These are by using Groups or Fan Pages.
So what is the difference between a Group and a Fan page and which is better for you and your business?
Fan Pages
A Fan page is a page you set up to promote your business, product or service. They are very common with musicians, but can be used for any type of business. Fan pages rely on Facebook users becoming aware of your page and clicking a Like button (it used to be a 'Become a Fan' button) on the page to become a fan. Once they do this, they will automatically see the status from your Page in their News feed.
Now if you've never used Facebook and I've just lost you, I'll explain further...
On Facebook, users and companies update their own pages with statuses. These statuses can be about what they are doing, what they are thinking or maybe a general message. You can update your status as often as you like, from infrequently to many times a day. For businesses, your updates would be used to engage with your target market, promote brand awareness, advise people of sales or events etc..
Facebook users who are your fans, will automatically see your updates along with updates from all of their friends and other Pages they are fans of, displayed in a News Feed stream on their Facebook home page.
Groups
Groups are usually used to gather a group of people around a common cause or interest. These are often used for the tribute pages you may have heard about in the media. Group moderators (those in charge) can send out messages inviting people to join the group.
Facebook users will often join a group or become a fan after noticing in their News feed that one of their friends has joined or become a fan.
The Main Differences
Fan pages have a web-friendly address, can be indexed by search engines and can be accessed by people who are not registered Facebook users. The main down side is that you cannot perform targeted messaging from a Fan page into a Fan's inbox, so the main means of communications is by status updates.
Groups allow you to perform bulk and targeted messaging, but are missing a number of features that Fan pages have. Also there is a slight psychological suggestion of belonging, when you join a group.
So which tool is best for you?
Some commentators believe groups are more suitable for spreading information and events information because they can be directly built up with targeted messaging, whereas others believe that Fan pages are more viral because they use the slightly more random method of status updates. The problem with relying on updates is that Facebook users who have a lot of friends or are Fans of many pages could miss your updates in the large volume of information that they see.
Some believe that using a combination of groups and pages is best, i.e. use a group to build up a following using direct messaging and once you have a large enough following, switch over to a a Fan page.
In the end though, it's up to you to experiment with these two methods of engagement - only you can determine what truly works best for your organisation.
