Facebook has many offerings for businesses trying to build an audience for their product or service. I will be the first to tell you patience is necessary while building an audience on any platform, especially if you don’t have any budget to put behind it. 5 years ago I would have told you to never pay for page likes because I don’t think Facebook’s advertising tool is as intuitive as it is today. Now, I would say go for it because the targeting parameters really put your ads in front of an audience that is likely to engage with you. I have recently started two pages online, one for my marketing business and one for my wife and I’s camping blog, and have paid for likes and follows. I can tell you the audience I targeted with my ads cares about the other content on my page. I’ve spent less than $30 over a 3 week period and that has provided me with around 120 likes on my one page alone. Well worth the money to kickstart the audience.

Deciding whether or not to use Facebook pages or Facebook groups comes down to understanding the difference between the two, and what you want to do with your audience. Let’s start with the differences.

No matter which option your choose for your business, you have to develop your audience and their expectations. What I mean by this is you have to figure out what your posting schedule looks. How often do you post? What type of content are you posting? Is it informative? Asking the audience to purchase from you? Your content strategy will drive the expectations of your audience members and leave them wanting more.

I have enjoyed businesses that have both a page and a group. The page is where I can get information about the company and its products, whereas the group is where I can belong to a community of others that share the same interests as me. Facebook is the right choice for your business, you get to decide how. My recommendation is to start by setting up a page and getting familiar with the process. Like I mentioned early on, be patient with the process.