Childrens Ministry Online

Comparison of facebook pages and groups

Posted on 01. Sep, 2009 by Kenny.

Yesterday I wrote about pages as opposed to groups in the facebook universe. I guess I’m just encouraging people to take advantages of pages for all they have to offer. Groups has been around longer and most of us have more experience with groups. Groups make more sense. They feel safe and community like. However, that’s just becasue we don’t completely understand why you’d use a page. Like I said yesterday, groups have their place and you’ll still use them. However, there may be some things you want to use pages for instead of groups.

So, here’s a little comparison. Here are the things that both groups and pages can do:

• Wall discussions
• Discussion boards
• Photos
• Videos
• Send messages to members/fans
• Create related events

What can a group do that a page can’t?

• Be obscure – remain totally hidden to everyone but those in the group.
• Be exclusive – only allow who you want in the group if you roll that way.

What can pages do that groups can’t?

• Access to applications – certain apps have been developed exclusively for pages
• Page Statistics – kinda like analytics for you page
• Demographic messaging – send notifications to all your fans or fans of specific gender, ages or locations
• Vanity URL – Once you have enough fans, you can claim a vanity URL like www.facebook.com/yourname
• Advertising – You can drive people to your page through advertising where you determine demographic targets and pay by clicks or impressions

The other big advantage of pages are that they are more viral in nature. Unless the administrator of the group you belong to sends out a message, you may forget you are in it. Other people won’t know you’re in it either. With pages, all of your friends will see you interact with the page as it will show up in your feed. So, people find pages rather quickly. In addition, pages ave viewable outside of facebook. That means the information on your facebook group can be seen by anyone. That also means it can be indexed by the search engines unlike groups or anything else within the facebook walled garden.

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Facebook pages or groups

Posted on 31. Aug, 2009 by Kenny.

Last week I posted a video about integrating social media in our ministries. One great way to do this is using facebook. I’m still a noob at using facebook specifically for ministry related stuff, but I thought I’d explain the differences between groups and pages and how you want to use both.

First of all, you probably want to use both. Both have different functions. Groups have been around longer and of someone has experience with only one, it’s probably groups. However, most people are using groups to do things where they probably should use pages. Let me explain.

Groups
Groups can be big or small, but they’re mostly suited around connecting people around ideas, thoughts or specific people. The discussion boards, photos, links and allow for great connection, discussion and collaboration. I’ve used groups for book discussions, a biggest loser group and for a Children’s Ministry collaboration group. The real advantage of the groups is your ability to control access and obscurity. I’m in some groups that are open to anyone, other groups that are close and you have to be approved to join. I’m also in an obscure group that no one can see except the people in the group. This is the primary advantage of groups. The disadvantage to groups is obscurity. You can join a bunch of groups and completely forget you’re in them unless the administrator sends everyone a message.

Pages
Pages are just like groups with a few unique features. People don’t join pages, they become fans. There aren’t any limitations either, anyone can join. Pages have access to discussion boards, wall posts and photos just like groups, so the experience can be similar. The idea behind pages though is that they are not designed to be obscure. They’re for everyone to see and intended to be viral. When an admin post on the wall, it shows up in every fan’s feed. So one update can be seen by every fan and every friend of every fan. That’s a huge impact. Pages were designed to be marketed too. A few months ago, facebook opened up vanity URLs. That’s when I snagged www.facebook.com/kennyconley. They also allowed pages with more than 1000 followers to get their vanity urls. Check out www.facebook.com/starbucks or www.facebook.com/mcdonalds. Oh, and when it comes to pages, you can advertise. For instance, you could advertise to age demographics for communities and such. Doing a big outreach event? Create a facebook page and advertise.

So, if your church has a presence on facebook, you want to use both. You might use groups to communicate with volunteers or certain ministries where you can share schedules, training and these kinds of things. However, your church needs a page. Your student and children’s minsitry needs a page. As you post updates, friends of your fans see learn about you and potentially become fans as well. Who knows, maybe they’ll come visit physically eventually because of what they experienced on facebook. Also, if you get enough fans, you could grab a vanity url and have the address: www.facebook.com/yourchurch.

So, go start some groups and pages people!

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