This is a topic I have been thinking about for a while and the recent article on BizReport prompted me to finally write this post.
As I was travelling this summer I started to see more and more business advertise their Facebook page instead of their domain name. It was not only big brands that were doing this, but smaller brands too.
So the BizReport article ask’s this question at the top of the post:
Are Facebook Pages killing websites? Does your company need a website? This question is being asked in boardrooms around the globe as figures and consumer behavior suggests websites are losing out to Facebook Pages.
According to Adage several big brands’ Facebook Pages are seeing more activity than their websites:
For example, Kraft Foods’ Oreo is the number 3 brand page on Facebook, with a fan base of over 10.1 million growing at a rate of 71,000 new fans each a day. Meanwhile, their branded website, NabiscoWorld.com, has seen U.S. traffic drop in the last year from 1.2 million in July, 2009, to just 321,000 in July this year.
Research by digital consultancy Beyond, found that almost a quarter (23%) of consumers would prefer to receive information from brands via Facebook, rather than a brand’s website (21%) or company blog (3%).”
“So is it time to turn off the web site?” asks Beyond’s MD EMEA Nick Rappolt. “I would say that for low involvement brands the answer is much more likely to be yes. However, for high involvement brands the answer is an unequivocal no. ”
I cannot disagree more with Nick Rappolt’s statement. Yes a Facebook page should be part of your online marketing plans. That is a given today.
But putting the online face of your company or brand to a third-party is asking for trouble. Besides the obvious that you can never get the same level of analytics you could from your own property, what about if Facebook changes the rules in the future. Or, what happens if Facebook suddenly falls out of favor, or disappears.
It could happen. The net is full of social networking sites that have all died. Compuserve, Prodigy, Orkut, Bebo and even MySpace to some extent. These are all social Networks that dominated their market for a while, before crashing and burning. If you had used one of them solely to create you online presence, all that time and effort you had put into it would have been nothing. If you had built a web site and used these sites as another marketing channel, then customers and prospects could still find you, even when these other channels died.
Bottom line: Don’t build your online presence solely on a third party platform. Build your online presence around a domain and use these other marketing channels to reach out and interact with people.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I think it’s just a matter of time before consumers get board with mindless updates, photos and video posts not to mention usless and unsolicited ads that are pushed in front of their faces. Not to mention the scores of brand websites that do nothing with their pages.
Excellent post and right on the money. While harnessing the benefits of third-party platforms is important – especially when you examine benefits that lead to generating greater awareness of and conversation with a brand – it’s imperative that a company looks for ways to make their owned web properties work for them in whatever way suits their unique business audience and desired outcomes. Relying solely on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not a strategic long-term solution but should rather be seen as a strategy that compliments something far greater.
Man… when was the cutomer ever wrong… it’s stupid to care where you engage… if “real qualified” traffic don’t click through to your site… you have either a bad CTA in Facebook. Engage with the customer where they are this “I want the traffic coming to the site” is loosing in the battle with Internet ubiqiuity. More bases to cover is all… in actuality it is more opps to engage… do that or your going to be continually disappointed. SM is not going away… neither is the need for a website.
This is a great point. Would you construct a building on a foundation that someone else could alter – or worse, take away – at any time? Where does it leave you? Crumpled and in a heap, as you’ve alluded to.
Hi David, your point has got to be a bit frightening for brands like Oreo. At this point it seems their site has already lost the Facebook war, what would you suggest they do next? It might be wise for them to consider ways to integrate some aspect of social back on their homepage.
Thanks for the insights.
Like one’s Inbox and low opening rate of emails, Facebook walls will become more and more cluttered (and the content less visible) as more companies switch on to the popularity of corporate Facebook pages. I agree that web sites are a foundation. Probably many email newsletter and blog subscribers will migrate to viewing content on Facebook but Facebook pages don’t optimise so it’s essential to still have a web site. The advantage Facebook has is in word of mouth through friends and also that right now, it gets a much greater share of time on the internet (in New Zealand 30% of internet time is spent on social networking and Facebook is the top by streaks). But what is the relative value in being found via word of mouth, versus an active search? Both are pretty important. I have pondered this question myself – good topic!
I completely agree you, You just cant solely depend on a 3rd party base to promote you work. You need to have your own base ready rather than being completely dependent on other means to promote your work.
Exactly. It seems very short sighted to count on Facebook for a company’s long term presence. You definitely need to utilize it, but resources have to be put into the company-owned domain and website. And make sure that the company website outranks the Facebook page.
You are totally right, I did a campaign for Seven hotel in Paris and we used FB as a main channel but the intention was always to get the people to visit our site. We can control the sale on the site but not on FB. However just for kicks I am trying a small campaign for a local business that will be entirely FB since here he needs calls not sales on the web. But maybe it just not going to cut it.