Many our internet marketing customers ask us a question, "What are the main differences between a Facebook group and Facebook page and which one should we use for social media marketing?"
Well, the first answer is that you should try to use both if possible; however, here is a brief description of the main differences between the two:
1. Control and Access
A Facebook group is fully controlled by the administrator of the group who has an option of approving all members who would like to join. In addition, the admin can make the group to be accessible to everyone, to friends only or to be completely secret and not open to the public. Access to a page, on the other side, can only be restricted by certain location and ages. So a group in this case is more like a private club.
2. Emails vs Updates
Group admins can send email messages to the group that has maximum 5,000 members. Page admins have not limit on how many fans they may send the updates to.
3. Personal vs Corporate
The group acts more like a private club and has more personal interactions. Groups are also closely connected to the people who administer them, so the content in the groups reflect the type of personality of the administrator(s). The pages, on the other hand, don't list the administrators and are being accepted more as corporate/company entities. One very important distiction is also that the pages are being indexed by search engines while groups are not.
In conclusion, groups are better for organizing more on a personal level and for a smaller scale audience; whereas, pages are better for businesses, brands, movies, conferences...people who are not necessarily connected to the admin personal account.