January 18, 2012
I met someone last week who wondered if I still ran Spiderworking.com. The reason? She ‘Liked’ my Facebook page but hadn’t seen any updates from me in months. Since Facebook made it’s latest changes to the newsfeed at the end of last year reports have been coming in of page updates not appearing in the stream. Page owners also saw a significant drop in their page and post views and a new statistic appeared on our pages ‘talking about’. All of this combined means that if we really want users to see our updates we need to encourage interaction, the ‘talking about’ stat has become the most important insight on our page.
So how can you encourage more interaction on your Facebook page? I’ve been experimenting and here’s what I’ve found works so far.
Always look for feedback
Whenever I post something to Facebook I ask for feedback, instead of posting a link and saying what it’s about, I think about why I’m sharing it and add my thoughts and ask others for their opinions. I try to end most posts with a question mark. This has been a valuable tool for me and has helped me gather ideas and content for blog posts amongst other things.
Other effective tricks I’ve seen other pages use for getting feedback are posts with a missing word (see below), or asking for ‘three words to describe’. Giving likers something simple to do will encourage more engagement than asking for a long opinion.
example from Mari Smith
Share on Twitter
If your posts are no longer appearing on the newsfeeds of all your fans you need to be reaching them elsewhere. Posting links to Facebook posts on Twitter and asking for feedback is an effective way of widening the conversation beyond those who pick up your stories on Facebook. Facebook users no longer need to like a page to comment on it so you may find you will get more interaction from new users this way.
I try and post one Facebook discussion a day to Twitter and have found it effective for getting new comments, all of these are hugely valuable not just for encouraging sharing but again for garnering opinion on topics that I can translate into blog posts or content in the future.
Use a variety of content
It’s widely agreed that images and videos have better edgerank than other types of content. Images and video are also more visually attractive to users, they will catch your eye the way a status update or a simple link won’t. When I’m posting a status update I try and find an image that illustrates my point and add it to the update. It’s important to include a variety of content types on your page and I wouldn’t recommend using the image trick for every update. People get tired of the same content and you will discover that video and links will reach different users than images and status updates.
example from Amy Porterfield
Run a competition
Running a competition on Facebook will get lots of people talking about your page. Use an app like ShortStack that allows you to configure sharing, this way people who enter will be prompted to tell their friends. If you have an active user base running a photo contest that is judged by Facebook users will encourage competition entrants to share your page with all of their friends.
example from Country Hounds
Great content
This should really have been my first point. Creating compelling content that people will want to share will always encourage interaction and shares. I always recommend creating a content schedule for Facebook, you can download a blank schedule word document here. Think about when you are going to post and what sort of content you are going to post on each day. This will make it easier for you to find content to share and encourage consistent posting.
Carry a camera and a notebook with you everywhere and look out for photo opportunities that will work on your page. I find the voice memo device on my phone invaluable and am always recording snippets of ideas when I have them.
What have I left out? How do you encourage engagement on your Facebook page? Let me know… leave a comment.
December 14, 2011
One of the highlights for me of the SMM11 event in London earlier this year was the presentation by John Morter, the man behind the ‘Rage Against The Machine for Christmas No1 Campaign’. He was amusing and gave us lots of handy takeaways. The one that resonated with me the most, possibly because it’s something I had been advocating myself for some time, was his tip to change your Facebook page avatar when you have a new offering or important news. The change in profile image will draw people’s attention and maybe make them take a fresh look at what you do.
With Christmas on it’s way Facebook is awash with seasonal avatars and for those selling gifts or Christmas products adding a bit of festivity to your page reminds people that you are there, a fresh avatar attracts new post views and can even be a spark for a conversation.
This year we chose to add antlers to our logo. Last year more dramatically we made it snow. The reaction has been great and we’ve seen lots more interaction since we made the change. It also gives us something else to talk about, we asked our ‘Likers’ to share their pages with us and you can see both their and our designs below.
There are a couple of downsides to being festive, you must remain true to your brand, a cartoon Reindeer or Santa whilst suitable for some companies doesn’t suit others. You need to make sure your brand shines through so that your avatar doesn’t get lost in the sea of Santa hats.
Think about how you can modify your logo to reflect the season without hiding your branding. When creating your festive profile picture imagine your decorating a shop, how you decorate depends on who you want to come in the door, once you have identified this create something that reflects it.
What do you think? Does changing your avatar draw more attention to your page or do all the Santa hats mean you’re missing updates from the pages you usually follow? If you have created a festive page share your link with us on our Facebook page.
December 8, 2011
This morning my feeds were full of the news that Facebook is launching a ‘Subscribe’ button that can be added to websites. This made me revisit my use of Facebook subscribe and whether I wanted to continue.
When Facebook first rolled out ‘Subscribe’ I thought it was a good idea, in fact it was something that had been possible for a while under another guise. It used to be the case that if you sent a friend request to someone and they didn’t respond you would see their public updates in your newsfeed. Subscribing just formalised this process, and I think we have Google+ to thank for the simplification of it. Initally I allowed subscribers, partly as an experiment to see how it would work but as I accumulated subscribers I began to understand the benefits. I like having the option, it means I don’t have to friend people I don’t know and can keep my friends down to the people I do communicate with on a regular basis. However there are a few glitches that I’m not altogether happy with.
Firstly if I want to post a lot of content that I think has relevance to my subscribers there is no way of restricting this. Many of my friends are just that, they have no interest in social media beyond keeping in touch with friends, if I’m constantly posting business social media links they are going to start ignoring my updates altogether. I am what I’d call a ‘power’ Facebook user, which is a polite term for someone who posts a lot. I like that I can restrict content to just those I think would be interested in it by using friend lists but if I want my subscribers to see it I can’t stop it pumping out these social media news stories to everyone on my friend lists.
So why am I concerned? Surely I could just post the social media stuff to the Spiderworking.com business page? The Spiderworking.com page is aimed at a very specific audiece. It’s there to provide useful tips and handy information to small business owners using social media. Many of the interesting articles I want to share publically through my profile would not fit that remit. I like being able to share these with a wider audience and my Facebook profile, along with my Google+ page allow me to do this. To be able to filter content just to subscribers would give me the opportunity to share this stuff without boring my non-business, non social-media related friends.
However this isn’t my biggest problem with the subscribe button. As I mentioned above I love being able to filter content to the appropriate audience. I often choose to share posts publically, to just friends or to a specific group of people. This functionality is key to what I post on Facebook. However if I comment on a friends ‘public’ post or ‘Like’ it this appears on the newsfeeds not only of all my friends but also my subscribers. These could be fun comments with friends that may seem odd or inappropriate to a public audience. As a result of this I’ve stopped commenting on some posts. I’m becoming less social.
So I’ve reached the stage where I wonder if having subscribers is worth it? I have very little contact with them and if they fell into my target market surely it would be better for them to connect with my business page? Not having subscribers wouldn’t fix my second problem totally, comments I make will still go out to my entire friend list and publically but without subscribers they won’t automatically appear on ‘strangers’ news feeds. I have to consider if it’s just my ego stopping me abandoning subscribers and clearly if this is the case it’s not a strong reason to hang onto them. I’ll be re-thinking the entire Spiderworking.com social strategy for the New Year and will decide then if having subscribers on Facebook is a worthwhile exercise for me.
Have you allowed subscribers on your Facebook profile? If so do you see a benefit? Do my concerns concern you too? I’d like to hear your comments.
October 26, 2011
This week I talked to Fiona from Dink Design about her experience selling on Facebook:
Tell me a bit about you and your business:
My background is in Graphic Design. I studied at NCAD and worked as a designer for about 10 years. When I had my two children I began thinking of setting up my own business, one which would allow me to work from home, but also felt I needed a change of career. I turned jewellery making, a life-long hobby, into a business and so started Dink Design. I decided early in the process that the main focus of the business would be an online shop as this would fit in perfectly with my home life and allow me to work my own hours. Setting up my business page on Facebook and then my Facebook store was a natural progression for me and thankfully it’s working very well!
Why did you decide to open a shop on Facebook?
I’ve had my Facebook business page for about 3 years but only really started utilising it to actively promote my business just over a year ago. I started by posting pictures of a new collection and then when I received positive feedback and queries about prices I began posting new items with prices and descriptions and they began to sell.
I had been using Facebook this way for quite a while when I read that there were a growing number of shopping apps available for business pages. A fellow Facebook business owner mentioned OWJO and after some research I decided to add it to my page. One of the main advantages is that it allows me to accept credit cards and laser, as well as paypal which is the only option I have on my website.
How do you get people to visit your Facebook shop?
I post about it on my business page as well as on twitter offering special ‘Facebook only’ prices… I also mention it whenever I send a customer newsletter.
How do Facebook sales compare to sales from your website?
At the moment sales through my Facebook shop and direct from the wall on my page are slightly higher than those on my website which is quite amazing. I think it shows how online shoppers are changing their habits. There is more trust involved when shopping on Facebook – the customer knows that they can leave a negative comment if they are not happy with the quality of their purchase and they know that the seller doesn’t want that. And from the seller’s point of view, the advantage of a Facebook page and shop is that they can bring products straight to their customer through the customer’s news feed.
Would you advise people to open a Facebook store instead of building a website? If so why if not why not? What are the advantages of having both?
At the moment I’d say yes – start with a Facebook page and store – it’s free after all. Of course a website is essential these days but for a start-up business a Facebook page allows you to have an online presence and retail facility but without the cost involved in creating, designing and then marketing an e-commerce site. With the various apps that are available to use on Facebook you can create a pretty complex and informative page.
I set up my Facebook shop with the intention of attracting new customers who would eventually shop on my website where there is a greater choice.
What are the disadvantages of having a Facebook store?
The main disadvantage for me are the relatively high fees charged by OWJO. I sell products at a reduced price on Facebook as an incentive and with the added fees my profit margin drops quite a bit. In many ways this balances out when I take into account being able to accept credit card and debit card sales.
How much does it cost you to sell on Facebook as opposed to selling via a website?
OWJO take 7% and then there are the usual credit card processing fees, roughly 3% plus a flat fee of €0.30. I find this normally work out at about 10-11% of the sale price.
Paypal which I use on my website is less expensive. They take 3.4% plus €0.35.
What made you choose OWJO as opposed to other Facebook shop solutions?
Firstly they’re an Irish company which is important to me. Their interface is very user-friendly and professional looking, much more so than lots of the other shop fronts I’ve seen. Another important factor is that they allow me to accept credit card, laser as well as paypal. Their website is very comprehensive with lots of information and it’s very easy and straight forward to add items to the shop. Their office is local and I can call them or email knowing that they’ll get back to me.
What advice do you have for people wanting to start selling on Facebook?
Hurry up and get going! As I read somewhere recently – you may not like Facebook or Twitter or social media in general but your customers do, that’s where they are so you need to be there too!
Fiona’s Facebook shop can be found on her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/dinkdesign
And her website: www.dinkdesign.ie
October 13, 2011
I was reminded of a great Facebook tip for driving more fans and engagement whilst watching a video hosted by Mari Smith recently. It was her final tip that reminded me that this was something that I really don’t do enough of. The tip came up again at the KLCK Bloggers Meet-up on Monday. So what was this top tip? It’s a simple as sharing your Facebook Page posts directly to Twitter and asking for feedback. But how do you do this?
You can automate this process but I’ve just disconnected this feature for Spiderworking.com. Why? Well when I looked through my newsfeed I found that the posts looked automated, they often clashed with similar posts I was making on Twitter and it prevented me from personalising these tweets. So today I’m going to show you how to link to a specific Facebook post manually. It’s really easy, it will bring you more engagement and as people have to ‘Like’ your page before commenting or posting it will also bring you more Fans.
1. Click the timestamp underneath the post you want to share
2. Copy the complete link from the address bar of your browser
3. Shorten the link by pasting it into a service such as www.bitly.com
4. Paste the link into a tweet asking for feedback
You can use this same method for finding a direct link to a specific tweet or Google+ post too.
October 5, 2011
I’m often asked how to set up your own Facebook welcome tab. If you don’t have the budget to hire a designer or someone like me to create your landing page is it possible to do it yourself? The answer is of course yes.
I’ve spoken about landing pages a lot. I think they give us a wonderful opportunity to tell people who visit our page a bit more about what we do and encourage them to click that ‘Like’ button.
Creating your own customised page from scratch can be complicated and requires some tech knowledge and skills. The good news is that there are lots of free applications out there that can assist you. Here’s my top three:
1. Pagemodo
For me these are the original user friendly landing tabs. They’ve recently launched new designs that are even prettier. It’s easy to slot in images and texts to make them your own. You can choose from a variety of free templates and there are some more feature rich options in their premium packages.
The one disadvantage is that you have to edit the page on their website and then send it to Facebook. If you want to change your page you can only do this through the website.
2. WooBox
I really like the whole suite of applications that WooBox offers. Their custom page creation tool is great, you can input text and images through a very simple interface, no HTML knowledge is required but if you prefer to enter your own markup you can switch to the HTML editor. You don’t need to go off Facebook to edit either, when you access your page you can click into the editor directly from here.
You can even create Fangates (content only people who like the page can see). The biggest advantage of Woobox is that it comes with free stats showing you pageviews and conversions to likes.
3. Static HTML
If you know your HTML Static HTML is a great app. You can simply cut and paste your markup into a box and you have your page. For people like me who often make HTML errors it handily marks errors in red making them easy to spot and correct. You can easily create fangates and as with Woobox you edit directly from your Facebook page. This gives you complete control over the content you upload. However you will need to host your images elsewhere as this isn’t supported in application.
If you’d like a professionally designed Welcome or custom Facebook page we’re still running a contest on Twitter. We’ve one more prize of a free customised page to give away. Enter the competition here. We’ll draw the winner when we reach 700 Likes.
September 28, 2011
#Krocomm is Ireland’s free e-commerce event happening in Dublin on Tuesday 4th October at Kro HQ. There are lots of great speakers, clinics and giveaways. Book here.
Back at the beginning of the year there was a lot of buzz about f-commerce. In other words selling directly from a shop on your Facebook page. It’s true more people are looking to Facebook to start a shop, it’s also true that lots of large brands seem to be embracing it but is it right for your small business? How else can Facebook help you sell? These are topics I’ll be discussing at the #krocomm e-commerce conference next week but here’s a sneak preview of my presentation.
Why sell from Facebook?
Facebook is a massive community, research has shown that Facebook fans are loyal customers who are more likely to buy online. If you can connect with these potential customers you could be building powerful brand advocates who will not only buy from you but also recommend you to friends.
Buying online is all about trust, you are asking someone to hand over their credit card details so it’s important that however you choose to sell, your web presence oozes professionalism and trust. If you don’t have the budget to create a great e-commerce website straight away Facebook is often a better option. There are several applications that are simple to add to your Facebook page that make setting up a shop easy. Two Irish based ones are Owjo and VendorShop and there are lots of other options out there. However simply adding a shop to Facebook doesn’t ensure trustworthiness. Make sure your page is designed well, add as much detail in the info page as possible and be easy to contact offline.
Once you’ve set up your shop the same rules apply as with any e-commerce venture. Customers won’t just come to you, you will need to attract them. One of the biggest disadvantages of f-commerce that I can see is that people who ‘Like’ your page often just visit once, once they’ve clicked the ‘Like’ button they rely on seeing your updates on their newsfeed. Having a shop tab as part of your page means that you will need to get them back to your page, you will need to drive them to your shop and entice them to buy when they get there. This is true of both f-commerce and e-commerce.
So how do you encourage that purchase using social media? I’m not going to talk about general strategy here and it’s important to remember that these tips will only work as part of a full Facebook or social media campaign.
Offers
I’m not sure if it’s a sign of the times but consumers don’t expect to pay full price for anything anymore. If you want their attention you are going to have to discount occasionally. Creating offers exclusively for your Facebook community is a great way to push them over the edge into a purchase. You can simply add a discount code in your updates or as an image as these are more likely to attract the attention of your fans or you could create a customised page with vouchers. If you are a bricks and mortar shop give your fans a fun phrase they have to say when they come into your shop, this will create a bit of fun instore too.
Exclusives
Every Christmas a member of my extended family gets an invite to a special shopping night in Brown Thomas, they give her a glass of champagne when she arrives and the shop is less busy so she’s able to shop in peace and is guaranteed a personal service. She’s a loyal Brown Thomas customer and this experience makes her feel special. They are ensuring her loyalty for the future. You can replicate this on Facebook.
Why not offer an exclusive to your fans, if you have a new product or a new range of products give your Facebook fans the chance to buy 24 hours before the general public. Not only will this encourage them to buy, it will create a buzz around your launch.
Reviews
We tend to buy from shops that are recommended to us by our friends and I for one know I research a product online before I buy it. Reviews are therefore an essential part of any e or f-commerce site. If someone is able to see frank customer reviews next to the product you are selling they are more likely to buy. Another Irish company LouderVoice makes the process of getting and sharing reviews easy.
Sharing
If you sell something make it easy to share. What happens when someone buys from you? Do they have the option to share their purchase with their friends on Facebook? On Twitter? The easier you make it to share the further the word will spread about what you are selling.
Examples
When I asked people on Facebook would they buy from a Facebook shop most people hadn’t encountered one. This is probably one of the biggest barriers you will come against. There are good examples out there.
Young British Designers have a beautiful shop and I’m informed they only sell on Facebook, there’s no website attached.
Handmade Jewellery store Dink Design are using Owjo to sell from their Facebook page and I think it looks quite attractive and very trustworthy.
Another Irish company Puddleducks have a store powered by Payvment. Again it looks trustworthy and it has those all important ‘share on Facebook’ buttons.
Pampers have a Facebook shop but it differs from the others as links take you away from Facebook and onto their own website.
So what do you think? Would you buy on Facebook? Have you tried selling there? What sort of results have you had? I’d love to hear your experiences so that I can add it to my presentation next week.
September 21, 2011
It can be easy to get carried away with community size when we embark on a social media campaign. How many Twitter followers do we have? How many Facebook Likes? How many YouTube subscribers? And community size is important, however it’s not the most important thing.
Building a valuable community takes time and although there are people out there who will attempt to sell you thousands of Facebook fans or Twitter followers, the relevance of these bought communities is often low. Bought Facebook fans often have no interest in your product or service and come from outside your target market or geographical target. As you are not relevant to them your updates will be or little interest so their value is virtually 0.
It is possible to be successful in social media without massive fan or follower numbers. Take a look at this recent case study from ‘Old Farm’ published on Bloggertone. I’d even suggest that it’s possible to be successful in social media without having your own presence on Facebook or Twitter (although I don’t recommend this). All you need to do is create compelling content that is easy to share.
Sharing is the lifeblood of social media, it is ultimately what will secure your success.
Here’s an example. Your new Faeboook business page has 50 Likes. You upload a photograph that is amusing, topical or of real interest to your 50 fans. The average person has 130 friends on Faceboook and it’s likely that some of those have similar interests to them. If one fan shares your post it has not only reached your 50 fans but also that fans 130 friends . Total reach = 180. If 10 of your fans shared that would be 1,350. And each time one of their friends shares it on, that’s another 130 people reached. Now of course not all of your fan’s friends will see that update and some of their friends will already be fans of your page, but you get the idea.
The same formula can be applied to Twitter and even if you don’t have your own presence if you make your blog or website easy to share you still have the potential to reach social media users.
So how can encourage sharing?
Good content
It’s been a bit of a social media adage that ‘Content is King’. For people to share your content you must have content and it has to be compelling to your target market. Think about what information you have that they need and blog, or share your thoughts on Facebook or other networks.
The more relevant or topical that your content is the more likely your community is to share it. For example the videos I create that attract the most views are tutorials on new social media features as they are released. Today I’m late blogging because I’ve been busy screen grabbing and talking people through the newest Facebook news feed updates.
If you become synonymous with good content then people are more likely to read and share your posts in the future.
Share buttons
If you have a blog make sure you’ve made it easy to share. Adding Twitter or Facebook share buttons or plugins as well as something like ‘Add This’ means that your community can share your content with one click of a mouse.
Share content from others
Be generous with others and share good information, links and tips that they create. When possible credit the original poster. This will buy you good will and also establishes you as a generous person. These qualities will give you social media Karma making people keen to share your content too.
Get to know people
It’s important to build relationships with members of your community. Engage as often as you can and build a rapport with people. Others are far more likely to share your content if they feel they know you.
Ask for the share
Today I saw a beautiful photograph on Google+ with the tag line ‘please share this if you like it’ so I did. However if that user constantly asked for the share I’d be less inclined to do so.
Asking people to share or RT your content will spark people to do just that, there are some interesting statistics on how adding ‘Please RT’ at the end of a Tweet will increase your RT’s. Asking too often is a mistake that lots of people make, eventually your followers will get annoyed and could stop sharing all together.
How do you encourage sharing? What encourages you to share content? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
September 14, 2011
At some moment on Monday night I flipped. I follow Chris Brogan on Twitter and Google+ and a tweet sprung onto my newsfeed.
“Starting to really dislike the 140 character limit after years of advocating it. Conversations are so choppy here.”
Before I give you my reaction a bit of background
I have to admit one of the things I’ve enjoyed about Google+ is watching it evolve, watching early adopters whose opinions I respect discussing the new network, and discovering how it works. Chris Brogan for one hung up his keys at Facebook and moved lock stock and barrel over to G+. These people were finding new ways that Google+ would work and sharing them with their followers.
After a while it became apparent that Google+ was not just a potential Facebook rival but also a Twitter rival, the stream was reminiscent of Twitter and you have the ability of following people who don’t follow you back. There was nothing amazingly different about Google+ but it was taking the best bits of other social networks and improving them. And therein lies G+’s strength.
With a massive user base that grew at a rate that must have struck panic into the heart of Mark Zukerberg I was beginning to think that perhaps it could eclipse Facebook and do so much faster than I’d originally anticipated. However this has yet to happen. There are members all right but few are active and my feed is still dominated by a few power users.
When G+ was launched I avidly created content specifically for it, I routed out my best photos, made specific videos and found links just for sharing there. To me if I was going to be a success with Google+ I’d have to discover what to post and how to differentiate what I was doing there to what I did on other networks. My community and potential target market are very much ensconced on Facebook and Twitter so leaving them like Chris Brogan did wouldn’t work for me.
As time has passed I have posted less and less. I dip in everyday to have a look at what’s going on and sadly I now break my golden rule. “thou shalt not post the same content to Facebook and Google+”.
There are some people on there whose streams I find entertaining. There are some great photographers and seeing photos in the timeline is definitely one thing that G+ has over Twitter. There are also the social media peeps. Chris Brogan, Mari Smith. They post great stuff and I love reading it but I hesitate before commenting. Why? Well firstly the volume of notifications. Yes I can mute a post but really my trips to G+ are swift and stopping to mute stuff on the way seems unnecessary. The notifications that someone else has responded to the post would be fine if there was a conversation going on but each commentator seems to act individually, they are communicating with the original poster but not me and not the others who have left comments. This is how it works on Twitter but surely G+ gives us the platform to converse. I myself am guilty of this. I leave a comment based on the original post and the first few comments I see. Real conversation can spring up on G+ but usually it’s on the content posted by less influential users. I’ve participated in small scale conversations on both my own and other users posts.
I guess part of the reason for this is the curse of celebrity, Twitter has given us unpresidented access to celebrity and this has carried forward to Google+. The problem being that Twitter is filtered so we don’t all see @replies of adoration aimed at high profile users, sadly on Google+ we do.
So with all those users I still see my feed dominated by celebrities or power users, I see some of my contacts struggling with G+ or like me just throwing the odd link up here and there. It’s partly my fault, I’m not leading my community over to G+, I’m not encouraging them the way others there are and unless I, and people like me, make a better effort Google+ can not succeed.
So my reaction to Chris Brogans Tweet was
“@chrisbrogan G+ isn’t ready for the masses yet.. us with smaller communities are finding it harder.”
to which he responded
“@spiderworking – how so?”
As if to endorse the sentiment of his original tweet I’ve had to post over 800 words to explain my thoughts.
I’m not sure I disagree with Chris Brogan’s point of view as such I’m just not there yet and neither is my community. It’s almost as if due to his loyal community base he’s been able to take the express train to Google+ adoption where as I’m still on the steam train, we stop more often on the way though and hopefully we’ll pick up passengers on route.
What are your thoughts on Google+? Will you pledge like me to try harder? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
August 31, 2011
Ruairí Browne is the Managing Director of Kro IT Solutions Limited; a software development company in Dublin. He has over 12 years’ experience working in web technologies and he counts some very well-known companies as his clients. In this guest blog post for Spiderworking,com he examines the part a traditional website has to play in the age of social media.
I have noticed an increasing number of businesses operating from social media only and eschewing a traditional website. It is not something I am against in principle – actually I think a good social media presence is a lot more useful and cost effective than a bad website. It is also technically very feasible – you can sell products directly from Facebook now with no major setup costs. However for serious business owners here are some reasons why I believe you should keep a website as the central hub of your online activity.
1) Watch the T&Cs
Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter all have seemingly daft rules about competitions, promotion, and other aspects of being a respectable user of their site. If you break these rules you will often be banned without warning or any right to state your case. By using social media as a channel to send users back to your website where they can then enter competitions or purchase deals you are ensuring that you do not fall foul of these rules. You may also consider that some websites such as those related to breast feeding or alcohol may fall foul of American prudence on those subjects that would not be applicable in Ireland.
2) Fashions Change
A well-known Irish band that I worked with spent a lot of money on a social media campaign to launch themselves on MySpace and Bebo. They also had a website which could be maintained, managed, and edited by the band themselves. However they never really took to the website and decided to run all their promotions and competitions exclusively through social media. At one point they had a major fan base of over 100,000. I asked them once if they had email addresses for all these fans and they laughed at me and told me email was old school (man). That was all very well until all their fans moved to Facebook and they had to start again back at zero. If they had driven even a proportion of their traffic back to their website they could have captured their fans contact details there and when the band moved to Facebook they would at least have been able to inform people. As it happens the change in fashion more or less finished the band because the second time around they had all left their jobs and could not sustain a second long campaign back to popularity. I am not sure that Facebook is about to follow Bebo down the drain, but if it does (and let’s face it Google Plus would like it to) then are you ready to move with it? Also imagine that one day you wake up and all your followers are gone from your Facebook page due to some glitch. It could happen and if it does Facebook will issue a brief statement saying that some customers were affected and there is nothing we can do about it.
3) Information is Powerful
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google Plus are all great places to interact with your customers. However your website is owned by you and therefore a “hit” to your website is of great value to you. For starters you are on message right across the screen – you are not sharing your screen space with messages from the social media website or advertisements or anything else. Secondly you are capturing user data such as where they came from, what country they are in, what keywords they used to find you, etc. You essentially have control of the customer and it is up to you to lose them or make the sale. The same cannot be said with Facebook (or similar) where your customer is really Facebook’s customer and you have to compete for their attention. People picture Facebook as like a big shopping mall that attracts millions of visitors and allows you the privilege of selling to them. However remember that reality is that we are attracting millions of visitors to Facebook and then they are the ones that are trying to sell to those visitors. Think of the Arab guy in the market in Morocco. He comes out into the street with a monkey on his shoulder to attract attention and he tries to make you feel special by telling you he is Irish and his wife is Irish and his dog is Irish. All the time he is pushing you into his store. He knows that the market is a dangerous and fickle place where everyone wants a bit of you. If he can get you into his shop he has your undivided attention to try and make a sale. Facebook is like that market and you need to get people back to your website where you can get their undivided attention.
4) Credibility
Users are not stupid. They know a Facebook page takes 3 minutes to create and that you can get 100 fans just by asking your friends. A website shows much more commitment. A website says that if I have a problem this person will still be here in a few months. This may not be accurate but it is going to be a factor in your customers mind. When e-commerce first took off the most successful shops were those with a brick and mortar presence backing them. Nowadays people expect that a social media presence will at least be backed by a website and if that in turn is backed up by a bricks and mortar operation then all the better.
5) Value
Finally a web based business is worth money and can be sold. For all the reasons above and many more a business based solely on social media is of no value to an investor, bank manager, or buyer. Social media is also perceived [appropriately] to be about people. It is very rare that a small business has an effective social media presence that is not in reality based on one or two key personalities. Having a website behind your social media presence gives it a focus and a focal point that will make it easier for other personalities to take your place and continue to run your business.
You don’t have to look too far to see an example of a business run in the way I recommend. Spiderworking.com is a strong brand tied together by a good website. However Amanda is herself a brand on social media but she tends to filter most of her potential customers back to the Spiderworking.com website (after all where are you reading this blog post?). She is embracing social media fully but she is using it to strengthen and nourish her core business rather than as an end in itself.
I always picture a website as the trunk of a big solid oak tree. Social media is like a part of the root and branch system – it brings nourishment to the website and it allows the website to express itself. If a tree loses a branch or a root it will not die, but without many of them it will not live. There are many other roots and branches such as email, cold calling, marketing, advertising, and networking. They are all important but I suspect that right now social media is for a lot of businesses the one to concentrate on. Just don’t forget the basics – you need a good solid place to call home.
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