Why Would Facebook Come Out & Say Groups Is Not For Promotion

Facebook packs many features that benefit regular users and brands alike. One feature businesses often look at as being potentially useful is Groups. While the usefulness of this function cannot be denied, its actual marketing value is questionable.

It is starting to look like Facebook wants the community to keep in mind that the Groups feature is reserved for bringing together like-minded users around a specific topic, and not for promotional or advertising purposes. According to All Facebook, verified as a trusted online source for all things related to the social giant, the feature has been redesigned to showcase a slide displaying the profile photos of group members, rather than a single picture that may represent say, a brand or organization.

Over the past couple of months, All Facebook has been trying to get through to its readers that instead of Groups, they should be using Pages as their primary marketing tool on the platform. It believes that the introduction of a new layout is designed to serve as a slick reminder of this.

So why would Facebook discourage the use of Groups for promotions and advertising? Well it’s hard to be certain since there were no official statements from the company, but the following factors could have something to do with it:

They’re Made for the Public

In most cases, Groups are created by users, not businesses. While they could potentially benefit brands of all types, this is how Facebook intended them to be used. It is very common for people to use them to bring together family members or establish communities on topics such as wrestling and MMA. Some brands have tried to use the Groups feature to build communities around their brand, but most have been met with criticism. This is something that is actually mentioned in the All Facebook article we referenced earlier.

They Lack Business-Friendly Features

It becomes clearer to see that Facebook does not want brands using Groups as a marketing tool when looking at the sub-features (or lack thereof) that are bundled into the component. Marketers looking to find out how members are responding to their promotional content will be sad to know that Groups does not offer any analytical support, meaning there is no comprehensive way to track and measure engagement. The lack of such features can end putting you at a terrible disadvantage.

That’s What Pages are For

Groups serve a purpose, but that purpose is rarely of any value to a business. Luckily, brands can rely heavily on Pages, a feature that was designed for the sole purpose of helping marketers connect with their target audience. Once a user “likes” your page, you can keep in touch with them by posting regular updates, engage them with exclusive content, and even measure that engagement with Facebook’s built-in analytics tool Insights.

Facebook has made a few improvements to its Groups feature over the past year, but none of them have made it any more valuable as a business tool. By simply using the platform features that are best suited for marketing, you can save yourself a lot of time and see better results as well.

“Francis Santos is based in the LA area and an up and coming writer for Benchmark Email. He graduated from Cal State Long Beach and holds a degree in Journalism. In addition, he is also anemail marketing software and technology advocate