Here is a great article I found at
MarketingProfs.com. These are important considerations -- especially for Black entrepreneurs who may be joining the "Social Networking Wave". This also gives encouragement to those of us who have skillfully positioned our websites with SEO strategies. Take a look and let me know what you think.
WHY A WEBSITE MATTERS
Quite simply, the answers are: stability and familiarity. Think of the company website as a landline phone number and social media as a prepaid cell phone. Both will allow you to make a call, receive a call, and offer a number at which to contact you. But there is sense of trustworthiness, standing, and permanence to a landline phone number that you just don’t get by using a prepaid cell phone.
Social media can be viewed in the same way—anyone can use it and it doesn’t take a whole lot of expertise or credibility to set it up. In fact, it’s often difficult to judge if a company Facebook page is “official” or merely set up by an outside user or group. Furthermore, people are more apt to click through to an actual website in a search engine result (such as Google) than clicking through to a URL that is linked to a business page on Facebook or LinkedIn, or worse, tweeted on Twitter. Social media feeds quench our thirst for instant gratification and therefore, the information is fleeting. We receive a news update, and as quickly as it’s received, it’s forgotten.
A static website offers a permanent location where visitors can return time and time again and find the information they need, and not have to scroll through endless pages of status updates. When a person clicks the Twitter button on a webpage, the page URL is then tweeted in their Twitter account to all their followers. Some of their followers will read the tweet and few will actually click the link in it. The same thing happens on a Facebook page. You have to go to the info page to view the URL to the actual business website.
While social media does in fact help to boost a company’s search engine optimization (SEO), nothing beats a properly coded website for SEO, and companies would be wise not to abandon efforts of raising SEO value through a business website over increasing your business presence in social media accounts.
It is important to remember that social media was never meant to be used to push businesses—rather it is a way to stay in touch. As many of us still use social media solely as a way to stay in touch with family and friends, most people I’ve spoken with feel that it’s a bit unprofessional to push or oversell a business on social pages. It’s like getting a telemarketing call when you’re at home eating dinner.
Your company website should be the place where you push your business. Our company’s Internet marketing strategy—whether via social media, e-newsletters, or any other correspondence—has always been to drive people to our website. It does not work the other way around. Sure, we have links to our social media sites on our website, but we are in no way trying to push visitors away from our site. To promote your actual website over a Facebook or LinkedIn page drives traffic to your main website and will increase its popularity, and its SEO value.
To have a well-structured presence on the web, it’s important to treat your website and social media pages as you would if you had to manage two competitive and insecure employees. Allow them to coexist, nurture a working relationship between them, and try not to let one get more attention that the other. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each, utilize them accordingly, and don’t allow one to usurp the other. You will find that, working in tandem, social media and your old-fashioned website will lend credibility, professionalism and a sense of internet savvy to your company.
THE CONCLUSION:
Don't neglect your website. Using social media to drive people to a dysfunctional destination will destroy your business reputation fast.
Is Social Media Killing the Website?
Linear Mode
