You know an online presence is important for your business.
You’re here because you know having an online presence is essential to your business. I don’t think you can deny that point any longer after the year we’ve had battling a pandemic.
But you’re on the fence as to where to dedicate your time. You wonder: do I need a website or social media account or both?
How social media presence helps your small business.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are able to grow their user base for good reason. They’re effective at connecting people online but more importantly they are profitable tools when it comes to marketing and selling.
Grow your network and audience.
These platforms give you a unique ability to build a community and grow a captivating audience. You can have authentic conversations with leads and prospects. You can naturally bring them on your customer journey with the end goal of booking with you or buying from you.
Show off your expertise and help your audience.
It’s a platform where you can dish out helpful resources, tips and inspiration all while flexing your expertise and know-how.
Add a personal connection.
You can also show up in Stories to add a personal touch and balance the selling with connection. (Did you know Google now offers its own platform for Stories?)
Establish trust and authority.
And all of this further establishes trust and authority which are key factors in high-converting branding and marketing strategies. If your audience can’t trust you or find value in your offering they will not be interested. And that costs you sales.
Why small business owners need a website.
But if you’ve seen any level of success through social media, is a website truly necessary? If you don’t invest in a strategic website, here are a few valuable marketing aspects you lose out on.
Stay relevant for longer.
On Instagram, your post stays relevant for up to 48 hours.
On Facebook, the lifespan of your post is 5 hours.
On TikTok, the post value instantly decays with the exception of viral content.
But your website is timeliness. And that blog you post to? That content can live from 1-2 years.
When your marketing dollars and your time is finite, investing in a strategic website has long term gains.
There are no limits; you have all the real estate you could want.
Instagram bio limits you to 150 characters. Your Instagram caption can be up to 2200 characters.
Stop limiting yourself to someone’s else platform design, intended solely to boost their profits. It is not designed with the intent for you to maximize your marketing but keep you stuck scrolling endlessly.
With a website, you have full control to strategize and implement an intentional customer journey. You can share more about your story and services in a cohesive manner. No one needs to guess at which post to read to learn more about your background. Neither will they experience your brand or messaging in a half-hazard way.
Instead, you get to decide how you will connect and guide your visitors. And you have all the media resources—gifs, videos, images, text—at your disposal.
Get organic leads through search engines.
On platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook, the search functionality is limited. Often the search results are filtered on only a few fields like your name or title. You can’t take advantage of the power of full search functionality like through Google.
When you have a website, you can implement even the most basic of SEO (search engine optimization) and have organic leads land on your website with no additional effort.
Even if you’re on online business, it is valuable to take advantage of location-specific search results. Set up a Google business (linked to your website) and geotag your images to also generate traffic local to you. It adds another profitable marketing layer to grow your leads.
Grow your audience 24/7 and effortlessly.
If you don’t consistently pour out strategic social media content, the social media algorithms start to penalize you. You don’t show up as often on your follower’s feed and lose out on valuable marketing opportunities.
You aren’t punished as severely with a website. While it’s true Google favours fresh content, your search results aren’t as penalized in comparison to social media algorithms. And when mental health issues are on the rise, it’s clear that the demands of social media play a role. Having a solid website means you can take a break from social media and not have your entire lead generation dry up.
Gain valuable insights and analytics into your audience.
Social media is limiting in how much you can track your audience. But with Google Analytics and other tools you can clearly analyze what your visitors are doing (or not doing). You can see which pages perform best.
You can even run A/B tests which allow you to simultaneously test two different pieces of content to determine which converts the most visitors.
On Instagram, you’ll never know if your bio is optimized enough. But on your website, you have the freedom and analytics to continually tweak to best connect with your visitors.
With the right plugins, you can also track what visitors are clicking to maximize on their website experience.
Run targeted ads on Facebook.
With a website, you can set up Facebook Pixel and add run targeted ads on Facebook. This allows you to drive traffic to your website while also targeting a very specific type of person based on interests and demographics.
People who land on your website can also be targeted so that the next time they’re on Facebook, you present them with an ad to remind them of your service or product. (It often takes 7 times seeing an offer before they are willing to buy.)
Automate your systems and workflows and save time and money.
Every major email marketing system can be integrated directly into your website. You can also integrate your client management system.
Automate lead generation, contact forms and workflows. It saves you time and stress, which translates to more energy and money to pour into your business.
See what you’re losing out on without a website?
Reach out to us to get you on track with a beautifully branded and brand-boosting website.
