Guest Post: Facebook Groups vs Facebook Pages for Churches

Today I received my first guest post on Simple Church Communication. It comes from my friend Brant Mills who handles the web content for the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Someone asked him recently about the differences between facebook groups and pages, and which was best to use. Here is what he had to say.

There are two different ways organizations can connect via Facebook – through groups and through fan pages. They are different in the way you can communicate through them and how they lead to others connecting.

A fan page allows you to post directly to their news feed or wall (I forget which, it may be both) and depending on each user’s settings, their friends may see the updates on their wall or their feed and be able to become a fan as well. (Now this is done by “liking” the fan page.) The downside is, since it is in their stream it can easily be missed if they don’t login that day, but it is more open to others seeing it and connecting to a larger audience.

The group allows for different settings, allowing it to be open completely or restricted to invitation only or approved by an administrator. You can easily send a message to the entire group and it goes into their message folder where they are sure to see it the next time they login. They can also (depending on their settings) receive an e-mail when these are sent. The downside is that it is less social and random onlookers won’t see the communications unless they happen across the group page or are invited directly and choose to join.

It all depends on your audience and connecting with them in a way that is useful to them and in a manner they expect based on where they are.

Be aware that anyone set up as administrator will have their personal page connected to the account and they should know that groups and information they post on their personal page may be accessible to others. Facebook is constantly changing privacy settings and has made what I would consider a few mis-steps – so the best policy is not to post something at all on your own personal page rather than assume privacy settings can protect you.

Have a conversation with staff and discuss any potential issues you can conceive of relevant to your congregation. Set up a communication plan and your own policy and guidelines to determine what specific steps to take in the event of any scenario you can conceive of. Who should be informed of issues immediately? Who are the people who should be responsible for responding to difficult questions? While it might be similar across the board, there are certainly different things that will vary by congregation and some things are appropriate in some settings or to some audiences that aren’t for others.

A lot of it is trial and error in seeing what works with your specific community. Set goals and guidelines, and put down a plan to meet them. If something isn't working, adjust to make it happen.

Brant Mills is the Web Content Manager for the United Methodist Church Texas Annual Conference. You can connect with him at twitter.com/brantmills


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