Facebook Groups: The facts

I was recently asked about Facebook groups by two different people, so it is time to clear up the mystery around them.

Facebook Groups are good for:

• A group of people who want to interact online.
• Chatting to many people at one time within the group.
• Sending Facebook messages directly to all member’s inboxes rather than sending individual messages or hoping that they read a post.
• Sharing documents with others – documents can be uploaded to one spot where others can view them.
• Creating a secret or approval-only space. Secret groups are by invite only and can’t be found by searching on Facebook, approval-only groups can be seen in search but not joined without approval.
• Posting where you are in terms of location with the update. For a business this is not really relevant unless the business is mobile, eg. a coffee van.

Facebook Groups are not good for:

• Promoting a business:

– Google doesn’t show groups in search results.
– You can’t get a nice looking URL for a group, like you can for a page.
– The group appears in the space where the newsfeed is in a personal profile and this can confuse people, whereas a page looks different to a profile with a “Like” button and profile picture.
– You can’t move around Facebook as your group posting and interacting, whereas a page can.

• Branding a business – a group can’t be customised to make it reflect the brand of the business as a page can.

• Understanding who is in your group:

– There are no demographic insights into your members, apart from their names – you could click on each one, but that is plain crazy talk!

• Understanding what members are looking at:

– There are no insights into how many people have viewed a post and what feedback there has been.

• Adding links in posts, that is they appear as they do in a personal profile post – you can’t change the link name or the description underneath it.
• Scheduling posts, on a page there are various tools you can use to schedule posts to come out at a certain day and time, with groups you can’t do this.
• Allowing check-ins. Pages can be turned into places when the full address is added, allowing customers to check in when they are at the business, groups can’t do that.
• Adding applications, you are stuck with what you are given.
• Photo albums can’t be created making it hard for people to find images. Plus there are no photos at the top of a group to help with branding as a page has.

I hope this makes it clearer what groups are all about. The bottom line is you want a page if you are using Facebook to promote your business, whatever kind of business it is. A group might be a way to communicate with a group of friends, a mothers group, study group, employees on a project, etc, but it is not a way to grow your business on Facebook.

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks mobile phone socks, Chief Rabbit at Social Rabbit – your guide in the world of social media, founder of Steps – the online Facebook and LinkedIn training course and author of ‘Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business’. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.