Difference Between Facebook Groups and Pages

What’s the Difference?

Many pastors and church leaders are asking about the difference between Facebook pages and groups.  Which one should you choose?  If you’re trying to decide, here’s a quick breakdown to help you make a decision.

Advantages for Groups

1. Flexibility:  Groups can be open or closed. Depending on the purpose of your group, you can have the content shared be public or you can change permissions and have the group be more closed.  A few examples of reasons why you’d choose a group could be members of a church, small group, or leadership team where privacy matters.
2. Control:  With groups, you have a bit more control as to what gets posted where and by whom.  It’s helpful to have those options, but for the novice Facebook user, may be a bit overwhelming.

Advantages for Pages

1. Open:  Pages are open and all information is public.  Depending on how you setup your permissions, people in your church or ministry can post pictures, comments, share links and content.
2. Easy:  Groups have many more options for control and permissions.  A novice Facebook user can setup a page for their church in five minutes and be up and rolling.
3. Branding:  With pages, you get a custom URL.  This means if you don’t yet have a website for you church, you could use the Facebook URL until you develop one.  Many fortune 500 companies promote their Facebook page instead of their corporate one.  This is a big advantage.

Recommendation for Churches

Pages.  If you don’t have a presence online, a page on Facebook is a perfect start.  Not only is it free, but it will also show up in search engines once the page is created.  Play around with some of the settings.  Talk to other leaders who use Facebook pages.  Then begin to share content and participate in the conversation.  However, if you’re looking to create a space for leadership to collaborate and have a closed conversation, a group is a better choice.  It all boils down to purpose and focus.

How to Setup a Facebook Page

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Examples

Here are a couple of examples of Facebook pages which churches and ministries are using today.  Feel free to like them and create your own:

• Free Methodist Church USA
• Empowering Lives International 
• Spring Arbor Church
• The River Conference

Other Resource Articles

• Mashable
• Facebook
• The Social Skinny
• Church Mag

Your Preference

What do you prefer and why?  Post your comments below and share how you do what you do.  The more conversation, the better.