The 'new' Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is eager to put human interactions and overseas data communities back at the heart of Facebook. To achieve this, they're currently experimenting with a customized news feed. In short, posts from personal profiles will be preferred over posts from businesses. The former elicit more interaction than just likes and clicks. Posts from businesses will therefore become even less visible than they already are. Unless, of course, they're paid for.
In addition to these changes, Facebook has also invested in several tweaks to group functionality. For example, there are badges you can earn as a moderator, new insights are available for group administrators, and it's easier to welcome new members.
The goal is to make groups more attractive to Facebook users. Facebook wants to regain its place at the heart of community-building initiatives. To this end, it recently organized Facebook Community Summits in Europe and the US. And it doesn't stop there. The giant is also providing funding to community leaders active on the platform.
Consequences for companies
These changes don't make it any more attractive for companies to continue investing in pages. Organic reach was already quite low there. With the new developments, that will likely disappear entirely.
I predict that many organizations will reflexively create Facebook groups . After all, you can communicate with Facebook members there for free without having to spend a fortune. Furthermore, a recent feature update allows brands to participate in their own group (instead of your personal profile, you can respond from a business page). All you have to do is link your page to a group you manage yourself.