Facebook Causes Vs. Facebook Group

Use a cause page when you want to appeal to the widest audience.

Facebook offers a number of tools for you to promote your business, nonprofit organization or interests. By creating a page or group, you connect with the millions of Facebook users for greater exposure. While Facebook Groups allows membership restrictions and better control over who can and can't see content, using a Causes page gives you the opportunity to appeal to the widest audience to gain fans, offer information and further promote your cause.

Purpose

By understanding why Facebook created Groups and Causes pages, you'll better understand how to choose the one that best fulfills your needs. Facebook Groups are meant to connect people with similar interests. For instance, you could create a group for your family reunion to discuss ideas and dates, or make a group for a common interest, such as a hobby. Causes pages use the Facebook Pages interface, which is meant to increase your overall exposure. Causes allows anyone to join your page, where you can keep in touch via status messages and links. You don't need to be a nonprofit organization to use Causes. Rather, Causes is meant to spread the word about anything that you deem important, whether it's conflict in the Middle East or proper grammar.

Functionality

Facebook Groups allows you to choose how visible you want your group can be. You can choose anything from a secret group, where the group doesn't appear on Facebook directories and is subject to invitation-only members, or public, which allows anyone to join. This makes the Groups application ideal for smaller groupings of people. Causes, on the other hand, doesn't offer restrictions, resulting in a completely public Web page that allows you to appeal to the widest audience possible. You can also add fundraising campaigns and set up money transfers on your page using the "Causes" tab. Causes will accept and process donations and then send a check once a month to your nonprofit organization. You must have a valid nonprofit to accept donations through Causes.

Membership and Restrictions

Using Facebook Groups allows you to send messages directly to members' inboxes. Whether you're changing the date for an event or need feedback, you can send a more personalized message when you use Groups. Causes pages don't allow inbox messaging. Rather, you'll be restricted to communicating with your fans via updates to your actual cause page. Still, you can alter who sees the message by using targeted update customizations before you post information.

Analytics

One thing Causes offers compared to Groups is that Causes runs on the Facebook Pages interface. That means you'll not only have a tool for connecting with your audience, but you can learn about key demographics through your "Insights" page for your cause. Insights are analytics that track fan membership, interaction and page stats that can help you increase membership and see what types of shared media engage your audience the most. As of June 2011, Facebook doesn't offer analytics for Groups pages, as they're meant for smaller-scale private applications.

References

• Facebook: Groups
• All Facebook; Facebook Groups Vs Pages: The Definitive Guide; Nick O'Neill; February 2010
• Causes: Causes Tab for Facebook Pages