Why Just Having a Business Page on Facebook is Not Enough for Small Businesses

You are completing with Facebook’s platform

The goal of any website or social media platform is to keep users engaged on it as long as they can. Linking out (or prompting a user to send an email), or encouraging a user to take an offline task (like calling your business) is counteractive to that goal. Think of how  casinos never have clocks or windows to keep you gambling, the same principle applies here.

Point blank—Facebook is in business to make itself money, not to make it for your business. By having ads and urging you to pay for boosted posts, Facebook is monetizing your content and your business’s presence there. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but be aware that your business goals and theirs aren’t the same.

You are confined in what you can do

Facebook is severely limiting from a design perspective. You information appears how they want it to, leaving you with only a profile pic square and a header image to distinguish your brand. Everything else on the page is standard to Facebook’s brand. There are no possibilities for custom colors or fonts to match your existing branding.

The size of images, the amount of text on an image (even if you are paying for it as an ad) is all controlled tightly. You don’t have the freedom to build your Facebook page as you’d like it.

You must “Pay-to-Play”

How/or if your content is shown on walls and feeds is at their mercy. The placement of any posts easily gets lost and many followers will not see a business’s Facebook posts unless they are promoted or ‘boosted’. While this is genius for Facebook, it can be a headache for you. Paying to ‘boost’ to the point where anyone can really see it adds up very quickly. And not paying means virtually no one will ever see a posts unless they specifically come to your page.

Unless you update it constantly, it looks neglected

We’ve all had the experience of looking up a restaurant to find their hours or menu, stumbling onto a Facebook page for said restaurant, only to discover the last post was back in 2015. You pause to wonder if the business is still in business or not. With a timeline based platform like Facebook, there must be constant updates or you risk looking neglected and outdated.

Not everyone is on Facebook

While the majority of the American public is on Facebook, not everyone is. We all know several people personally that are not. According to recent research from the Pew Research Center, upwards of 20% of Online US Adults are not. And, interestingly enough, the higher a person’s income level is—the less likely they are to be on Facebook. Those earning $75k+ annually are 7% less likely to be on Facebook compared with those earning under $35k annually. A website, however, is universal, reaching everyone that has access to the internet.

FB Visitor Data is less than what Google Analytics can provide

While Facebook does provide insights about how many people like posts and the overall business page, and how many people engage with posts—it can’t give you the rich set of information Google Analytics can. Vital information like where people are visiting from, how they are, what they are looking for, and more is all available within the Google Analytics dashboard when GA is connected to a website.

Speaking of Google, a Facebook page is less likely to be found in search

A major consideration in whether to solely have a Facebook Business Page or to invest in  a proper website is search. Being found on Google and other search engines is vital to successful online marketing. According to One.com, “Google seems to prioritize Facebook pages lower than official sites and local listings.” The top organic result can typically expect to receive 32.5% of all clicks on search engine result pages. From a search perspective, having an official website of your own is critical.

Trends change

Facebook is the dominant social media platform now, but what about in the future? Only time can tell what people will gravitate to in the coming years. You may remember the once massive popularity of now almost completely defunct MySpace, but years ago it’s demise was unthinkable. Many younger audiences have already abandoned Facebook altogether in favor of newer platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram.

We aren’t knocking Facebook or any other social media platform (we have a Facebook Business Page ourselves). There are a lot of people on Facebook, however, a business page on Facebook should be a tool in your marketing belt, not the whole thing. A professionally-designed small business website is the anchor for promoting yourself, and integrates nicely with Facebook. Our professional website design services are more affordable than you may think. If you’re ready to build a site for your business, let’s talk.