Five Reasons Blogs Outperform Facebook
By Tim Underwood

Facebook vs Website?

One of the most common mistakes I see among authors and people in general is the lopsided emphasis that is put on Facebook postings/updates compared with little attention given to their website or blog posts. It is a really HUGE issue.

There are some very good reasons why people give more emphasis to Facebook or other social media platforms. It is a natural tendency.

4 Reasons Why People Get Lazy and Focus on Facebook

1. It is often easier to post – submitting a post on Facebook might be easier especially if your blog is not set up for easy updating (it can be set up for ease).
2. There is often instant feedback/gratification – instantaneous comments on Facebook are more visible to you and often accompanied by a notification and noise (by default)
3. Facebook wants to make it easy and will try to make it easier – by using apps and other tools
4. It is cheaper. Let’s face it, starting a Facebook page requires no domain registration or hosting and set up costs. So (in a short-sighted way) it is cheaper.

You need to consider your plan and RESIST the natural tendency to go the default route.

Have A Plan

Be strategic and effective. I am not suggesting you ignore/neglect Facebook, but find the right balance. You need to ask yourself what you want your desired outcome to be. Is it growth? Then make your website your base and use your other social media as your outposts that point back to your website. Think of it like a pivot point in basketball or home base in baseball. That is what your website should be.

Five Reasons You Should Focus on Your Website

1. You have control of your branding

With your website you can control the look, the feel, and the messaging. You are not limited by the Facebook template. With Facebook, the look may change and has many times. And everything done on Facebook helps to promote Facebook and your name becomes secondary.

2. You have control of the user experience

With your website you can determine what kind of experience the user might encounter on your pages. For example you can have a landing page, you can have a sale funnel set of pages, or other pages with little distraction. With Facebook, the organic viewing % is changing so that currently only 5-15% of fans of a Facebook page will see any given Facebook post. Read more about this a few paragraphs below.

3. You have control of (and can grow) your online presence

With a website you can determine what is said about you, reserve 1 or multiple domain names, and you can expand the number of pages or websites as you need to. Facebook might someday change the rules again, and might someday not exist. Then all your work could be lost.

4. You are easy to find via your website

With a website you can continue to add pages and blog posts that all contribute to you being found on Google (SEO-search engine optimization). All past posts from years before can be searched and found if someone Googles the particular keywords. Facebook is a semi-closed system that is only seen by the network given permission. You cannot Google Facebook posts. Moreover, old Facebook posts are difficult to locate.

5. You can measure the results

With a website you can measure all the visits to your site, all the clicks, the length spent on your pages, and from where the visits came from..and more! This is all useful to determine what is working and not working. With Facebook you do not have as many measurements.

Open Up Your Boundaries!

Have you noticed your Facebook views and engagements lately? As I mentioned earlier, one can expect 5-15% of fans to see a post. So if you have 300 followers, you might have 30 people notice a post. On a blog site you can drive interest to that site and even blogs from years ago can still get new traffic. One the common issues I see constantly is a person spending hours on Facebook posts that only get 30 views when they could magnify that in combination with good blogging. When you focus on Facebook alone, you are focusing inward. Open up your boundaries. Go beyond the semi-closed system called Facebook.

Summary

Without a website, it is very risky and not good strategy to do social media for a number of reasons. So in summary, it is critical to have a website particularly with a blog feature. I cannot stress this enough. To give priority to Facebook or Twitter over a website is a very poor strategy. Do yourself a favour: consider how much time do you invest in Facebook vs your website in a week?

What has your % of viewerships been on Facebook? Make a plan to spend more time on your website and your blog. There is returnable value in that!

About this Contributor:

Tim Underwood is Graf-Martin Communications’ Integrated Communications Manager who specializes in internet marketing. Graf-Martin has teamed up with Word Alive Press to offer authors PR and social media services.