I just had a conversation with a client about his lack of a webpage…He said he had a Facebook page and that was good enough…I strongly disagree!..Any more thoughts from the TT crowd?..
I can’t imagine people will instinctually go to Facebook to find a pizza place. Facebook is great for your loyal base, but can’t imagine how it can bring new customers. It is also fairly limited on its information that can be presented. You can upload menus, but not with the ease of a website. We use both and I can say with 100 percent certainty that our webpage gets us more business. It also is more searchable in search engines. If I pull up pizza in my city no name, we will be listed… can’t do that with a facebook page. Just my two cents.
No question our FB page brings us business. It is a LOT easier to drive traffic to a FB page than it is to get people to a new website. People are already on FB so getting them to our page is easy once they “like” us.
Creating a facebook page is bar none the best thing I have ever done. I do also have a web page which is a good investment for only $10 a month, but as far as driving business facebook blows the web page away.
I think both are essential. I have yet to figure out how to get my Facebook page to rank high on a Google search for pizza in my city but I know the traffic that i get on Facebook does generate business.
In the blurred days of getting this place opening all we had time for was to establish a Facebook presence. It’s been GREAT at drawing folks in during our rebuilding stage, teasing with specials, and simply making our place “personal”. I don’t think it’s “everything” that we should have as a web-presence and thus, we should have our website up and running shortly. We’re tying in with a company that makes it pretty effortless to maintain our Facebook, and our website at the same time. This way I think it’ll be easier to avoid having a stale page on either. So, mark us in the “both” column I guess. Tell you in 20 years if I was right.
No, no, no, no, no. Both are essential. Your facebook page does zip for you in attracting new or one time customers. Your facebook page is for maintaining a customer base and stirring interest.
I’m probably a 6 out of 10 on internet smarts, but I can buy a really nice website template for $60 and customize it to attract customers (please don’t look at my current site, it’s just a temp job until I figure out what I want).
I can tell you there are thousands of people better at it than me who would take a hundred bucks to customize a website template that you would be thrilled with. $200 for a great looking web presence, or $0 for a page that people have to be looking for you specifically?
I think both are a must. You can’t order from a facebook page but you can promote sales. I have posted on facebook and received calls within seconds. Posting on my website would never accomplish that.
Well…you can ‘order’ from FB…kinda…my last shop was one of the 1st…it’s actually a custom landing page…I’ll do it again with the new place…once I get to that point…
I think your real site needs to be there. But really I would say FB is 99% of everyones traffic.
I think everyone is seeming to agree here. Both are needed. Facebook is like the marketing end of your web presence. Your web site is like your electronic store front. You need the web site if you are going to have online ordering from you directly. Facebook gives you instant interaction with your customers. Have both. Utilize both.
I just found myself looking for the phone number of a friends florist shop. A google search pulled up all of her competitors but only at the bottom of the page did I find a merchant circle listing with her phone number. Apparently she has no website and therefore is difficult to find via a google search. After reading this thread I went to my facebook page to search for her business. Very simple because I have already clicked Like on her page. I searched for some of her competitors and found them nearly impossible to find on Facebook. if you want new customers to be able to find you via a web search, put up a website because facebook will not do you much good.
Also, a “google places” listing is a must.
You can order from our FB page. That is how most of our first time online customers find us. Furthermore, in this small town, I would bet good money our FB page gets more hits than almost any local business’ web page.
All three (Facebook, Google Places and your website) have such a great ROI you cant go wrong. We have had ordering on our facebook page for years but not a single order, however our website gives us 40% of our trade.
@daddio - if you want your facebook page on google edit your facebook info page with loads of keywords etc. and then remember to set your default page to ‘Info Page’. Usually the default page is the wall which won’t rank high with google as most walls are very similar with few keywords seen. (or if you have your own facebook app wwith lots of key words set that as default)