Facebook group think. (I actually like the play on words.) It’s a ‘thing’ going around the marketing community that Facebook Pages are dead and the Groups are the place to be. Hang on a minute, wait one! Before you launch headlong into starting a new group and ditching your page altogether consider the following…

Do you have the time?

OK, so you can flip this on your head and say, do you have the time not to, but do you honestly have the time to run a group. Running a Facebook Group is not a set and forget thing. You can not leave them to their own devices.

In fact, I find that running a Facebook Group is more time intensive as I need to interact and answer questions in a more timely manner. I really can’t plug my group into a social listening tool and comment when needed – I have to monitor my notifications. Sure I could ignore or batch my interaction, but that (currently) doesn’t work for my group.

Do you have the content?

Following on from the wish that they are ‘set & forget’, a group will not run itself unless you give it some bones & direction – certainly not in the early days anyway. I, like many, have theme days; I have one each weekday & one for the weekend. I still have to find content to populate these.

Yes in time & with growing numbers, this will start to work on its own, but you will still need to monitor and interact.

Your content needs to be relevant & interesting. It needs to spark an interest to keep their interest.

Can you be consistent?

Can you turn up EVERY day and post, interact etc? People love consistency and you need to be able to provide it.

Do these issues look familiar?

These are the exact reasons why people struggle to maintain a Facebook Page: time, content, & consistency. There is no magic wand to wave over these. While I do schedule my posts to go into my Facebook Group, I still need to create the content – it just means I don’t have to be up and around physically putting that information in to the group.

Please don’t get me wrong, there are benefits to having a group. However it’s not better reach or engagement as you are still trying to connect to people. If your content in the group does not meet their needs, it will still fall flat. I see this time and again in groups where Admin put up offers, webinars etc and they get 1% conversion. Honestly, they’d get that on their Facebook Page!

Please don’t buy into this Chicken Little attitude that the sky is falling and ‘Facebook Pages are Dead! All hail Facebook Groups!’, it is a trend, they do work, but only because you do.

In the past I have written on why you should choose a Facebook Group or Page. It’s full of technical reasons one is better than the other. Go and have a read , it might help sway you one way or another. I just beg, please don’t be another one of those groups that people go “Oh why did I join this waste of space?” It will just leave you with the same impression of Facebook Groups that you have with Pages.

If you’re willing to give your Page another shot, you can always download my quick hints to growing a Facebook Page without Facebook Ads. Fair warning, I do ask for your email address so I can send you emails with helpful information like this blog post.

If you want to give Facebook Groups a try, come on over and join mine. You can see how it’s run & you’ll get to learn even more cool things about running a business online. It’s free, helpful, resourceful, and not pitchy bitchy or spammy (the three evil dwarves of online groups).

Finally, like I mentioned earlier, you really need to consider the person who joins your group. It’s a real live human on the other end. It’s a somebody you are wanting to build a relationship with, it’s a person you want to part with their cash, it’s not a lead/target/pixel/widget. These are people, like you & I, IF you want to learn how to change someone’s behaviour so they do part with their cash be it through a website, social media, or some other online tool – then please join the waiting list for a new course I am developing that will tap into my understanding of human behaviour & over a decade of experience in moving businesses online.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
>