Every business — small, large or somewhere in-between — needs a strong online presence. The article by score.org, which is linked below, notes the pros and cons of Social Media, Websites and which one is best to have.
It won’t surprise you that I am in a bit of a disagreement with Score’s suggestion of having “… one or the other” as acceptable. I maintain you need both.
In this day and age, a business must have a website as it’s virtual brick and mortar (so to speak) and use social media, either Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. depending on where your target market is, to promote your services and offerings in an approachable way.
Below is Score’s well-written article and is worth the read. Before you jump to read this, and it’s well worth the read, note the ‘cons’ for solely using social media heavily outweigh the ‘pros’ [I’ve added my comments here, too]:
Cons of having just a social media presence:
- “Lack of control/ownership – the social media provider’s terms and conditions control what content and promotions can be presented.” [Take note of this! You don’t have control over your content as you do with your own website.] “Also consider what happens if the provider shuts the site down and if this is your only online presence.” [Not that I think they’d actually do this without good reason, but think of the content you’ve already posted and is no longer available no matter how much scrolling down your page your customer does.]
- “Constrained creativity – social sites offer limited design layouts.” [Ain’t that the truth.]
- “Open forum – these sites give consumers an open forum to voice their feedback and complaints, which necessitates more monitoring of the site.” [Well, though this could be a bear, think of it as an opportunity for remedies and as a source of information you can use to make your business better.]
- “Limited reporting/tools – the level of reporting and features available are often less than with a website.” [The reporting tools do offer some useable data. However, there is more effort needed to gain meaningful insights. Ask me! I’ve gone round ‘n round with what Facebook says and what Google Analytics say.]
Their “Pros” for using Social Media are true:
- Usually free to set up an account,
- You can remove your page easily whenever you want, and
- Engagement is high.
Use this high engagement of social media to get attention to your brand and lead your audience to convert. Sure, they can make purchases or become leads via your social media platform, but before people will do that, they want to know, and be assured of, the company they’re dealing with is legit. And that is one of THE most important reasons for having a Website.
As Score says, “…it is easier than ever to build a high-quality website to showcase your products and services, and to establish your brand in a form you can control.”
Enjoy the read. And thank you, Score, for helping us figure out, “Website or Social Networks?”
And if you would like to know how easy it really is to have a high-quality website, let us know. We’ve taken the “DIY” model, which is overrated IMHO, to a higher level: we do the work for you.
Photo by Kate Remmer on Unsplash
