Nowadays, when most social platforms have the option of “business page”, you inevitably wonder if you need a website as well. Although this question is somewhat logical, the site is still very important for your brand. The two platforms have their own benefits and are more effective when used together.
Benefits of Social Media for Your Brand
It is very rare that your brand is not present on at least one social media platform, as these are excellent tools to start and maintain communication with your fans and customers.
It's fast, free and easy to create an account on any of the major social media platforms, meaning you can start building your online presence almost immediately. The interactivity of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter helps you communicate and interact immediately with brand fans and quickly notify them of any news.
Disadvantages
While social media offers important communication benefits, it lacks permanence and security. Instead of owning your online presence, you will actually “rent” online space from the social media sites you use. This means that you will always depend on Algorithm changesthat can prevent your page from appearing in the newsfeed. Increasingly, brands are forced to pay for advertising to gain exposure, instead of using social media as an organic and free way to develop their brand. Plus, while Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram seem like they'll always exist, there's no guarantee they won't eventually go on the same trend as Myspace, Google+, or Friendster — meaning you'll always be dependent on their evolution.
Opportunities for brand communication and credibility growth are also limited in social media. Brand content must match that of the platform in question, which can seriously limit your options. Also, the generated content will “sink” over time, becoming increasingly difficult to access, which entails a constant effort to create new content.
Benefits of a website
In light of these disadvantages, a website can serve as the perfect solution to the problems posed by social media. Having more control over a website than social media means that the platform's potential and changing algorithms are no longer an issue. At the same time, the presence of a website provides an increased degree of credibility to a business, credibility that is scalable depending on the degree of personalization and relevance of the content. A simple website with a domain name and a personalized email address is already a solid foundation for a professional online presence of your brand. A website also serves as a central location for information - instead of having to ask questions on social media, customers can easily find answers on the site. This reduces the repetitiveness of questions in social media, leaving it as a platform for customer feedback, reviews, likes, and more favorable questions — all with the potential to strengthen your brand. Thus, you streamline your time for communication, because you will only have to answer these questions once.
While social media has more functionality than a few years ago, sites still have a much richer offering. From blogging to eCommerce, they offer a clear and complete way of managing that social media does not yet allow. All of these benefits work in conjunction with the advanced analytics of a website — whether they are included in the implementation or in an external system such as Google Analytics. Social media provides traffic and behavior analysis, but these are not complex or detailed enough.
The most effective, presence on both platforms
Both solutions (social media & website) reinforce SEO, and a good part of social media can send customers to the website when it matters most — such as during a promotion or an important event. A campaign, for example, can go viral on social media, but it cannot become a reality without the eCommerce functionality of a website. Similarly, an event that asks customers to confirm their intention to attend, will work much better with a dedicated contact form.
However you decide to use these two versatile tools, it is recommended that you use social media and the website in tandem to get the most out of it. Thus, you grow your brand and translate it into a profitable and sustainable business.