If you’re a frequent Facebook user, you must have liked plenty of Facebook pages and joined countless Facebook groups. But have you ever given a thought as to how these two are different?
Do you know which one of these can help you socialize more and which one of these can help you run a small business of your own? We’ve got all these and many more questions answered for you.
Generally, a Facebook page is public as it can be used to supply information regarding an entity so it is accessible to everyone. On the other hand, a Facebook group can be both public or private. In a private Facebook group, you can ask questions to allow people to join it.
Facebook groups allow more public interaction than on Facebook pages because pages have all kinds of audiences from new to old, unlike groups that have only specific people. For instance, a Facebook page regarding a web series will have a combined audience but a group regarding a specific character from the series will just have his/her fans.
First of all, let’s talk about the importance of a Facebook page and its purpose.
Purpose of a Facebook page
The only difference between a Facebook page and a profile is that it’s public; it allows businesses, public figures, and other entities to mark their presence on Facebook. A Facebook page allows a business to add a call to action button along with the complete contact information so that it becomes easy for them to promote their business.
Facebook pages offer demographics and stats on how well the business is performing or how much of the targeted audience has the business reached. Pages are specifically designed to cover business needs such as the need for advertisement, it offers a variety of packages for ads such as weekly or monthly which are quite cheaper than TV ads.
In addition to this, pages have all the necessary information related to the business or a person to make it easy for the audience to follow. Moreover, Facebook has different types of features in a page e.g. go live, update status, pin a location, etc.
Importance
Nowadays, a business must have a business Facebook page to keep its customers up to date about offers and business proposals. The trend has shifted from television to social media so to run a successful advertising campaign the need for a Facebook page is inevitable.
Similarly, it is also equally important for a public figure to have a Facebook page on their name to interact with their audience or fans, showing their daily life routine as pages also allow you to add videos and images.
Moreover, it is important to have a page through which different surveys can be done regarding different products which become easy for businesses to launch without any hassle of printing brochures and incurring extra costs.
A Facebook page is the best platform to interact with customers and fans and request feedback regarding services and products offered. It helps in community building in several ways:
- Organizing polls related to different stuff.
- Fans’ interaction.
- Requesting feedback regarding a product or service.
- Interaction with the audience by going live from the page.
Advantages
Facebook pages are authentic, unlike groups where anyone can create a group. E.g. if we search for BMW on Google, the first result would link us to their official Facebook page.
Pages are the best platform for marketing products because they are business-oriented, and people would only interact if the post would be in their interest.
Pages provide analytics and insights. For instance, how many people have visited the page.
Disadvantages
The reach on a Facebook page is comparatively less than on a group because group posts are often shown on your timeline unlike a page post because you need to pay for it to reach the targeted audience.
A page requires the owner to Interact daily by posting stuff otherwise it will go unnoticed.
You don’t have full control of a Facebook page. For instance, you can change the cover photo or post something but still, you don’t have control over other things such as the layout and features.
Purpose of a Facebook group
There is a huge difference between Facebook pages and Facebook groups. As we now know that Facebook pages are mainly used for business activities, whereas, Facebook groups are used and run by different communities.
Facebook users can become part of the group after they are accepted by the group community. However, if the group is public then anyone can join the community. After becoming a member of the group, users can post, comment, links and share group content. There are no such restrictions with Facebook pages.
Facebook groups are created to grow a community of people with the same interests like movies, gaming, sports, etc. The members with the same interests, interact with each other as they are able to share their opinions and suggestions in a safe environment.
Admins of the Facebook group can set different rules and regulations for their group to create an ideal platform for the community to engage. Sadly, this feature is not present on Facebook.
Unlike Facebook pages, we can make the group completely discrete from the general public. Only specified members can join the group through invites. Without an invite, users can’t find the secret Facebook group.
Advantages
Facebook group is an amazing platform to find suggestions, reviews, information, and sometimes jobs.
Groups with a higher number of members help the posts to achieve improved reach. However, with Facebook page users have to constantly run ads to achieve significant reach which can be costly.
Different businesses can improve their relationship with the audience through groups. Group interactions with customers are beneficial for improving the brand image.
Disadvantages
It is kind of a hassle for the group admins to manage the huge community. Checking if everyone is following the community guideline is time-consuming as well.
Facebook pages can show up on Google searches while Facebook groups don’t.
For a group to become popular and interesting, maximum members have to engage otherwise the group will have minimum content.
Conclusion
Facebook pages offer features through which businesses can easily provide their customers with what they demand as it becomes easy for businesses to know the needs of their customers. The Facebook poll allows conducting surveys regarding different products and services which saves time and costs.
On the contrary, Facebook groups work completely differently but still, they come in handy in some ways e.g. customers can post personal reviews and opinions which they can’t post on the page. Users can experience both Facebook features and decide for themselves since it’s free to create a page or a group on Facebook.