There has been quite a debate in the online marketing world around the topic of which tools or platforms to use to promote your business now that we’re in a world where Facebook has become ubiquitous<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You’ve probably seen it in the past year that more and more businesses, large and small, have a presence on Facebook through Facebook “Pages” (previously called Fan Pages). Most noticeable of course are the businesses your friends and contacts are involved with, and that they “Like”.<\/p>\n In the context of a difficult economy or just by being sensitive about your marketing resources (time and money), the following question then becomes very legitimate: does it still make sense to have a website or should I only have a Facebook Page to promote my business?<\/strong><\/p>\n Let’s look at the pros and cons of owning a Facebook Page instead of a website.<\/p>\n Unless you have very limited resources, very little time for marketing and you think that the bulk of your Facebook friends would be potential customers and could themselves influence a decent percentage of their friends to also “Like” your page and ultimately buy your products or services, I would not advise to exclusively own a Facebook Page<\/strong> and no website.<\/p>\n As with any other marketing tool or tactic, I don’t believe in the “silver bullet” approach. I believe in leveraging all available tools to boost your brand<\/strong>. I also believe in owning your brand and not outsourcing it to a 3rd party platform<\/strong>, however popular it is.<\/p>\n This means that I strongly believe that you should own your domain name and a website<\/strong> (as simple as it might be at first). There are free online services (such as WordPress.com<\/a> for example) that enable you to create your website on the fly for free<\/strong> (hosting and technology) and charge a small fee for linking it to your domain name.<\/p>\n I also strongly believe in making your brand as accessible as possible to the world<\/strong>. In other words, the World Wide Web is your oyster<\/strong>, not Facebook’s realm alone.<\/p>\n Use all the resources available to grow your brand and product awareness<\/strong>. Facebook offers a range of tools to integrate the Facebook experience to your website (read more here: http:\/\/developers.facebook.com<\/a>). Of course, I do recommend having a Facebook Page on top of having a website<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Also don’t stop at Facebook<\/strong>, you can leverage any social media service to drive traffic and convert leads on a platform you own (think\u00a0 about integrating with Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.). This is possible only if you own your own piece of real estate on the Web<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>Pros of only owning a Facebook Page:<\/h2>\n
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Cons of only owning a Facebook Page:<\/h2>\n
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My recommendation: leverage Facebook Tools, don’t lose your identity to them.<\/h2>\n