Like many of us you probably set up your personal Facebook account a few years ago and it keeps you busy “enough” keeping up with old friends, old flames and forgotten names you haven’t heard from since your 20+ year high-school reunion. But have you set up your business page or pages?
It’s something to seriously consider if you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur or even if you are the Chief Marketing officer at a Fortune 500 company. Why? It’s in the numbers. Take a look.
With over 500 million users Facebook now boasts the third largest population on the globe after China and India! A recent CNET article, “Will Facebook Replace Company Websites,” reported the following eye-opening stats:
- Starbucks, a top Facebook advertiser, reported 21.1 million likes to 1.8 million site visitors in a one-month period.
- Coca-Cola – 20.5 million likes compared with 270,000 web visitors
- Oreo – 10.1 million compared with 290,000; and
- Dr. Pepper – 4.1 million likes compared with 325,000.
I was really surprised to see the vast difference in “likes” vs. unique site visitors. You can read the entire articlehere.
Another interesting point about Facebook vs. most corporate sites is that we are conditioned to take an action within Facebook. We are used to commenting, liking, viewing photos, videos, joining a group, connecting with a friend, etc… Most corporate sites or small business sites offer mostly static content. The sites are informative in nature but they typically don’t ask us for anything other than signing up for a newsletter or RSS feed.
Back to the CNET story, did you notice the headline “Will Facebook Replace Company Websites??” What do you think of that statement?
I recently had a previous client reconnect and ask us to develop a corporate Facebook micro site (pages). “Sure,” I said. “We can build that for you.” Do you have any examples she asked? “We haven’t built any for a client but I’ve seen some great ones,” I offered. “You better get really good at it,” she said, “because I think Facebook mircro sites are going to replace the need for websites.” Same thought from unrelated people in under a week.
Are you wondering if you need to develop business pages for your company? If your target audience hangs out on Facebook then it’s imperative that your business does too. But I don’t think a Facebook micro site will eliminate the need for your corporate site on the web any time soon.
Your Facebook site should be a snapshot, a teaser of what you offer and what differentiates you from your competition. It can be used as a way to build your brand, build your network and even sell your product or products.
When my previous client re-engaged, I was already in the process of building my own micro site. You can take a peekhere. It’s a work in progress with a strategy and thought process to go with it. I’ll share the finished product as soon as it’s done.
So what do you think will Facebook replace the need for a site on the World Wide Web?
