Comments on: Fan Pages or Groups?

By: John Ford

John Ford — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:43:40 +0000

Yup, I know what you meant, Steve. Groups are flat-out annoying because the owner of the group can -and usually will- email you about any little thing whenever they feel like it. That’s why as a consumer, I prefer fan pages over groups. It really doesn’t bother me if there’s a post in my stream that I can simply ignore. But I hate having to delete tons of useless, to me, emails.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:56:41 +0000

i’ve found i’ve started leaving more and more groups… sick of the constant notifications, even for events i might want to go to. i’m not sure HOW i’d recommend event organizers get to me anymore… maybe just go back to the good ol’ lindy calendar (or dance weekend, why not?) system?

By: John Ford

John Ford — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:04:41 +0000

Yeah, I know what you mean kait. That’s another reason that as a user, it’s better to be a Fan than in a group. Fan pages can’t arbitrarily send out a message to all of its fans like groups can. Not pointing any fingers, but some organizers send me an email (well, a message on FB, which ends up in my gmail inbox) about their event Every. Single. Day.

Now, I don’t mind seeing that their “pre-registration closes in 4 days!!!!” Really, I don’t, even though I’m not going to their event. What I do dislike is the medium they chose to use to tell me because now I can’t just process the information, decide it doesn’t pertain to me right now, go on about my life, and let the post fade into the history of my feed. By sending that info as a message, they are now forcing my hand and making me take some action, even if it’s only to delete the email. Seems like a small thing, but like you say, deleting tons of message and emails gets old.

By: kait

kait — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:21:27 +0000

By: John Ford

John Ford — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:35:42 +0000

There is a cap on numbers but I’m not sure it’s a big deal for our purposes. Groups are capped at 5000 members. Fan pages can run into the millions. But I don’t know of any swing events even pushing the 5000 mark yet.

As for diluting the stream, that’s the nature of advertising. But I’m not sure what you think you get from a group that you don’t get from a fan page. Basically, for the purpose of mesagging users, everything you get in a group, you also get with a fan page. PLUS your posts make it into their stream. There is one thing missing from fan pages: the ability to send an email to all users. But you can do that from an event-page, so you’re not really losing that option, at all.

You make a good point about the national crowd not wanting hear about your local weekly event, every week. But that comes down to the organizers knowing their audience, not diluting their brand, and not spamming their fans with irrelevant info. If it’s a “FubarEX” fan page, people want to hear about “FubarEX”, not Mom & Pop’s weekly Swing-Throwdown. (I apologize if these are actual event, ha!) An organizer wanting to do a good job of marketing their event should realize that and act accordingly. Otherwise, they will get their posts marked “Hide” by their fans. But even then…to that user, their fan page is practically the same as a group. So have you lost anything?

By: The Riz

The Riz — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:33:03 +0000

Also, as the # of friends/groups/fan one has grows, the stream becomes more and more diluted. I can’t keep track of the posting of the 200 or so active friends I have on facebook. Therefore, I disagree with you and think that Groups are the way to promote. The trouble is that you must distinguish Your LOCAL from your NATIONAL/Wide-Area Group.
The folks from out of town that want to come to your yearly superbig event do not want to hear about your weekly class schedule even if you think it’s a good opportunity to increase your audience size for local events.
Watering down the message was the downfall of myspace advertising, and is creeping on facebook.

What about starting a new friend page for your event and becoming friends with people instead of fans or groups? It would allow you to both show up on the news-stream as well as email and invite folx? Or do they cap the #s in something?

By: John Ford

John Ford — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:58:01 +0000

That’s a good point, Breanna. If I were the organizer of a large regional or nation event, or a regular dance like Hot-Jam or Jam Cellar, I’d probably create both a Fan page and a group. But I would strip the group’s page of things like the photos, videos, discussions and links tabs and reserve those for the fan page. I’d also disable posts to the group’s wall. That way you could still provide information to the people who prefer groups but still have your Fan page be the main focus of your Facebook “identity” and interaction with dancers.

By: Breanna

Breanna — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:57:03 +0000

Good write-up, John. But how do you address those stubborn facebook users (sometimes I’m among them) who refuse to be a “fan” of anything? It would seem the only way to address that part of your event stream then would be through the group option.