Facebook has over 1 billion users. Do you want to market your business to even the tiniest percentage of the one billion people on Facebook? Of course you do. But don’t be so quick to put all your marketing eggs into one basket.

Facebook is not enough in the world of online marketing to build an empire.

Many small business owners have invested the majority of their social media effort into Facebook. Some are even abandoning the idea of having web pages and blogs in favor of a Facebook Page. I can’t believe it!

At first glance it seems so much easier than the alternative. However, this is a huge mistake.

Why Facebook Isn’t Enough

Your Online Presence Needs Many Entry Points

To attract your audience today you need several places where they can find you. You need social media like Facebook, along with your website. Your website is your online hub, and should be considered the main source for all your online sharing. Your entire purpose with social media should be to drive traffic, increase engagement, and improve the ranking of your website, your own digital property.

Having Facebook as your only one point of entry into your business will leave out a lot of people. After all, people use Facebook for personal and business use. That doesn’t mean your ideal customers are looking for your products and services on Facebook though. People use Facebook for a variety of reasons.

Facebook Is Not Set Up to Provide Information in a Cohesive Way

If someone wants more information after seeing a post on Facebook, it can be very hard to find the sought after information. Even if they go to your Facebook page, it’s not necessarily easy. Posts get lost in the crowd.

However, you have control over the flow of information on your website. You can lead interested parties to your website which can have information for your audience displayed in a cohesive way that can be used easily by them. They’ll be able to contact you easier, and get more information on a website than they can on even the best made Facebook page.

You Need to Build an Email List Too

While people may communicate with you via your Facebook Page, you also need to build an email list. You’ve heard it said that “the money is in the list” and it’s not an exaggeration. Building an email list is an important factor in any business’s success or failure.

Communicating with your audience only through Facebook isn’t enough; you must also build a targeted email list, capturing their information and sending up-to-date information to subscribers often. Email lists are still the best forms of direct marketing.

You Don’t Own Your Facebook Page

This is by far the most important reason Facebook alone isn’t enough. You don’t own the facebook page and you can’t back it up. That’s right. You could be shut down for any reason on any given day. In addition, not every person who “likes” your page sees your updates. Facebook decides who sees your updates.

You can pay for sponsored posts to increase the likelihood of people who have already “liked” your page can see your posts, but still, you cannot control your views. Facebook is an important part of online marketing, but it’s not the only part of online marketing. In fact, it’s not even the most important factor.

The most important factor in your online marketing efforts is your website. You control it, you own it, and you won’t be wiped out just because someone else decides your content isn’t good enough. You can’t be deleted without any warning like you can with social media like Facebook. Until and unless these facts change, you will need a self-hosted website to where you drive traffic from social media.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

Are you focusing too much on Facebook?