Facebook: Group or Page

facebook's groups and pages cannot be combined. 

The article of O’Neill (2010) on the page allfacebook.com shows the differences between both:

For the internal communication of HESTIA a group is the better solution. With membership restrictions the administrator can control, that only HESTIA members join the group. Mass messaging allows to send a message to all members. If the limit of 5,000 members will ever be reached HESTIA will have enough resources to re-structure its media solution.

With the “event inbox messaging” the group members get direct information what is going on in the group. That is important to encourage them to get involved and take part in discussions. A page is designed to read and consume, whereas a group is made for a real dialog, where every member has the same publishing rights. But the administrator can delete comments if it is necessary. Another important function of a group is the group chat, which allows life conversations between the members when they are online.

The advantages of a page, targeted updates and stream posts, promotional widgets and vanity URLs are not needed for the internal communication. Those elements are very useful for marketing and advertisement to reach a huge audience. The facebook page could present the club to an external audience.

Facebookgroup: HESTIA’s club pub

Most elements which are provided by facebook are already included in joomla! or moodle. The facebook group should be used for the unofficial conversations. Compared to a normal club the facebook group could be seen as the club’s pub, where to members meet after the official events. If a member decides to don’t use facebook it can still participate in all official activities, but is excluded in the private exchange. 

Conclusion Platform

The platform analysis showed, that non existing platform fulfills all needs of HESTIA.

Facebook seems to be almost perfect, but this is mainly caused by the combination of groups and pages, which is not possible at the moment. But facebook is the most common network worldwide, which is important for the international perspective of HESTIA. And it allows mobile access from almost every mobile phone and tablet device.

Furthermore it is the platform which performs best in the field of communication, which is an important factor in the virtual club. Also it enables the members to get to know each other beyond the business context by sharing profiles, pictures and common interests. With groupchat (in groups), instant messaging, messages and the wall it is predestinated for the real-time and almost realtime-communication.

Beside that it is important to have to possibility to organize and save knowledge in a secure place. Therefore moodle performs best. With plug-ins like wikis, forum and glossaries, which can be edited by every user, the collective intelligence of the club-members can be stored and found again very efficiently. Moodle is a closed system, which allows only members of the club to see the content and archive.

Finally beside the closed facebook-part and the closed moodle part an open platform for non-members is needed. The CMS joomla! will be the webpage of the club with representing the club for outsiders, providing information about the club and how to become a member and it is the entrance-portal to the closed sections of facebook and moodle.

Platform-mix of HESTIA