Facebook pages vs Facebook groups for Blogs

I have always emphasized the importance of Facebook presence for a Blog or any brand. Being one of the largest social networking community, if you use Facebook properly for your marketing effort, you might not need to be dependent on search engines for traffic and sales.  Facebook offers many ways to promote your brand on FB and two most important are:

Facebook Pages and Facebook groups.

Both have their advantages as well as disadvantages. Here you will get to know whether you should create a ‘page’ or a ‘group’ for your blog.

Now, you could be either one of those Bloggers, who follow the year age trend and just create a Page to inform your Blog readers about latest updates and use it to connect with them. Though one major issue or I would say, the problem with Facebook pages is, it’s more like one to many communication. When any of your fans need a query to be resolved, his messages never get so much impact, and you miss out the biggest opportunity of giving a community-like feeling.

Let me track back to Blog community feature here: You can create a community around your blog only when, your readers can interact with each other and not with just you.

When it comes to a Facebook page, it can be defined as a platform where it is: â€˜you’ and your ‘fans’. While a Facebook group is a platform which enables a ‘discussion’ between people who share the same interests. With a ‘page’ you can provide your fans with updates, and it’s not meant for your fans to interact with each other. If you want your fans to interact with one another and discuss the things they are interested in, then creating a ‘Group’ if for you because it will provide you and your fans with a ‘discussion environment.’

Difference Between Facebook Pages and Facebook groups:

Facebook Group Vs Facebook Pages
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Let’s look at some of the differences between Fb Pages & Fb groups:

The Purpose 

A ‘Page’ is meant for representing a particular brand or a person. A ‘Group’ provides an environment where a group of people can interact with each other. A page is must have for every Blog and brand whereas a Facebook group is an additional option to take your Fb marketing efforts to next level. Officially, Facebook offers many features which are “Page” only options. Like you can use Fb advertising to get more fans or use sponsored stories to make your content reachable to more audience.

Similarly, Facebook groups offer some unique features like “Seen by”, which will let you know how many people and who all have seen your posts on the group.

The Restrictions

The ‘Page’ can be made public or admin-only. The ‘Group’ can be made public, or closed in which it’s visible but a request needs to be made, or a secret in which it can’t be found by search or other means.

Chat

Facebook pages lack the feature of instant chatting using Fb chat, where as a Facebook group members can interact using Chat feature. Which is very useful if you give an alternative way for your members to shout and communicate with each others.

Viewing other fans or members

Other people can’t be viewed on a ‘Page’. Members can be viewed in a ‘Group’.

Other than the above-mentioned points, anyone can search, find and then join a ‘Page’ unless it’s set to admin-only. The admin of a page can ban or delete a person. In a ‘Group’, an existing member can add another member. However, this can lead to the group getting out of control. The admin can delete or ban a member of the group. Like Pages, Facebook Groups offer role like a moderator, which helps admin to add more people to manage groups effectively.

Groups won’t provide you with tabs or applications. This means that you won’t be able to have a competition, a contact page or even a welcome page, etc. Having a group provides you with a ‘shared documents’ option.

The posts made in a ‘Group’ don’t go to the newsfeed, and a ‘notification’ tells about the post. This is beneficial in the sense that the members won’t miss out on a post.

However, if a lot of members are posting, then it can become annoying, and people turn off the notification option. This leads to people not coming back and seeing if something new has been posted. This is where a strict moderation rule comes into the picture.

Another thing which is common about both Pages and groups is Branding. Both have adopted new Facebook timeline cover picture, which will help you to showcase your brand.

  • How to keep your Facebook group Secret

Guideline for creating FB group for your Blogs:

I have been running a Facebook group with the name Bloggers lounge for long, and it has been a great initiative for young bloggers to interact and communicate with others.

However, one limitation which I have found using a generic name and not your brand name is keeping the group focused when thousands of people join the group. Over the time, when group members increase,  it makes it hard for admins to control and being a completely open community, you can’t impose certain rules, banning defamers to keep the group spam free and clean. Here are few things which you would like to consider when creating a Fb group for your Blog:

  • Keep your group Closed. (Don’t keep it public or private)
  • Members could be added after admin approval; this will reduce the spam addition.
  • Add 1-2 moderators whom you can trust and are active on Facebook. This will help to reduce the spam.
  • Use your exact brand name to create a group, and this will ensure brand visibility and give a more professional touch to the group. You can do so by going to edit and select the name.
  • Keep posting by members open; this will help them to post their queries.

Conclusion

In the nutshell, the Facebook page is a must have for any brand and officially Facebook promote pages for using as marketing purpose. Having a group for your brand or blog will help your readers to create a discussion forum without spending a dime. Moreover, since Facebook is for real people, spam on Facebook groups will be less compared to any question and answers forum or discussion forum you are creating.

Do let me know how many of you have created a Group and a Page for your Blog and how you are using it for your Facebook Marketing effort?

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

12 thoughts on “Facebook pages vs Facebook groups for Blogs”

  1. Ben Mckinley

    Some good points raised. I’m currently trying to decide which is better for me and my niche blog. I think something that is being overlooked is that while a group offers more user engagement… it’s really more labour intensive in that you have to moderate the spam.

    I feel like a valid option would be to create a page for your blog, utilize existing groups in your niche. That way you get many of the benefits of groups without the added workload. The trick with this of course is not to come across as spammy when promoting your blog in other groups, and the best way to do that is produce quality content that people WANT to see and read.

  2. BHEL

    Excellent explanation on the difference between Facebook Fan Pages and Facebook Groups. Looking forwarding to many more informative posts. Thankyou.

  3. george t mathew

    I recently created a facebook group for my blog and the results are amazing. Whenever I post something on it, it gets pinned to people’s walls and they have got to notice it which brings a lot of free traffic to my blog. With facebook page they may or may not see what I have posted!!

  4. Izzy

    I use Facebook Pages, in fact I am not a member of any Facebook groups. I did follow a few in the past but found them to be quickly overrun with spam.

  5. Karan Batra

    The reach of Facebook Pages seems to have decreased in the recent past whereas this is not the case with Facebook Groups… Most of my facebook fan page members are not getting updates from my page but they all are getting updates from Groups..

    1. Anand Kumar

      Hi Karan & Everybody,

      Yep, I have also seen that many people are now a days engaged in FB groups rather than pages. I think that is most because they finds people of same interest in a single place. That is why groups are trending these days. Sametimes i also feel FB groups are not complete solution. If you join any group. Then in sometime you realize members are asking similar questions many times.

      Also as Rajeesh said in very first comment, “anyone from your friends list can add you to a group making it more spammy”, I hate this feature very much. FB should re-think on this feature. Inviting to a group is permissible but adding to a group without asking the user is silly.

  6. Santanu

    I am completely agree with Rajeesh. Facebook pages shows your blog posts only and represents your brand and blog. But a group is like everyone can come and post their individual posts. Seems like everybody is trying to promote their blog, but I don’t think anyone really cares what the post all about. A real spam….

  7. stargaterich

    Excellent post on differentiation between a Facebook page versus Facebook group. Based on this article I suppose in a nutshell one can derive the fact that a group is good to establish and build relationship with customer while a page is good to collect leads.

  8. Aditi

    Hey Harsh,
    I do think that facebook groups are very helpful where you can interact with a lot of people who are sharing information on the same group. Regarding pages, you can update it as accordingly. Well, I like reading the concepts that you have shared such as chat, viewing members, etc. I do prefer for facebook groups as it is more beneficial for business. Thanks for the share!!

  9. Rajeesh Nair

    I personally don’t like Facebook groups. At first I did engage in blogging based groups such as Bloggers Lounge, Techism etc. but then I think its more like Q&A platform than a community. And the worst part of facebook group is anyone from your friends list can add you to a group making it more spammy whereas Facebook Pages is one platform to place your business on a global platform and if used well it would yield greater benefits as well.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      I agree with what you said Rajeesh…. But all this problem comes with the moderation rule… That’s why I mentioned in the guideline “Member should be added by admin approval only”
      more over, as I mentioned a Group purpose is to create a community.. Where a member can ask questions and other members can answer it…

    2. Rounak Baral

      Groups Like Techism , Blogger Lounge is made for that purpose only . So you can not judge them as a Business purpose. But it is a blogger community as well where a newbie blogger can also interact with the pros which is beneficial for them.

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