Facebook Business Presence – Page, Group or Profile?

HyperArts has been researching the best way to establish a business presence on Facebook and, after some trial & error, we’ve settled on using the “Page” format rather than the “Group” format. Setting up a “Profile” as a business actually violates Facebook’s terms of service which is why Facebook set up Pages, so that brands and businesses could have a presence. Profiles are strictly for individuals.

The primary difference between Pages and Groups is that Pages have “fans” and Groups have “members.” But Pages also allow live blog or Twitter feeds to your landing page, a greater selection of applications, and other business-friendly features. Check this article for a good Pages / Groups comparison.

Here is how Facebook defines the difference between Groups and Pages in the Facebook help section:

Pages can only be created to represent a real organization, business, celebrity, or band, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity. Groups can be created by any user and about any topic, as a space for users to share their opinions and interest in that subject. Groups can be kept closed or secret, whereas Pages are intended to help an entity communicate publicly.

Pages also allow people to maintain a personal-professional distinction on Facebook. If you’re a group admin, your name will appear on that group, while Pages will never display their admins’ names. Additionally, when you take actions on your group, such as posting on your group’s wall, these actions will appear to come from you as an individual. However, if you post or take other actions on a Page you own, it will appear to come from the Page.

Prior to the recent changes in how Facebook handles Pages, there seemed to be some good reasons for perhaps using Group, primarily the ability to send messages to all members of a Group which, prior to the changes, couldn’t be done with Pages. However, Pages now have the functionality to “Send an Update to Fans” which allows you to send a message to all your Page’s fans. Other adjustments to the Facebook Pages interface has, in our opinion, made the decision a no-brainer.

Informative articles we stumbled on in researching this:

1) Good head-to-head comparison of Pages & Groups;

2) Great Mashable article on the changes to Facebook;

3) How to Develop a Facebook Page that Attracts Millions of Fans.

With Pages it’s fairly straightforward to upload your logo, add a feed from your blog (just one feed, done through the Notes tab), send notifications to all “fans,” and set up applications to expand your Page’s features.

Once your Facebook Page is set up, you can use TinyURL to create a plain-English URL to promote it, instead of working with the default URL provided by TinyURL and other such services. Our new Facebook Page is http://tinyURL.com/hyperarts.

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