Here’s why…
Yikes!
That message appeared on my Facebook account today, okay it was just temporary unavailable ten minutes tops (maybe Facebook were adding Skype to my page first!), and not for one second did I think Facebook had waved the white flag at Google+, pulled the shutters down and closed up shop!
If you already know that Facebook is a marketing tactic, stop reading and go and update your FB status, this post isn’t really for you. Or stick around, I’d love your thoughts on this one.
First, I do believe that if you have a business, using Facebook as your business is a must, as long as you know the reason behind why you have decided to include it in your bigger picture.
Over a billion users, and probably a few tens of thousands more by the time I hit publish button on this post is a good reason to use Facebook, but is it a good enough reason why?
However solely relying on Facebook is not a good strategy…unlike your own website you have no control over what Facebook, well, what Facebook does with Facebook.
You don’t have a contract, no Terms and Conditions of service, no immediate help desk. They can pull the plug and all your relationships, content, shares, hard work goes with it.
You don’t technically own your page, Facebook does. No, honest it belongs to Facebook. You don’t own Facebook ;-)
To me, it’s like giving your content away to a third party, hoping that they will never lose or disappear with it, that’s a lot of trust in something you and I don’t even pay for.
As a plan, just Facebook is not a great plan. Neither is just Twitter, just Linkedin, just blogging, just a website, just social bookmarking.
I’m picturing ‘eggs, baskets, all in’, I don’t know about you?
I think a better strategy would be (including having own email list first or make it a priority): integrating Facebook (and any other digital media) as one of the tactics you use, that complements your website/blog and gives a richer customer/client/user experience. That the effort and hard work goes on your static site/blog .
The place where you do have nearly complete control over, the website you own and host.
I say nearly, because anything can happen.
Can you afford anything to be ‘temporarily unavailable’?
Do you have any thoughts? Opinions? Comments?
Leave a Reply