Why we moved from a Facebook Group to a Fan Page

Thin crust or thick, Coke or Pepsi, Michael or LeBron, Tiger vs.  (okay, no debate there)…these are some of the great debates of our time.  In recent days as social marketing has exploded another one is emerging, is it better to start and nurture a Facebook Group or a Facebook Fan page.

((BTW, here’s the THP fan page, please become a Fan.  No back to the blog.)

When I first dove into Facebook for our business not that long ago, I did it like many things I do in live, with a lot of gusto and not a lot of research.  I immediately started a group page for THP and reveled in the number of folks that joined and started trying to interact with them.  Most of the time the “gusto approach” works for me.  Sorry to say this time it did not.

I quickly discovered how limited Groups were in helping me accomplish my goals.  I wanted to post video, audio, share things like news clips, provide non-intrusive updates, as people to provide feedback, etc.  While Groups allow you to do some of those things, they do not provide flexibility and even worse, they do not allow you to add apps to help.

Then I discovered Fan pages.  They are less intrusive, allow you most of the same control that Group pages do and allow you to add many cool applications and add ones of your own that you can learn to do or hire someone to create.

If you remember the old George Carlin “Football vs. Baseball” routine, I find the similar differences between Group and Fan pages.  Groups are more formal and bulky, Fans are more informal, fun and flexible.

As if this wasn’t enough to convince me, I recently learned from my new favorite blog, Inside Facebook, that Fan pages are about to go through a radical re-design that will mimic personal profile pages.  In this re-design, Fan pages will even be able to have their status updated like personal pages and updates will be posted on Wall, etc.  Read about the coming changes here.

This clincher makes the Fan Page the potential smarter choice for those looking to promote a business, etc.

We will keep an eye on these developments and I hope it answers the question for all the folks who have asked, “Why did you switch from a Group Page to a Fan Page.”

Would love to get some feedback on your Facebook experiences.