Facebook allows for 2 networking tools:
- Creating/ joining a Facebook group;
- Creating/ joining a Facebook fan page.
While the major differences become evident only after you try out them first, we decided to create and promote both for Search Engine Journal:
Now what we have found from this experiment..
First and foremost the 2 major differences include:
- Unlike groups, fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed (important for reputaion management, for example);
- Unlike pages, groups allow to send out “bulk invite” (you can easily invite all your friends to join the group while with pages you will be forced to drop some invites manually). Groups are thus better for viral marketing, meaning that any group member can also send bulk invites to the friends of his.
Now let’s go into some details:
| Key Feature | Facebook Page | Facebook Group |
| “Ugly” URLs | No | Yes |
| Hosting a discussion | Yes | Yes |
| Discussion wall, and discussion forum | Yes | Yes |
| Extra applications added | Yes | No |
| Messaging to all members | Yes (via updates) | Yes (via PMs) |
| Visitor statistics | Yes (“Page insights”) | No |
| Video and photo public exchange | Yes | Yes |
| “Related” event creation and invitation | Yes | No |
| Promotion with social ads | Yes (never tried it) | No |
To conclude:
- Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
- Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.
The table says “Messaging to all members” is possible with a fan page. I can’t find any way of doing that on my fan page, so if anybody knows: please post a detailed procedure!
What’s the point of having fans if you can’t reach them? I see myself forced to switch to a group page just because of this…
Go to “Edit page” and look in the right-hand panel – you’ll see there “Send an update to all fans”
Hi Ann, thanks for your quick reply. I’d like to refer to Infinity’s post above:
“Hi, I was wondering if you know how I can send a message to the fans as oppose to an update.. The reason is updates dont notify the user of a new message/update..”
Why doesn’t Facebook allow us to simply send a message as on a group page? I think I agree with most of what people say here, it would think that a site as popular as facebook would make things easy, but no.
An update is the same as a message, the best I can tell. Follow Ann’s directions and you’ll see a page for inputting your own “update” or “message.”
Great! Thank you Ann.
Ann, thanks for the quick, concise, and helpful info!
Yes, you can send an update, but it is very easily overlooked, as it ends up in a separate part of your facebook in-box. How can you send out a message that shows up on other peoples’ news feed or live feed?
Sadly, you create an “update” on the left side of your fan page. It doesn’t send a private msg as I would’ve hoped, it sends an update. So your fans won’t even read it unless they read their Updates in their inbox.
So, just to recap — if you’ve create a “page” with fans, there is no way to send a message to all of your fans and have them receive a notification in their inbox?!? I agree that no one checks their updates on FB. My only cue to go into my FB inbox at all is when I receive a notification in my regular email.
This is so disappointing, because one of my primary reasons for creating a page was to have the ability to send a bulk email to my fans when there necessary (something that is critical for them to see, and a wall post won’t reach everyone).
Also, it seems that with “groups,” when the moderator writes something on the group’s wall, it doesn’t appear in the member’s news feed. So, that’s also unhelpful. That’s part of why I initially chose to create a page instead of a group, never imagining that a page wouldn’t allow me to email my members.
Does ANYONE have the ability to get in touch with FB and tell them the “update” feature is just junk — allow page owners to email their fans!
I have not been able to find the “message to all members” in the facebook fan page either. I am not going to switch back to a group because I like the other features but i do wish it had that particular feature on fanpage.
If I decline a request to become a fan of my friend how will he know i have declined?
Thanks
I have one question :)
How i can do, that post that I post on my page, shows on home page of my fans.
Sorry for my bad english.
Well, since you’re asking questions…. Is there a way for a company to invite new members to join their fan page through Facebook?
If not, what other options have you seen?
Thanks!
Serena
The only way I know of a page inviting new members is to advertise on FB. It can get expensive depending on what you’re selling or what you want to accomplish.
If you have 25 or more fans you can now set a user name for you fan page. You can also create a widget for your website(s) encouraging people to fan your page, as shown on my website. We use the user name in all our signature links in outgoing e-mails.
Helloo, I have just made a group, and if I type in where it says ‘Write Something’ And say if I put in ‘INVITE YOUR FRIENDS (:’ and then click share, but then if I go back onto my home and then it was the I have wrot it on the wall not me as the ‘leader’ of the group, so what do I need to do?
How can a page become a fan of someone else’s page? Every time I try it, my personal profile becomes the fan.
Thanks, Terry
At this time you can’t however you can add the page to your pages favorites by clicking the link below pages pic.
I would like to use facebook to post family related information, mainly pictures and updates. A number of people (roughly 40 family members) will use the page. ckingout pics, adding their own pics, adding comments and sharing personal information with the family. Which would be best? The page or the group?
Thanks!
A group would be much better than a fan page for sharing pics with family. You can even make it private. If you want more power; a Ning network might be even better than a fb group. It is also free and there are more features. The big plus is you can have several slide shows on your Ning page ..plus you can broadcast to all members as you can with fb groups ..and make it private if you wish. Non Admins can invite in a closed network at Ning, fb groups can’t. Go to Ning.com to check it out
I was going to comment to the table posted above the two big differences I found between facebook fan pages and groups:
1) Fan pages are always public, and anyone can join, whereas groups can be set private, or even secret (by invitation only).
2) Fan pages can host multiple photo albums, whereas groups store all photos in one large clump.
I agree with you that a Ning site offers more flexibility and features for family photo sharing. But do we really want to force our friends to create yet another login account somewhere else just to interact with us?
Having to log into a site for access is also viewed badly from a business perspective.
I’m sure Zuckerberg and crew researched these options and deliberately implemented limitations for some reason that suits them.
-Tony
Instead of Ning, try Geni (www.geni.com) – it is a full family tree website, with all the associated benefits like updates, birthdays, photo alerts etc. etc. – plus you get to build a tree …
Just wanted to know how do u change your group view from a wall page view to a normal group view
Hi all, What we recommend our clients is to create a business fb profile and to create the fan page within this profile this way both fan page and business profile look similar. I’d suggest to create your business profile and use this to become fan of someone else’s page as facebook doesn’t let you transfer fan pages yet,hopefully they would do it soon. Hope it helps
This is poor advice. Profiles are designed to represent people. Pages are designed to represent organizations. Organizations that try to shoehorn themselves into personal profiles look like clueless amateurs. This is also against Facebook’s terms of service (they make this very clear as you are setting up a profile) and they regularly shut down such profiles.
If may not be right, but lots of places are doing it. Including my competition! That way they can advertise without paying for it.
I agree that it looks amateurish to do it, even if a lot of other companies are…
Yeah, it may look amateurish , but while my page struggles to get a few hundred fans they get 1000′s of friends. No matter how it looks, it’s the ease and expense of marketing. I tried out the FB ads and I started picking up lots of fans, but every DAY I had to increase my cost! It wasn’t worth it. I do better with my web site and Google.
If I’m not mistaken, you also run the risk of your “business” profile being deleted as it is technically against Facebook’s rules. This happened to a friend of mine who created a profile for her brand. Not sure if she was reported or what.
I just set up a business page with fb, I do not have a personal account. I did this because fb rules that you can not have more than on account and I choose not to mix business and personal info. You mention setting up a business profile and use this to become a fan of somones else’s page. My question is How can a page become a fan of someone else’s page. I seen this posted in a lot of places with no answers.
To have your page (A) become a fan of another page (B), visit the page (B) you want to add and under the profile picture is a link that says add to my page’s favourites. This will “fan” the page (B) on your page (A).
how can i post something as the group name? i have made a group and i want to know how to comment on wall post on the group as the group name also how do i make a post that appears on the live feed?
what is the average turnover rate for facebook fanpages… What is the average growth rate for numbers of fans? What is the average attrition rate for lost fans…
If a fan page gains over 200 fans per month, but has also lost 11% or about 30 per month is that good, bad, or average?
Hi –
I am trying to send an update to my fans – and for some reason it is not going through. I go to edit – send update to fans – write it up, send it out…it never arrives. What am I missing? THANKS for anyone with any wisdom on this one!
I was just experimenting with this a few minutes ago. Your update is probably in the Inbox (at the top of your facebook page), under Updates (one of the options on the left side after you are in you Inbox). The updates go there, but they don’t notify you in any way that they exist, which seems super unhelpful to me.
Same question as Gareth. I’d like to be able to post a group update so it looks like the group generates it and not me. In other words, can the group post to its members walls?
Same question here. I dont think its possible, any ideas?
I would like to know if there is a way to have a group and let fan pages connect to it…for instance I am creating a networking group and think it would be good if the members could connect their pages to it, is this possible?
oooh, so many good questions, fewer answers.
I’m getting that one’s posts on their own fan page will appear on the walls of their fans, but posts on a group page will not. I’ve joined groups myself because I’m interested and I just looked at a few and see new posts/ things I had not had any indication of.
I guess I get e-mails from groups at times. But they can otherwise post without anyone really knowing it’s gone up ?
“Go to “Edit page” and look in the right-hand panel – you’ll see there “Send an update to all fans”
Thank you so much for the above tip, Ann!
Cheers!
Lez ~ Where do you find the Edit page you are talking about? I can find the edit settings but it doesn’t have the ‘Send update to all fans’. Is this only for fan pages or can groups use it too?
Thanks!
One thing that I find that I don’t like about either of these pages is that you have a link to your personal page. I would like to know if there is a way to separate them so that my fan page is what people see first? Is there another way to create a business facebook page that I am not aware of. I feel facebook doesn’t fill all my business needs. I am fairly new to looking into facebook for business reasons, are you able to suggest a more appropriate way to reach potential customers?
I have the same question. From my new business page if I create an invite I have to sift through over 100 of my personal friends who I don’t want to bother with my business stuff. I don’t want any link back to my personal profile at all – I’m so scared of doing activity from one (personal) and it appearing from the other (business) or visa versa.
Can I disconnect my business page from my personal profile?
If both options have their pros and cons, wont it be better to have two of them on like the one ms. Ann did creating both a group and a fan page for Search Engine Journal.
We can then have them link to each other for updates.
I will probably do that with my current page.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/CARX-Philippines/247569671918
How do I create friendly “url” for a fan page or group page?
ie:www.facebook.com/marketing4moms
Great article and site I will be sure to include it in my links!
Thanks, Leigh
I too would like to know how to create a friendly url for a fan page
Did I miss the reply? Can’t find it
Thank you for this article as I was debating whether to do a fan page or group page for something I am working on. I like how you broke down the pros and cons of each. Much appreciated.
Any chance that FB will ever allow Fan pages to send personal messages? I know you can send updates to all members, but nothing alerts them to this update, so it is ineffective. I want to send a message to all members and have it appear as a numbered message that they see and click on. Our organization works with youth who often have hundreds of friends, so their newsfeeds are cumbersome and they miss our posts! If I could message them all, it would be seen quicker! I really wish FB would add this feature to fan pages.
How to promote a website or blog on multiple groups for eg. I am writing a blog on Windows 7, Microsoft. I want to find all groups on Windows 7 in Facebook and become a member and message all its members. Is it possible.
I just started a group on fb. It’s for an alumni association. I have an excel spreadsheet with 1000 names on it (and only about 300 have email addresses). I don’t want to send an invite to the 300 who I have emails for, because many of them don’t have fb accounts. What I do want to do is check to see which of 1000 names have fb accounts and then invite only those people to join the group (not be “friends” with me, just invites to join the group I manage) that have pre-existing fb accounts. Do you know a way to do this?
I had a group for my class, then I changed to a page. I wish I’d stayed with the group, but one facit of pages I still like. Anyway, under you scenario, I’d simply email those with email addresses in groups as large as my ISP would allow.
I’ve tried sending messages to multiple people on Facebook, which you have to do individually unless these people are members of a group or fans of a page. BUT, FACEBOOK doesn’t like you doing that either. Once you send something to 6-8 folks FB is tracking you and can/will shut you down for sending unwanted messages to everyone.
how did you change it from a group to a fan page? I want to do the same, but keep all members of the group
You can’t just change one to the other. If you have a Group & want a Page, then just create the Page.
Then notify all your Group members of the new Page. Urge them to become Fans of the Page. Belittle them. Threaten them. Whatever it takes to get them to become Fans of your new Page.
When they have all jumped over, what I did was remove all who had forgotten to leave the Group. DO NOT REMOVE YOURSELF !!! Then make the Group “private.” Then post to the Group’s wall that it is no longer an active Group. I left it that way for about a month or 2. Then after pointing a few folks trying to join the group to the Page, I left the group. Facebook immediately removes the group because there are no members.
I have a fan page with 2,000+ fans. I am unclear as to why some ‘fans’ tell me they see my posts on their newsfeed while others don’t. I regularly post links to my wall. I notice that on my personal home page, I see posts from each and every page of which I’m a fan. Is there a setting some people turn off so that they can’t see fan page updates?
How do I start a fan page?
I recently started a Facebook group that is about to pass the 5000 member mark.I understand that groups this large lose the ability to message ALL members, however, can you still message members? How many at a time?
Anyone know?
Once you hit 5,000 you complely lose the ability to mass message any member. This means you can’t send a mass message to any group members, not just the members after 5,000.
Your best approach is to keep the group under 5,000 members.
You can close the group to new members and require all new members be approved by you.
The most valuable feature of a group is the ability to mass message so you should protect it at all costs.
You can still reach members by posting on the group wall. Your post will not be sent as an email to member’s email inbox but it will appear in their newsfeed (or so FB says). I just tested it on one of my groups but didn’t receive anything in my newsfeed.
This is what I was looking for. Its so sad that I have 6000 members and couldnt send message to all member.
Is there any way to display group member box like a fan box in my website??
Thanks.
How do you find the URL for a Page (and also for a Group) to put the link on a website, or an e-mail signature?
Hi,
I’ve started a CaseCrown fan page after making a CaseCrown profile. I didn’t create the fan page via personal profile due to being unable to change the fan page’s responsibility to someone else.
For any fan page, do you know if its possible to share responsibility or give the fan page to another person? I’m planning to make a PMI OC chapter facebook page for fun but second thought what I should do with either adding it from my personal profile vs. making a new PMI OC chapter fb profile.
Thanks for the information. By the way, awesome chart.
Diana W.
@DianaWei
Hi, I have a personal Facebook account and then started a Fan Page for my business. I am trying to promote stores that carry my line of hats. But when I try to post something to the Fan Page my personal profile picture shows up and not my business profile image. I tried to make my fan page not have anything to do with my personal page but that did not work.
A repeating question about custom URLs for a page, just follow this link – http://www.facebook.com/username/ to choose a nicer URL for your profile and your pages.
Hi
I have developed a group page for my students at the college where I teach. It is very successful. However, I now have around 700 photos on it and I can’t figure out how to put them into albums relating to the different places they were taken. It takes an age to go through them all!!
Any ideas?
Thanks
Kim
Hi Kim,
Sadly, you can’t organize photos on a facebook group page. Lots of people have petitioned them to add this feature, but it still is not available. That is one of the benefits to a fan page over a group page. With a fan page, you can organize your photos in albums just like you can on an individual page. Don’t know why facebook decided not to do this for group pages too?
Hi, Billy. I must be missing something. I have a fan page, and would like to put our fans’ 750+ photos into categories (albums) by subject. I see how to create a new album, but not how to access my fans’ photos to move them from the general “Fan Photos” album into the more specific albums. Can you help me?
Were the photos on your group page uploaded by your friends? I would like to start a group/page but the friends of the group NEED to upload their own photos, not via me. Can this be done?
How can I post an update through my business fan page from my normal account?
For example, I saw a post from someone that has a business fan page as such:
“Bob Bradley via BradleyCorp: My post goes here”
Bob Bradley is the individuals account, and clicking that takes you to his page. BradleyCorp is the business fan page, and clicking that takes you there.
Any pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
I have the same question: I would like my fan page updates to post to my personal profile and news feed. This way my facebook Fan Page will gain greater exposure amongst ‘friends’ that have not become ‘fans’ yet. Similarly to the previous example, my friend who is an attorney was able to do this as such:
“John Smith via John Smith Law: Post goes here”
This update appears in the news feed of all ‘friends’ of his profile page. Clicking on the hyperlinked ‘John Smith Law’ takes you to his business fan page, therefore providing greater exposure for his business regardless if his friends have become fans.
I’ve scoured the settings of my own fan page but can’t seem to find any way to do this. Facebook had me select what type of fan page I was creating during setup; I wonder if this has anything to do with this feature??
Nice topic.
Conclusion: Concentrate on FaceBook Fan Page.
Both are useful depending on your purpose. But if you’re a company i’d go for Facebook Page.
Can you upgrade a group page to a fan page so i can link it to twitter? it seems u cant link group pages externally.
Thank you Ann: and you have Facebook page?
I run an alumni group on FB; the school has no official alumni organization. Am I allowed to start a fan pages account for this alumni group that is not official?
I started a fan page at the university where I used to work. My position was eliminated and need to disconnect from them. I am still an admin since it’s tied to my account. I want to start a fan page for my business. Is there a way to transfer the university fan page off of my account?
Nice.. So it’s better fan page ya..?? Thank You Ann.
Quick question. I need to make a club page that I can add friends to but facebook will not allow me to put Revolution RPM as the first and last name. Is there any way around this? I saw it on BIGFISH ARIZONA’s page but I have no idea how they did it. Im actually trying to mirror their page. Anyone got some ideas? Anything will help… Thanks!
I want to start a group page for a share trading group, but not sure if I need a group page or a page, it will have about 25 members, we also would like to past affiliate links there as well so as members can buy products that others have recommended, any thoughts on what is the best thing to do. I also am a bit confused how to actually start the group page as I dont want it connected to my profile, how do I start the group away from my profile, and how do I leave it open for anyone to join as it doesnt need to be closed. hope to hear from someone
The bottom line is very clear. Pages work for celebrities. But there is no real use for them. Groups are the only functional entity on Facebook. They enclose fans / friends / buyers in a space, and allow one to share information with all of them in an efficient, simple manner. Pages have no business functionality as far as I can tell.
James,
I think you are missing the potential in applications on your facebook page, which you cannot have in on a group.
For example we use applications for receiving hostel reservations on our page, do competition amongst guests, guests adding their own stories and photos in format different from what is supplied by Facebbok, etc.
So while it might require a bit more effort there are so many applications out there you can use that I think it is worth it, as it will allow you to have a much more interesting interaction with your customers, providers, business partners.
Even for a simple purpose where you’re not worried about apps, there are uses for both pages and groups. Within any realm, businesses, clubs, whatever, there are applications for pages and groups.
Groups are better for organizing, with less of a focus on communications.
Becoming a member of a group signifies an active interest in being part of whatever is being “grouped” — participating in discussions, posting stuff, potentially showing up to IRL events. Groups also have better events options and the critical ability to push messages and invitations into their inbox where even infrequent Facebookers will see it.
Pages are better for publishing, with less of a focus on participation.
People who wouldn’t ever want to actively participate in your club or organization might be interested in what you have to say. With a page you can publish information in such a way that all of your fans can see it through sharing links, posting pictures, writing notes, or just updating your status.
The point about having both is excellent. A given company might have a group for the purpose of fostering communications between and gatherings of its active “user group” and a fan page that would be of interest to employees, customers, partners, stockholders, etc.
How can I send invitations to join my page to those people in my mailing list who have not joined facebook as yet??
I made a fan site and it’s linked to my personal site….I cant seem to get any notifications from fans and when I share it goes to my personal site. The personal site seems to have more control. Is there a way to spit or is there a way to fix this problem. thanks
Is it possible somehow to post and write on your own Facebook Fan Page from your Personal Profile?
THANKS!
Why can’t a group page be linked to twitter? I would love for my updates to my group to appear on my twitter page as well. Very frustrating.
Interesting, I was quite lost between these 2 promotion concepts… now it’s time to build my fan page (instead of a group..)
Can you post notes on a fan page? I haven’t figured it out for a group page yet.
Now that most websites have automatic facebook links on their websites. how can i get the post to go directly to my business page instead of my personal page.
Hi Ann,
I’m having trouble linking my fan page to my cause page, is this even possible to do? Also, when I post photos and updates to both pages my personal profile shows up and the person who posted it, is there a way make it so it looks as if my organization posted it not my personal profile?
Thanks!
Is it possible to comment or ‘like’ something on my fan wall however have it displayed as my own personal account, rather than a comment from the fan page? Yes these accounts are inter-linked
I’m an admin of a Fan Page.
We created an event on the Fan Page and want to invite all our fans. Is there any way to do this? Whenever I try to invite people, I can only choose from my personal friends (not the Fan Page’s fans).
How is an update about the event different from an invite to the event?
Thank you!!!
Is it possible to write a post from my fan page wall and have my fans see it on their home page? I have put up several posts but it seems it only shows up on the fan page– not on my fans home pages. Very frustrating. What are the exact instructions to ensure my fans receive it on their home page feed???
No one has answered Alice, Jay and Kim (same question put in different terms), perhaps because no one has the answer.
Question: When subscribing to an automatic FB feed, how can I get the post to go directly to my business page instead of my personal page (and/or business group instead of personal page)?
Thanks, and great blog.
I have had a personal fb page for a while. Recently I started a fan page for my business. I get to the fan page by logging into my personal account and putting my business name in the search box. I am trying to post a youtube video on my fan page, but it shows up under my personal account. Is there a way to seperate these two pages without loosing what I have done?
When I type http://www.facebook.com/Tazkirah it will goto my profile page.
How can I setup as when I type http://www.facebook.com/Tazkirah , it can go to my fan page ->
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tazkirah/10150100264160440
Can anyone help me ?
Some answers I think…
I have both a Facebook “Group” and “Fan Page.” I use the group to email all members. That works great! To invite people to join your group…you can click on “Invite” on the left side menu of your group and either invite people on your “personal” Facebook page to join OR type-in email addresses of non-Facebook people to join. Hope that answers that question for you guys.
To post a message from your group on the “wall” instead of the post coming from your “personal” account…I go to my “Group” page…then write the post…and then hit “Home” to see if it shows up. It should show up as follows:
Personal name>Business Group name> Title of post
So, for me it says:
Debbie Weinstein>Baby Chick Designs> etc…
It still says your personal name…but includes the business name as well.
FYI…I’ve really use my “Group” more than my Fanpage b/c I can send emails to all my members…the bad thing is that you have to have 1,000 members to get a nice, short link name.
Hope this helps!
@Shah – Your username is setup to your personal profile. You need to assign it to your Fan Page instead. To do this you have to first change your personal profile username (you can only do this once so pick your new personal name carefully) to something else. This will free up the username Tazkirah. Then goto facebook.com/username and assign your fanpage the username Tazkirah. Assuming your fan page has 25 fans you’ll see that option. I just had this exact issue – I just did a write-up if you need more info http://www.iphone4idiots.com
Good Luck
I heard that Facebook status updates of public pages are to be included in real time results on Google which could make fan pages more favorable for some users. Additionally, who said it had to be either or – fan pages or groups, why not both?
I’ve seen many debates around this FB group vs. Fan page. And I might say this article brings quite good arguments for both.
Hi,
thanks for great, explanatory article – especially the comparison table/graphic!
Please help – how do I find out what pages I’ve become a Fan of on FB?
thanks
Click on Home (upper right). Click on Ads & Pages (in the column on the left). This should give you a list of Pages of which you are a Fan.
Hi,
Can you please tell me once you have a fan page, how do you add links to it? I have tried, but it always goes to my personal facebook page.
Thanks!
I had the same problem. Here’s what I did. Start at your Fan page, find what you want to post say a youtube video. Click on the facebook share icon, when the comment box comes up make your comment and then cut and paste the link up at the top of the page. I have done this with many things (newspaper articles, videos…) and they all have worked. Hope this helps
You say:
“fan pages are visible to unregistered people”
I tried it and the link presented the FB login page and not the fan page itself.
What link should I use?