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Groups for all the wrong reasons

  • Writer: Andrew Kinnear
    Andrew Kinnear
  • Jan 26, 2009
  • 2 min read

Why do people still make Facebook Groups when they should be making Facebook Pages? Does anyone even still join groups? In short, a group is a for an association of people identifying an affinity or cause.  It's grass-roots.  The problem is it's limited from a true marketing perspective.  Outbound messaging is the true measure of capability in Facebookland, and short of the small number of messages permitted to a small part of a group (limited to 5000 members I think), your message isn't going to get out.  

The other big metric in marketing is frequency.  How many times

after

 I join a group am I going to return to that group page to read updates or discussion, or even participate.  Granted, if this is a group for something that I'm extremely passionate about, I may, but I probably only joined the group to be nice to the pseudo-friend that invited me.

Pages

 on the other hand, create both a place for discussion (and reviews, and comments, etc) as well as a marketing vehicle for outbound communications to

fans

 called

Updates

. These updates bring users back to the page of which they're a fan, where they can continue to interact with a brand or product or person or group (in the real sense of the word, like Greenpeace).  So why are people still making Facebook groups?

I think it's the "Invite all your friends" ease of use that makes a page seem legitimate (and hard unless you've got legitimate content that people want) and what makes a Group seem easy (and easier considering a group can be about just about anything, and if your friends are weak, they'll just

join the group

 because that's easier that the social stigma of telling you they didn't want to be a part of your terrible idea.

Pages can also be for silly things, but typically they're for serious messages that need to get out to the widest possible audience.

 
 
 

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