Read our blog post on our website! We’ve always been asked why would a business need a website when, in this day and age, simply creating a social media page can be done with just a few clicks. We totally understand why clients would shy away from having a website just because of this. You would need to hire a “web wiz” or a developer to get your website up and running, follow-up on maintenance, and the whole process can be quite extensive. That said, people may think of this as its biggest weakness, but what if I tell you its just a few from the many reasons why you should get your own website anyway? Let me explain. The Power of Social Media: Good but is it great? Having an online presence is essential. You’ve already signed up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. Question is, is it really enough for your brand/business? In a world where social media has become the main platform for communication between brands and their audience. Just under half the world’s population are now using social media -- that’s 3.196 billion people. The audience is there, however, its still very dependent on targeting and paid advertising for you to reach them. An in-depth social media strategy, combined with compelling and relevant content, bumped with a paid advertising strategy is the standard recipe to grab the attention of prospective customers and increase your brand visibility. All of this sounds good -- but is it great? There’s no question that social media has all the benefits of word-of-mouth, but just on a much larger scale. If used correctly, it can give you the opportunity to reach thousands even millions of online audiences who may be interested in what you do. However, you could also end up spending hours creating content that gets little to no engagement. Social media is like having a pet. It requires as much attention as it would have one. Without daily monitoring or if you don’t spend enough time engaging with your audience, you will lose their loyalty. The platform itself gives you endless networking opportunities with customers and other businesses, however, an additional setback to this is that it’s also saturated with businesses that function similarly to yours. Standing out from that big crowd can be discouraging and detrimental to the growth of your business. Furthermore, there is no stopping someone that can put your business in a bad light. A mere innocent post you may have on your page can be shared and distorted to mean it as another. The level of reporting is much less than with having a website as you only get the information the social platform gives you. Having a social media page alone doesn’t give you a sense that you fully own it. The platform controls the content you publish through its terms and conditions. In short, there may be benefits to social media that can be integral to the success of your business, but the truth of the matter is, if you have only limited your business’ online presence in social media, you’re just merely scratching the surface. Your Domain, Your Rules Having a website allows you to have full control and ownership over your brand. How it looks and what it says is completely up to you. It is the ultimate platform wherein you can fully reflect exactly who you are, why you do what you do, and what makes your business different from the rest. More importantly, customers expect a credible company or business to have a website set up. Customers simply trust a business more that has put in more work and attention to their business through having their own website. The whole process of creating a website may take longer than creating your own social media page, but the pay-off is much greater especially when your reputation, as a company, is on the line. Having a website doesn’t also limit your business’ online space to just information about your company or brand but just like having your own physical store, transactions can be made directly through your website! Think of your domain as your ‘online real estate’. It’s an asset for your company that is built to last your business a lifetime. Therefore, your business won’t be at the mercy of social media platforms should they decided to make any changes in it. The idea here is that social media’s terms and conditions may change any time while your domain works without any of those limitations. In summary, we are not fully canceling the benefits social media can bring for your business. However, as a stand-alone, it won’t be enough to push your company to its fullest potential. Some people think that having a website is just a supplementary asset to your social media page, but the truth of the matter is, it’s quite the opposite. Read our blog post on our website! About the author:

Danica is the Chief Marketing Officer of Brightsand Designs. Her background in Advertising and Marketing has made her known for her strategic imagination in aligning business goals with creative strategy and expression.