Should I Have A Facebook Page Or A Facebook Group?

There are pros and cons to both, and Pages were designed to be the official profiles for brands and businesses, to share their identities, services and goods.
Facebook Groups are the place for people to share their common interests and express their opinions.
Pages are business oriented, groups and interest oriented.

In terms of visibility, if you Google a business name, their Facebook page will show up somewhere in the results. However if you type in a group topic, a Facebook group fails to show up in Google.
Facebook users will more often than not search for a page for a business, and not a group by the page, so for brand awareness and to build your audience a page seems a better option.

Advertising and Insights are geared more towards Pages rather than groups, so if you’re looking to be able to track engagement and reach etc, then a Page is the better option.
You could have both a Page AND a Group if you think about it carefully, but bear in mind that no-one likes a boring or inactive group! There needs to be a point to the person being in the group, and most people join groups to share opinions, learn new things about that topic, find out about events, products first etc.

If you’ve created - or are thinking about creating - a Facebook group for your business, then you need to ask yourself WHY you’re doing it.
If you’re wanting somewhere to keep all your followers, and like minded people in one place then a group is a great way to do it, but unless those people are active in the group, it’s a bit of a pointless exercise.
To facilitate a group on a certain subject, then really you need to be able to be the authority on that topic, so that you can answer any questions, and bring up any issues which you can help solve.
Ask questions of your members, ASK then to get involved.
Reward your top contributors, and as members to post things themselves too, and in a smaller group, tag anyone who may not be brave enough to post themselves.

I personally use my business page The McNeal Method to talk to my followers, relate to new potential clients, share events and workshops and build my brand.
I also run a Business Support Group which is The Business Owners Network and this is a group where small businesses can come together and talk about the issues, good days, bad days and everything in between. I facilitate that group, but it’s not there for me to ‘sell’ to people, and we have set days for business promotion.

Have you found it better to have a Page or a Group? I’d love to hear about your experiences!