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Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
Oct 21

Revisited: Facebook Groups vs. Brand Pages

Nicole Landguth

by Nicole Landguth
Category: Best Practices, Digital Influence

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Since the launch of Facebook brand pages, there has been confusion as to whether your brand or cause should set up a page or a group. As brand pages grew in popularity and were given more and more features, it seemed like discussion of groups dropped off. Finally, on Monday Facebook updated the look and function of Facebook groups and now that they dust has settled I think it’s worth revisiting the age old question, “Do I want a Facebook group or a brand page?”

Brand Pages

Brand pages are still the best choice for 99 percent of brands or campaigns. Facebook created them specifically for artists, public figures, and companies with the understanding that these are part of the landscape but different from a friend.

With a brand page, you can create a social media hub with photos, video, discussions, blogs, events, special offers, and updates all in one place. The advantages for fans is their ability to control how intrusive these brand pages are to their experience- becoming a fan is less commitment than joining a group and fans have more control over what correspondence they receive from each brand page.

For brands, the pages offer advantages such as:

  • Personalized URLs
  • Options to add fans via SMS
  • Ability to post updates to all fans’ news feeds
  • Administrator Facebook hub: you can buy advertising, check which brand activities have been popular with fans, and see a huge amount of demographic information on your fans

A major draw back is that you can’t invite anyone to your page; but you can let people know you’re out there by buying advertising or promoting the page through existing channels (put the URL on your business cards, add a Fan Box to your website, create signage at events prompting people to become fans via SMS). Lack of proper promotion is the biggest obstacle to a success brand page but that’s a post in its self…

Groups

Facebook groups are a special case because they are more intimate for the members than a brand page- and yes you can have both IF you have the time to maintain them. Facebook groups are like the email list serves of old except that they keep content and discussion chains housed in one place and (through privacy settings) allows others outside of the list serve to see it. As an administrator you can control whether members and administrators can post and who can see your activities. The main advantages that groups have over brand pages are:

  • Privacy settings
  • Ability to send group members messages
  • Inviting friends to become members

As a brand page administrator you can only send Updates that live outside of the Facebook inbox and don’t notify the members via email. Facebook set this up so that Facebook inboxes wouldn’t become like email inboxes (I swear I’ve unsubscribed from J.Crew like ten times so why do I still get two emails a day?). Consequently Updates are less likely to be read that direct messages to group members.

To be effective, these groups need to be focused and have members who are really interested in what you have to say to the point that they don’t mind receiving messages in their inboxes. For campaigns, Facebook groups are a good tool to organize a group of brand enthusiasts or an advisory panel in a way that’s both convenient and open to many people on Facebook through search.

Facebook’s newest announcement gave group pages a facelift (no pun intended) to look more like brand pages and to make members’ interactions with the brand page available in the news feed to friends who are also group members (NOT to friends who aren’t in the group). The group pages now have tabs like brand pages do, giving administrators full use of any applications such as events, videos, blog feeds, games, etc.

For more about brand pages, groups, and Facebook trends check out my Facebook Trends Series and the Facebook Bootcamp for PR that started it all.

Thanks to Flickr user striatic for the photo used here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Best Practices, Digital Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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21 Responses to “Revisited: Facebook Groups vs. Brand Pages”

  1. medXcentral (Jim) Says:
    October 21st, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    Did Facebook lift the limitation on how many Group members could be addressed in one message? If I recall, the key difference is Pages have no limit where Groups messages are limited to 5,000 members.

    That hurts if someone has a large community. Can you offer clarification on that?

  2. Nick S. Says:
    October 21st, 2009 at 3:46 pm

    Great post. Very helpful in distinguishing between groups and brands. Well done.

  3. Nicole Landguth Says:
    October 21st, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Jim,

    I’m in contact in Facebook and I’m going to confirm the 5,000 cap is still in existence. In any case, I think a group of that size would fall outside of the kind of brand or campaign use discussed here. If someone has a good example of a brand group that large please share but I have yet to see one.

    I CAN confirm that groups can be over 1 million members because I want to send a virtual eye-roll at friends who invite me to some variation of this group http://tinyurl.com/yhc5tqu.

  4. Kohlben Vodden Says:
    October 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 am

    Great post! The only thing I would like to challenge is the comment that you cannot invite friends to a page. There is an option to “suggest to friends” It’s in the menu right under the pic on the fan page. It effectively works exactly the same as inviting friends to a group, but you cannot add a personal message. Might I suggest you check out an article I wrote on Facebook pages that explains how you set it up and invite people to join. You can check it out at http://marketing4recruiters.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/secure-your-business-name-vanity-url-for-your-facebook-fanpage/

    Cheers,

    Kohlben Vodden

  5. medXcentral (Jim) Says:
    October 22nd, 2009 at 9:36 am

    Thanks. I look forward to the results of your contact with Facebook. The scope of my project is networking healthcare and those who need them. THAT’s a lot of folks. So, I’m trying to think my way through this from the ground up. I’m a one man show… so, I need all the strategic intelligence I can find. Thanks, in advance, for that.

  6. Rob Humphrey Says:
    October 22nd, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Groups are like a frat.

    Pages are brand profiles.

    It is that simple.

  7. links for 2009-10-23 | In the Hand of Dante Says:
    October 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    [...] Updates to Facebook groups dont change much- why still want a brand page (tags: facebook) [...]

  8. Matt Says:
    October 25th, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Good recap. One small clarification - user profiles do actually list pages a user is a fan of.

  9. Nicole Landguth Says:
    October 26th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Thanks for the correction, Matt! I’ve amended the post.

    Cheers,
    Nicole

  10. Owen Mack Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 10:52 am

    Facebook describes pages as being “for real celebrities, bands and businesses to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner.” Facebook has been striving to make pages authoritative, by removing rogue brand pages. Groups are for individuals who want to organize around some passion, club, or activity.

  11. Ryan Shell Says:
    November 2nd, 2009 at 11:54 am

    Two other things worth mentioning.

    I like the Page option 90% of the time, but one value I see in Groups is the ability to invite people to events.

    The one huge negative I recently experienced with a Group is the simple fact that there isn’t an easy “delete” button. Apparently you have to delete every group member and then delete yourself to get rid of the group. What a process!

    Thanks for the info.

    Ryan Shell
    http://www.ryanshell.com
    @ryanshell

  12. Daniel Says:
    November 2nd, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    I agree. I find groups are helpful for quick events, etc. Things that are especially timely, but need more than a simple “Event” page.

    Fan Pages are good for programs that need some longevity.

  13. Mark Zohar Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    Great post. One of the areas we focus on is increasing engagement on brand Fan pages through our 3D immersive social applications. Here’s an example of something we put together for Adidas: http://view22.demo.com/adidas.

    We’re also introducing a 3D virtual gifting app for brands (full 3D animation in browser) to promote on their Fan page.

    You can check out our consumer app on Facebook here: http://apps.facecbook.com/my-threed-scenes.

  14. Top Health Says:
    November 27th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

    Very informative. Thanks for the great post.

  15. Tom Says:
    December 17th, 2009 at 6:19 pm

    I have a question, that I never see answered anywhere. I understand that when a face book group reaches 5,000 members, it can no longer be used to send out a mass message. However, can it still be used to create a group related event? I have seen where people say that you can no longer “invite all members” once you reach 5,000. But what I am wondering is if my group had 20,000 people, could I create a related event and then manually invite the people? Thank you to anyone who may know this.
    -Tom

  16. Facebook Bootcamp Redux: Creating A Converstation Calendar For Your Brand Says:
    February 1st, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    [...] a brand has established a Facebook Fan Page or Group (for a refresh on the difference read here) the next step is to recruit/invite people to join you. There are a couple ways to do this: some [...]

  17. Diane Sherbert Says:
    March 5th, 2010 at 11:34 am

    Can you create photo albums on groups?

  18. fuzzy logic rice cooker Says:
    March 27th, 2010 at 2:20 am

    thanks for this very informative article. I’m still debating on whether to create a brand page or a group. But its good to know my options nonetheless.

  19. Hiya Tran Says:
    June 17th, 2010 at 7:26 pm

    Didn’t Face book lost a few millions of its members because users got frustrated with it? A few million members is still small chump change for facebook.

  20. Facebook Like Says:
    July 25th, 2010 at 10:55 am

    I always had the troubles picking between the who for my sites. I’ve always chosen to go as a group though as i found i was able to spead the word about my buisness’s more easily. I’ve never really looked at Brand Pages though but it seems like a good idea.

    Thanks for the help.

  21. rich janitor review journalist Says:
    August 2nd, 2010 at 2:57 am

    I’ve never had much luck with the fan page or group pages and i’ve tried many different things with them

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