Facebook’s page and group features were designed and implemented in order to meet organisations’ social media goals. When organising an action group—such as a regional Amnesty International team—the different forms of audience and interaction the two features provide must be understood to ensure your organisations online profile is being properly developed.
Depending on your action group’s needs, one or both features can open up new avenues for audience interaction and organising your movement. Here we will compare the different affordances of Facebook pages and groups and the privacy settings of each that determine who is able to view your company’s’ content. The article will then tally the pros and cons of each feature for the organisation of activist groups.
Facebook Pages: your organisations online profile
Facebook has a vast community of over 700,000 non-profit organisations utilising the page feature. Facebook itself strongly suggests setting up a page if your organisation wants to grow its community of supporters and create more connections and interactions with people. Having a Facebook Page connects you to a global network of over a billion people. When people share interests and ideas on Facebook, it helps you find and connect with those who care most about your work.
Much like how people have a Facebook profile, organisations and high-profile individuals have a Facebook page. A company’s Facebook page includes information you could expect to find on your friends profile, including a profile picture and the page’s previously uploaded status, photos, and shared content. However, page’s include a whole host of features unavailable to your average Facebook user. These include: the option to pay to promote your organisations posts; analytics features that measure follower engagement and reach; reviews; and the ability to have your page verified.
As an organisation’s public profile, Facebook pages have limited options in terms of privacy controls. These are restricted to who can and cannot post on your organisations page, who is able to tag your page in other content and whether or not your page is restricted in certain countries. As such, it is important to ensure that any content or discussion taking place on your page is in line with your organisation’s online goals and stated values.
Facebook Groups: your action group’s communication hub
Facebook groups are the best way for your organisation to share ideas, plans and documents with specific members of your broader audience. While pages can get your organisation on to peoples’ newsfeeds, Facebook groups allow action groups to communicate with a segment of your supporters. It’s a great way to coordinate activities with or provide exclusive content to a select set of people.
Effective communication tools on Facebook groups include: moderating tools for admin personnel; the establishment of internal group rules by moderators; the ability to collaborate on documents, group chat, and an inbuilt event calendar.
Furthermore, privacy controls are more advanced on Facebook groups in comparison to pages. Groups range from completely public, to subject to approval of membership by admins and moderators, to invite-only and secret groups.
So which one should my action group use
The simple answer? Both! I will illustrate the effective ways Facebook pages and groups interact using a regional branch of Amnesty International Australia as an example.
So, you are the first media volunteer at a new regional Amnesty International Australia branch. Your first step should be to set up a new Facebook page adhering to the Amnesty International (or your other organisations’) social media policies and guidelines. This would include a description highlighting Amnesty International’s human rights goals of reclaiming freedom, securing equal rights for all, responding to crises, ensuring accountability and maximising resources and engagement.
Through controlling what is posted and shared, as well as promoting key content from your Amnesty International page, an interested audience will develop. Using the page’s social media analytics tools, you can monitor what content is most successful in reaching your desired audience, as well as who your most active audience members are demographically.
Equipped with this insight, create a Facebook group for your Amnesty International Australia branch including key active participants and potential volunteers or donors from the page previously setup. The group would focus on crowdsourcing information from interested local actors, potential actions that promote Amnesty International’s goals and allow for general dissemination of important documents and conversations.
Integrating the community discussions from the Facebook group into the content published on your action group’s page can increase the quality of your content and the size of your audience.
In the end, Facebook pages and groups work well separately, but best together. Good luck organising!
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