I get asked this question all of the time. ‘Do I set up a Group or do I set up a Fan Page? – and how do I know which one is best for me?’ – First let’s have a look at the key features of each:

What do I use for what?

Profile – a Facebook profile is an individual profile for yourself. Some people use it for business but I amongst others use mine for personal use to engage with friends and family.

Fan Page – To create a presence for your business or a brand

Group – to gather a group of people who have a common issue or interest

When you’re thinking of creating a group or a page, you need to first think about why you are setting it up. If you’re setting it up as an extension to your marketing plan, then I would always encourage you to set up a fan page.

As previously mentioned, fan pages are indexed in major search engines, and therefore an excellent way to improve SEO for your business. Once you reach 25 fans, you can also change the URL of your fan page. Instead of having the long ugly URL you can choose one that best represents your business or brand. For example, mine is www.facebook.com/kcvirtualsolutions To change your URL go here http://www.facebook.com/username/ think carefully before you change it though, as this can only be done once!

The key feature of a fan page, that I think it particularly useful, is that you can have multiple administrators, but when posting, the admin is anonymous and the post will appear as the business/brand maintaining a corporate voice, especially useful if you are managing a page on behalf of a client, or if you don’t want to be personally linked with that page.

A group however, is much more useful if it’s informal, or a hobby, think of it more as a forum where people come together to discuss common interests. Administrators appear as themselves and not the ‘brand’. You can’t change the URL of a group and groups are not indexed in search engines, and therefore would never recommend setting up a group for promoting a business or brand.

Fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are insexed via search engines – this helps improve SEO and also reputation management – Groups don’t have this facility.

So to conclude:

• * Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
• * Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.