Do you think a website is the best way to market your business as an entrepreneur? Or is it better to use social media? …And why?
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- It depends on where your customers are and what platforms they use. For example, I use Facebook and Instagram in conjunction with a website because my customers' demographics do not fit the profile of pintrest or Tik Tok.My advice would be to find out where your target customers hang out and go there!
- Hi Nadine,I would say it's not one or the other.As an example on social media you share more casual, up to date things that relevant to the company. On a website you have content for longer term, full case studies, text heavy content between on social it's a no go to have more than a few sentence. So they have tottaly different purpose.I would say if you have to start somewhere the best to concentrate on social as it's way less time and money consuming to try out what works for your audience. Then when you have your learning you can build the website with a content that you know will last for a while.
- Thanks Nadine for the question.5-10 years ago, if you ask me this question, I would definitely say you don't need a website as social media would save you a lot of money to get traffic to your website.Today, I totally have a different view. You can pay money to get traffic to your website, but if you do SEO, you'll get organic traffic without paying for ads or traffic.The difference between websites and social media is that people search for you or your services (SEO) to get to your website (higher intent) and people bump (via Social Ads or Organically) into your posts on social media (no search intent whatsoever).If you want serious buyers, especially if you serve B2B clients, you definitely have to go for a website.B2B clients are specific, busy, and google search oriented. They got no time for doing business via social media channels. They use it during breaks for personal and fun purposes, unless it is a professional website like LinkedIn. But then again, 90% of LinkedIn users are looking for a job, not business.If you want to read more into the importance of a website for B2B, please enjoy this blog post https://www.leapfrog.uk.com/have-you-got-the-right-content-on-your-b2b-website-and-can-prospects-find-your-site/
- Hi Nadine - it's a great question, and one that many businesses find themselves asking from the offset.Fundamentally, I don't believe it should be considered in an "either or" position.My default go-to with this question, is why would you do all of your marketing inside someone else's shop?Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn... they're all owned by someone else. They set the rules, they choose what can survive on their platform and what can't.For the majority of the time, that's fine.But, what if you've thrown all of your marketing eggs into one (Facebook-branded) basket and, one morning, they decide to remove your business page.Boom. Your audience, gone.Or, maybe Apple decide that they don't like the privacy being offered by Facebook, so all-but-ban (read: severly restrict) what you can do with Facebook on your iPhone/iPad/iMac/Macbook Pro. You've just lost ~50% of the market.Yes, social media is a great option for building up audiences, raising awareness, advertising etc etc etc. BUT, it's *their* platform, and *their* rules. Algorithm changes, marketing shifts... whatever they do, can negatively impact you on your business.Run your own website, with your own lead-gen machine and email marketing systems, and if anything goes awry on social media, at least you haven't lost out entirely - your website still exists.Don't look at websites and social media as exclusive of each other. They're marketing tools. Use them independently but in an integrated manner, and you'll go far.
- Hi Nadine,To answer you question directly, an individual needs to consider how their audience/potential clients would search for their services.If someone is likely to google a particular niche or industry and complete 'search' based research before making a buying/hiring decision, then that individual should be utilising a website to it's full extent to attract traffic, either through relevant SEO and/or keyword related content.If their target audience is more likely to search for someone or discover a business on social media, then the marketing efforts are best applied there.It will always be a combination of both for reasons everyone else has mentioned but what someone should prioritise first should always come down to target audience.What I would say is, only relying on social could become problematic if an algorithm changes or the platform becomes less popular over time. A website will always be a platform you control, so whichever marketing approach you favour, the best strategy (imo) is to get people to interact with you via your website or even better an email list as uickly as you can!
- Hi Nadine, I would say social media is essential, while a website is a 'nice to have', so I'd definitely invest more time in social media and make it clear on there how people can reach you / work with you! There's just more organic discovery on social, Lex
- I’d do both but social media more so you can target your audience and use hashtags relevant to your category/industry. It’ll be easier for people to find you that way rather than rely on them to find you via an internet search before they know who you are.
- Social media gives you more opportunity to reach out to people and grow your clientele, whereas a website is not as accsessible and harder to get people to click on. Definately social media, but still make a website and link it in your bio.
- Hi Nadine! I'd say that both tools can be the best marketing platforms, as long as the right work is put into them. From my experience as an artist launching my business, social media has connected me to my audience instantly and helped me generate two things which I'm still learning to do more efficiently through my website: engagement and sales.
- I think it's super important to have one, and it's an important piece of the puzzle - but alot of the time just the website is not enough; you need marketing to go with it and drive traffic to it. A website will make conversion happen, but it needs to be fed traffic for that to happen, and that's probably where social media steps in :) It's more of a x+y rather than x<y!
- Hello Nadine,I’d say that there is no hard or fast pre-determined rules for success in any area of business.Facebook, Google and Amazon started off as websites, then they grew into huge networks of their own.Everything will depend on the dynamics of your business, target audience, resources, products, services, etc.I would say that an essential thing for an entrepreneur to have direct contact with their market.A number of people have been blocked and removed from their social media platforms which meant that they instantly lost their ability to make money from their audience.It is advisable that you never ever allow a social media platform to have control over your business, and building a successful following on a platform is not the same as building a successful business.Social media is a very valuable tool and each platform is different and will have areas where they are strong and weak. YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Clubhouse, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pintrest, etc, are all social platforms, however some will be better for some businesses and others will work better for other types of businesses.A great example is Gary Vee, he became successful through YouTube because he put in work and made videos for years before he became well known. He did the same thing with Twitter, and Instagram… Many people do not have his drive or will to succeed, so it is not the platform, but the person that will really make a success of anything.BEEPLE the artist made high quality work for many years before he made a penny from artwork sales, and that’s why over a decade later he was able to sell work for millions.Millions of people have been on social media for decades and have not done anything remarkable at all.So I’d say that successful results follows successful actions and a website that is operated poorly will not bring any results and a social media profile that is not run well will not bring any significant results either.I hope that helps and have a wonderful day.
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