Fan pages can be any general webpage that is created by yourself or someone else who’s a fan of your site/business, but it this case, we’re talking about Facebook fan pages. I was searching for a straight-up comparison between fan pages and group pages only expecting to find limited information, but I found a blog post over at Search Engine Journal that gave me what I was looking for.
What is a fan page?
Facebook has two options for promoting and networking people with your business, website or blog. You can
create a group which is basically a discussion page while pages are like Facebook profiles, but for an entire company. Even if you’re just a one-person show, you might still want to create your own Facebook page. This way, you can still have your personal profile and not have to mix in your business.
The breakdown
This is the informational breakdown chart as found on Search Engine Journal:
| Key Feature | Facebook Page | Facebook Group |
| “Ugly” URLs | No | Yes |
| Hosting a discussion | Yes | Yes |
| Discussion wall, and discussion forum | Yes | Yes |
| Extra applications added | Yes | No |
| Messaging to all members | Yes (via updates) | Yes (via PMs) |
| Visitor statistics | Yes (“Page insights”) | No |
| Video and photo public exchange | Yes | Yes |
| “Related” event creation and invitation | Yes | No |
| Promotion with social ads | Yes | No |
My two cents
As I mentioned earlier, setting up a Facebook fan page creates the same functionality as a standard Facebook page, but with the added bonus of being separate from your personal profile. In my case, I decided that I’d operate two blogs–one for my self and one for my business venture. Since this site was automatically posting my new articles to my personal Facebook profile, I can now move them over to the fan page I created and have my personal blog post to my actual profile. Make sense?!
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