The central focus of your online presence for your business should be your own website. It should be a website that you have total control over. It should not be some free site that forces you into their layout or scatters ads all over your site (which may lure customers away from your site to a competitor).
Frequently I have clients come to me (especially new clients) and ask why they need a website of their own when they can just set up a Facebook page for their business and use it as the main presence on the Internet.
It is true that having a Facebook page is now a necessity. Some people stay in Facebook all the time when they are “on the Internet” and you need to have a presence if you want to exist to these people (over 1 billion people are on Facebook). However, the Facebook page should not be your primary online presence. Your website should be your main hub with Facebook and other social pages being traffic funnels to it. By doing it this way, you are in total control of your message to your clients and you eliminate any external distractions that can detract from the message you are presenting. Not only that, but Facebook can change the entire way your page looks or they can even shut it down completely if they want. It is their site and they are in control of it. Your business is at their mercy.
To really understand your visitors to your website, you must track everything. This can only be done on your own website. Facebook gives some insights and useful visitor data – but again, they are in control of what data you get and it is not enough to really understand your customers and potential customers visiting your site. When done right, you can improve your return on investment much easier when you have the right data to analyze.
Having a Facebook page alone is simply not enough. Even if you do get some traction and get some customers from it, you are missing out on doing much better by having your own website, tracking the results, and making the necessary adjustments to really improve your ROI.
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