Make Money from Blogs » Facebook Group

Differences between Facebook Fan Page and Groups ? Which is better (contd..)

ashish — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:36:52 +0000

The previous post (link) had started out with an analysis of the differences between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group, and based on that analysis, and comparing with your need, you would need to figure out which one is more suitable for your needs. Here is the concluding part of that article:
1. Groups can send messages to their members as long as members are less than 5,000, while Page Admins can send updates to any number of fans
2. You can directly update content from your blogs and other areas such as Twitter by using applications such as RSS, Networked Blogs, etc, while Groups need manual updates – this if you want your blog posts to automatically appear on Facebook, then a Fan Page is the way to go
3. You can promote your Fan Pages through the use of targeted ads, something not possible with Facebook Groups. Through ads, you can get a large number of fans
4. Groups allow a far higher degree of control over who all can join the group or not, including ensuring that members need to be approved before being allowed inside, while the level of control in a Page is far lower

In short, it seems more like that Groups was something that Facebook was supporting earlier, but the focus is now moving over to a Facebook Fan Page being the area that will have a higher focus.

Differences between Facebook Fan Page and Groups ? Which is better ?

ashish — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:16:03 +0000

Well, there is no easy way to determine the right answer for the last question above – “Which is better”. I know that most people detest an answer which starts with “It depends”, but it is true in this case. It depends on what you are trying to promote, what is the level of response and involvement you are looking at, and so on. So, let’s do some evaluation of the differences between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group.
1. The way that Fan Pages and Groups are setup (including their privacy settings) are different. Fan Pages, when they started out, were modeled after the concept of they being the representation of the fans of a artist, a musician, a rock band, and so on. A group allowed the administrator to set higher levels of privacy, including this being secret, and was more like a club.
2. Groups are meant for a more closer or intimate level of interaction, such as being able to see who the administrator of the Group is, being able to view the profiles of the group members, and so on. On the other hand, you can hide the name of the administrator of the Fan Page, and the profile information of members is also hidden. As a result, a Fan Page allows a viewer to maintain privacy while reading the information on the Fan Page.
3. Groups cannot have additional information added to the pages through applications, while Fan Pages allow you to extent the functionality through the use of external third party applications. As the number of such applications increases, this becomes more important.
4. Groups are not available to non-Facebook users, while Fan Pages are visible to non-Facebook users, letting a greater number of people get access to these posts and find these results through searches.
5. However, since the apparent involvement of users with Facebook Groups is greater, any update sent to the group is displayed more prominently on the user’s profile in the case of a Group rather than in a Fan Page
6. The level of statistics provided in a Fan Page is far greater than that in a Group, and if you are interested in doing a number of statistical analysis of your readers, then a Fan Page will be more useful.
(to be contd..)

Benefits of creating a Facebook Group for your blog / site promotion

ashish — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:08:20 +0000

It has always been said that if you want to promote a blog or site on Facebook, then you should create a Facebook Fan Page (read these posts on how to optimize using Facebook – article1, article2), however, also consider the advantages that a Facebook Group can bring to your efforts. Here are some important points about a Facebook Group:
1. A group is a very good way to promote your blog / site, since you can add your blog name, logo, and interests in the design of the Facebook Group. Further, you can even add information about what your blog is all about, what are its unique points, and so on.
2. There are a huge number of users on Facebpook, and many of them spend enough time on Facebook that promoting your interests on Facebook is of critical importance to your blog promotion
3. You can actually use other Facebook Groups to get a lot more information on your chosen subject, as well as find out how successful groups get more users. Find other groups on the same subject, join them, and learn about the discussions and promotion tactics that happen on these groups; and learn from them.
4. A Facebook Group slightly reduces the concept of this being a marketing strategy, since it seems to make this a discussion forum. As a result, members are more likely to get interested in topics of discussion, and even though a large number of the posts will not have much interest in visiting your site, you will still get more visitors, and more people who are your readers in some way.
5. Updates are automatically sent to the Group members, ensuring a wide degree of proliferation of the content, and ensuring that new content added to the Group gets a wide dispersal as more members get added
6. There are some very successful Facebook Groups that have a large number of users and which have done incredibly well to promote their interests, with some incremental benefits to the image of the creator (and the associated site)
7. You can have a lot of analytics to measure the performance of your Group, what makes it successful, what makes it a failure, and so on. This analysis helps you make the required decisions and further steps needed.
8. Facebook Groups get added to the Search from within Facebook, and a larger number of people can find your group as the group becomes more active, this enabling even more users to find the Group and so on.
9. You can search for people on Facebook who have similar interests, and invite them to your Group. A large number of them will refuse, but there will be many who are interested, and will view your site, and if interested, will join.
10. If you get an active set of people in your Group, and they are able to associate with your site / blog, then that is a level of viral marketing that people pay huge amounts of money to get, and the benefits you get through this are incredible.

Find out some details of creating / maintenance in the Facebook Group Help at this page (link).