Facebook pages and Instagram offer many businesses a highly versatile and high converting social media marketing portal. The average business will start by creating a Facebook page to launch their online presence as they plan on a longer term website development strategy. But what is the value of having both? Would a Facebook page just suffice if it is already appearing in Google and Facebook searches and generating your business a healthy number of leads?
Facebook Pages Do Have Some Limitations
Facebook pages for small businesses are advantageous in many respects. They offer a high level of user engagement, allow you to promote your stuff in a very discoverable and easy to find format and they are also easy to build. With Facebook promotional features such as Facebook “Boost”, you can begin generating business leads almost immediately. You can also build a huge fan base within a very short time by inviting your friends and promoting the Facebook page via Facebook advertising.
Lack of Control in Facebook
One of the main limitations of a Facebook page is that the business lacks control or ownership of the page. While you can “brand” the page by adding your images and logos, it is still not your platform and you are limited in terms of what you can realize with the page. You have to live with Facebook’s default page features and there is little room for customization to suit your preferences.
Facebook Pages are not Ecommerce-Friendly
Another limitation of the Facebook page, particularly for ecommerce, is that it is not ecommerce-friendly. While you can share individual posts of your products on your Facebook page, there is only so much that you can do before your “fans” begin to feel like you are spamming them with information. Unlike ecommerce websites, you cannot upload, curate, optimize and categorize thousands of products on your Facebook page. This can also be limiting to the customer who will have a hard time trying to find the right products to buy.
Difficulty in Navigating Facebook Page Posts
Facebook pages also “bury posts”. You might have some valuable insights or attractive offers that you wish to share with your prospective clients but fresh Facebook posts will bury them deep in the page, making them undiscoverable to your customers. That could also lower your conversion rate.
The bottom line is that while Facebook pages are essential for modern businesses, they can be limiting if you are planning to build an integrated brand experience for your customers. The best option is to leverage the branding and conversion advantages that a dedicated website confers on your business.
These benefits include the following:-
Own the branding
Owning a website allows you to own the branding experience and customize the site to suit the unique business and branding requirements of your business. You don’t have to worry about being forced to work with a universal Facebook template.
Get More Control and Scope
While there are lots of cool Facebook apps, they still don’t have the scope and control that a website offers. There are plenty of highly robust and versatile content management systems (CMSs) with tens of thousands of plugins and modules to extend their functionality and these offer a level of versatility that you simply can’t squeeze in a Facebook page. The website gives you complete control on how to organize your content ranging from content placement to design, fonts, widgets and various other cool features. It is even better if you are working with highly customized templates for ecommerce websites such as Magento, BigCommerce, Shopify and PrestaShop that can give you very robust ecommerce functionality.
Search Engine Optimization
A website gives you greater scope for search engine optimization. You can decide to optimize individual posts, pages, products and many other website content and this will significantly boost your rankings in the SERPs. Facebook pages have very limited scope for SEO and SEM (search engine marketing).
More Versatile Categorization
If you are running a robust ecommerce platform with hundreds of categories, you will be able to create a more intuitive and better organized categorization if you work with a website rather than a Facebook page. The versatility of website design and content management systems makes it possible to create as many pages and as many menus and sub menus as you wish.