Facebook is becoming quite the phenomenon with more people using it to maintain their social networks. I realised recently that where I would have sent multiple texts to friends I will now instead send a message or post an update via facebook. Friends who don’t have a facebook account are an inconvenience and often get forgotten when arranging a social event. That is a sad but inevitable effect of todays technological developments on every day life. Join in or get left behind, right?
Where people go, business follows.
More companies are heading to facebook in a bid to reach out, communicate and engage with their audience. Large organisations, sole traders and high street businesses are setting up business ‘fan’ pages and groups in their masses. But I have a scary thought. What are those facebooking businesses doing with their websites? Are they paying less attention to them because updating the facebook page is easier? Are they assuming that because there fan page appears to have more (inter)action their website doesn’t need so much attention anymore?
I can appreciate that many businesses see great benefits from having a fan page. And indeed I can understand that many small businesses have found a great way of establishing an online presence that is not only free but easy to maintain. But that doesn’t mean they should abandon the idea of getting a website. Nor does it mean that businesses that already have a website should be maintaining and updating theirs less.
5 Simple Reasons Why you Shouldn’t Abandon the Website for a Facebook Page
- Not everyone uses facebook
- Facebook has it’s problems and goes down from time to time – you know it!
- Who says that fan page is always going to be free or that you will be able to use your page in the future as you do now?
- If your fan page is ever accidentally deleted your main communication channel is lost, instantly.
- Your facebook page is a social media tool hence there is a two way interaction. Which is a good thing, but there is scope for this to go sour. And your own message just may get lost amongst your ‘fans’ updates.
Your Facebook page should compliment your Website
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you own your facebook page or your Twitter profile. They don’t belong to you, they belong to (and are controlled) by the companies behind them. You are simply renting the space. Now, your website you do control, you do own. As such your website should be the main hub of your online presence, not facebook, not twitter. Your social media profiles should compliment your website, not the other way round.
As the main hub for your business, your website is where you need to keep the important information. Who you are, how to contact you, what you sell, what you do, what makes you great, why someone should buy from you. Now, writing material for your website is not easy. It can feel that you are talking to an empty room. Whereas with your Facebook page you are engaging in a two way conversation. You can start off with a status update asking a question or making a statement and invite responses. So why not use those conversations you have created on facebook to add material to your website?
- If your website has a news section you could post news based around what was discussed on Facebook
- You can use facebook to research and gather opinions, then present those results on your website – and direct your facebook fans back to your website so they can see your summary.
Don’t simply add new product information and updates directly on your facebook page, add those to your website and direct your facebook fans to that with a link. They can still interact with you about the link on your facebook page. But at least you now have content on both the website and facebook and didn’t have to duplicate the task.
What do you think?
I think Facebook, as wonderful as it is (and I’m a HUGE fan), might be relied on too much as the main base for some business, particularly the ‘mom and pop’ businesses. What do you think? Are businesses in danger of putting all their eggs in the facebook basket or is a website just not that important anymore?
Thanks for the interesting article. I completely agree, facebook – for all its good points and undeniable value as a marketing tool – shouldn’t be relied upon too much. Like you say, there is potential for it to damage, as well as promote, your online reputation and the fact that you aren’t ultimately in control of it is a very important point to keep in mind; who knows in what direction facebook etc will go in the future. I think an approach which puts many eggs in many baskets (as long as they aren’t spread too thinly) is more valuable, as long as you keep your website (which as you say is crucially under your control) at the heart of any marketing strategies. Though, saying that, maybe there are cases for certain kinds of business where a website isn’t the most important thing – it would be interesting to see if anyone has any ideas on that. Also, maybe for some people a blog would stand in for a company website?
I read another interesting article which gives a good argument for using social media alongside (rather than instead of) more traditional marketing resources, which you might be interested in: http://www.drewhawkins.org/brain-wads/2010/5/2/uselessly-good-at-social-media.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrainWads+%28Brain+Wads%29
@Lucy thanks for your response and I’m glad it’s not just me that feels this way. I’m seeing more and more small/home based businesses grabbing facebook pages, which is great, but it’s concerning when I see people giving up jobs to work fulltime on businesses that are totally reliant on Facebook. I’ll check out that article you linked to.
Kay,
Great remarks. The tendency for people to get caught up in a trend is clearly evident here. Facebook undoubtedly presents a strong value proposition (at least today), but the lack of corporate ownership (as you mention) and therefore control, opens some potentially huge problems downstream for the dependency crowd. Not to mention the virus and security threats that currently loom large.
Paul Neal
hi Paul, the virus and security threats issue is a very good point indeed. I’m trying to recall one such story I read about recently of someone selling facebook identities in forums for about $40 per 100. It was suggested that peoples accounts are being compromised all the time without the knowledge of the user. If an account that is used to maintain a business facebook page is compromised who knows where that could lead. Perhaps a lesson here is to change passwords regularly. Althought that wouldnt do much to prevent viruses. Thanks for your comments
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