There was a time when having a website was considered the end-all, be-all of a brand’s digital footprint. Whether your company sold books or oil, the strategy was the same: buy a domain name and promote it. Over time, as additional digital platforms have become more hospitable to branding efforts, brands are no longer confined to existing within their website.
No such platform has changed the game as much as Facebook. With more than 500 million global members and several million official pages, Facebook has proven its staying power, while other social networks fall by the wayside.
We’ve seen this shift affect traditional media as well. At the World Cup in South Africa earlier this year, official tournament sponsor Adidas chose to use its multimillion dollar ad to drive consumers not to its URL, but instead to the brand’s Facebook page. The goal was to create buzz around the brand during the tournament and also to promote its new F50 adiZero football boot.
As a result of the campaign, more than one million people connected to the Adidas Football Facebook page, which produced an average of 500,000 daily impressions. A brand tracker survey that polled Facebook users showed that awareness of the F50 boot rose by double digits in the European countries that were targeted by the campaign.
But the trend goes beyond just Adidas. Companies such as Toyota and Uniball, as well as several motion picture studios, are all using their traditional media efforts to drive traffic to Facebook. It has become increasingly common to see a TV spot end with the URL of its Facebook page rather than its website domain.
As this trend continues to develop, some companies are beginning to ask the question, “In the age of social media, when Facebook can often provide a more engaging and targeted online experience, are brand websites still relevant?”
The question shouldn’t be, “In the age of social media, are brand websites relevant?” but rather, “In the age of social media, are brand websites less relevant?” The answer might be yes – if only because social media, specifically Facebook, has become such a dominant part of consumers’ digital lives.
Think of it this way: A brand’s online presence is not an island, but rather an ecosystem of distinct yet interrelated digital touchpoints. Today’s ecosystem includes the branded website, along with other platforms such as microsites, display ads, search, email, mobile and social media efforts. Each part of the ecosystem serves a specific purpose and provides its own set of unique advantages and disadvantages.
Even though branded Facebook pages are growing at a rapid pace, they remain secondary for most consumers. A recent study from Invoke Solutions found that even among frequent social media users, people are nearly twice as likely to visit a company’s website than its Facebook page.
In Defense of the Brand Website
No matter how many other digital spaces with which a brand is involved, the website still usually serves as the online “home” for the brand. Site traffic most always outranks a brand’s Facebook following, and it’s where people naturally go to find out more about a company. They offer several distinct benefits with which branded Facebook pages simply cannot compete.
Depth and Richness of Content
Since you wholly own a brand website, it means you create the rules, and the site is limited only by your imagination. Websites are the one place where you can create as much content as you want, in whatever platform you want and make it as rich as you want. A Facebook page, on the other hand, has strict guidelines on what can be customized and the technology used. Brands can create custom tabs, but real estate is limited. In addition, these tabs are often fairly static, as multimedia interaction such as Flash requires a click on the tab before the user can interact.
Discovery Is Second Nature
The most common way people find their way onto a corporate website is by guessing the URL, according to recent research from the E-Tailing Group. The Web is universal and no login is required to join. The content on a website is much easier to find through search.
Data Ownership
When you set up a brand page on Facebook, you don’t really own it. Your content is subject to the company’s own set of policies, which often change. It can lose data or even go out of business someday. Also, if all your brand’s exposure is confined within Facebook, then it runs the risk of muddling its unique identity.
Reach
Although it may seem hard to believe at times, not everyone is on Facebook. In fact, while Facebook has 140 million users in the U.S., there are 240 million Internet users in the country. By confining your brand’s online presence to Facebook, you are excluding 100 million consumers from your messaging.
E-Commerce
U.S. consumers first learned to buy products online through the Web. We have become accustomed to making purchases online through branded websites and third-party retailers, but placing product orders through social media still seems foreign to most Americans. In the future this may change; companies such as Best Buy and 1-800 Flowers are experimenting with importing their inventory to their Facebook pages, but the success of these efforts remains to be seen.
Advantages of Facebook
Facebook now has more than 500 million members worldwide. In the U.S., it’s the most heavily trafficked website, surpassing Google earlier this year. The social networking site allows brands to connect with consumers where they are more active online.
Exposure
One of the biggest strengths of Facebook is that when fans interact with a brand, their friends also get exposed via the news feed. This relies on pushing out communications that encourage many of your fans to interact through commenting and liking your updates.
Targeting
The high volume of personal data that is self-reported by Facebook members allows advertisers to be more precise than ever in its targeting efforts. Everything from age and gender to interests is available as criteria to target your campaign.
Continued Engagement
It’s extremely simple to update certain types of content of a Facebook page, including posts, photos and brand videos. This makes it easier to facilitate conversations about the brand and give fans a reason to make repeat visits to the page.
Conclusion
Despite the rise in buzz around Facebook pages, brand websites are every bit as relevant as they’ve ever been. They remain the only true digital channel that can be completely and wholly owned by you, the brand. While some social media sites may come and go, websites are an enduring digital touchpoint.
Every great digital strategy relies on utilizing multiple digital platforms and allocating marketing efforts where they will be used most effectively. Consumer behavior will continue to evolve, and expectations of what brands should be online will continue to shift as consumers become more dependent on digital platforms for product information, reviews and shopping. And for now, at least, a brand site still serves an important role in that process.
Practical Considerations
If you have an idea for an online execution for your brand, but aren’t sure where it would be most appropriate to live, refer back to the advantages of each platform and weigh which benefits are more important for the execution you’re considering.
If you are considering replacing your website with a Facebook page, you should first make a tally of all the functions and roles of your current website and ask yourself whether a Facebook page would be capable of taking over. How much do you rely on selling products online? How much traffic is your site pulling in currently? Is your focus to display product information or facilitate brand affinity?
If you think there is duplication in some of your efforts, decide whether the effort should live only on the website, only on Facebook or remain on both. You don’t always have to choose between the two; many brands are choosing to make their websites more social by implementing Facebook social plug-ins, which are extensions of Facebook that live on a website. They have the potential to show users a completely immersive brand experience on the Web while allowing them to share branded content with their friends at the same time.
There was a time when having a website was considered the end-all, be-all of a brand’s digital footprint. Whether your company sold books or oil, the strategy was the same: buy a domain name and promote it. Over time, as additional digital platforms have become more hospitable to branding efforts, brands are no longer confined to existing within their website.The answers to each of these questions should factor into your decision on how to share your brand’s online presence between the website or Facebook page.
No such platform has changed the game as much as Facebook. With more than 500 million global members and several million official pages, Facebook has proven its staying power, while other social networks fall by the wayside.
We’ve seen this shift affect traditional media as well. At the World Cup in South Africa earlier this year, official tournament sponsor Adidas chose to use its multimillion dollar ad to drive consumers not to its URL, but instead to the brand’s Facebook page. The goal was to create buzz around the brand during the tournament and also to promote its new F50 adiZero football boot.
As a result of the campaign, more than one million people connected to the Adidas Football Facebook page, which produced an average of 500,000 daily impressions. A brand tracker survey that polled Facebook users showed that awareness of the F50 boot rose by double digits in the European countries that were targeted by the campaign.
But the trend goes beyond just Adidas. Companies such as Toyota and Uniball, as well as several motion picture studios, are all using their traditional media efforts to drive traffic to Facebook. It has become increasingly common to see a TV spot end with the URL of its Facebook page rather than its website domain.
As this trend continues to develop, some companies are beginning to ask the question, “In the age of social media, when Facebook can often provide a more engaging and targeted online experience, are brand websites still relevant?”
The question shouldn’t be, “In the age of social media, are brand websites relevant?” but rather, “In the age of social media, are brand websites less relevant?” The answer might be yes – if only because social media, specifically Facebook, has become such a dominant part of consumers’ digital lives.
Think of it this way: A brand’s online presence is not an island, but rather an ecosystem of distinct yet interrelated digital touchpoints. Today’s ecosystem includes the branded website, along with other platforms such as microsites, display ads, search, email, mobile and social media efforts. Each part of the ecosystem serves a specific purpose and provides its own set of unique advantages and disadvantages.
Even though branded Facebook pages are growing at a rapid pace, they remain secondary for most consumers. A recent study from Invoke Solutions found that even among frequent social media users, people are nearly twice as likely to visit a company’s website than its Facebook page.
In Defense of the Brand Website
No matter how many other digital spaces with which a brand is involved, the website still usually serves as the online “home” for the brand. Site traffic most always outranks a brand’s Facebook following, and it’s where people naturally go to find out more about a company. They offer several distinct benefits with which branded Facebook pages simply cannot compete.
Depth and Richness of Content
Since you wholly own a brand website, it means you create the rules, and the site is limited only by your imagination. Websites are the one place where you can create as much content as you want, in whatever platform you want and make it as rich as you want. A Facebook page, on the other hand, has strict guidelines on what can be customized and the technology used. Brands can create custom tabs, but real estate is limited. In addition, these tabs are often fairly static, as multimedia interaction such as Flash requires a click on the tab before the user can interact.
Discovery Is Second Nature
The most common way people find their way onto a corporate website is by guessing the URL, according to recent research from the E-Tailing Group. The Web is universal and no login is required to join. The content on a website is much easier to find through search.
Data Ownership
When you set up a brand page on Facebook, you don’t really own it. Your content is subject to the company’s own set of policies, which often change. It can lose data or even go out of business someday. Also, if all your brand’s exposure is confined within Facebook, then it runs the risk of muddling its unique identity.
Reach
Although it may seem hard to believe at times, not everyone is on Facebook. In fact, while Facebook has 140 million users in the U.S., there are 240 million Internet users in the country. By confining your brand’s online presence to Facebook, you are excluding 100 million consumers from your messaging.
E-Commerce
U.S. consumers first learned to buy products online through the Web. We have become accustomed to making purchases online through branded websites and third-party retailers, but placing product orders through social media still seems foreign to most Americans. In the future this may change; companies such as Best Buy and 1-800 Flowers are experimenting with importing their inventory to their Facebook pages, but the success of these efforts remains to be seen.
Advantages of Facebook
Facebook now has more than 500 million members worldwide. In the U.S., it’s the most heavily trafficked website, surpassing Google earlier this year. The social networking site allows brands to connect with consumers where they are more active online.
Exposure
One of the biggest strengths of Facebook is that when fans interact with a brand, their friends also get exposed via the news feed. This relies on pushing out communications that encourage many of your fans to interact through commenting and liking your updates.
Targeting
The high volume of personal data that is self-reported by Facebook members allows advertisers to be more precise than ever in its targeting efforts. Everything from age and gender to interests is available as criteria to target your campaign.
Continued Engagement
It’s extremely simple to update certain types of content of a Facebook page, including posts, photos and brand videos. This makes it easier to facilitate conversations about the brand and give fans a reason to make repeat visits to the page.
Conclusion
Despite the rise in buzz around Facebook pages, brand websites are every bit as relevant as they’ve ever been. They remain the only true digital channel that can be completely and wholly owned by you, the brand. While some social media sites may come and go, websites are an enduring digital touchpoint.
Every great digital strategy relies on utilizing multiple digital platforms and allocating marketing efforts where they will be used most effectively. Consumer behavior will continue to evolve, and expectations of what brands should be online will continue to shift as consumers become more dependent on digital platforms for product information, reviews and shopping. And for now, at least, a brand site still serves an important role in that process.
Practical Considerations
If you have an idea for an online execution for your brand, but aren’t sure where it would be most appropriate to live, refer back to the advantages of each platform and weigh which benefits are more important for the execution you’re considering.
If you are considering replacing your website with a Facebook page, you should first make a tally of all the functions and roles of your current website and ask yourself whether a Facebook page would be capable of taking over. How much do you rely on selling products online? How much traffic is your site pulling in currently? Is your focus to display product information or facilitate brand affinity?
If you think there is duplication in some of your efforts, decide whether the effort should live only on the website, only on Facebook or remain on both. You don’t always have to choose between the two; many brands are choosing to make their websites more social by implementing Facebook social plug-ins, which are extensions of Facebook that live on a website. They have the potential to show users a completely immersive brand experience on the Web while allowing them to share branded content with their friends at the same time.
The answers to each of these questions should factor into your decision on how to share your brand’s online presence between the website or Facebook page.
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