This post was originally written by my sister and partner at Grit Webstudio and was slightly adapted for this blog.
At the time of writing the post, Grace was still in Suriname to visit our mom after dad passed away suddenly. While searching the internet for local products and services, she discovered that many companies in Suriname use a Facebook page instead of a website. That made her curious to the difference since we were also looking at using Facebook for our business ventures at that time.
In her previous post at the other website: ‘6 Reasons why especially startups should have a website’ she had written about the importance of having a website.
This post explores the differences between a website and a Facebook page.
After some research Grace came to the following conclusions:
| Website | Facebook page | |
|---|---|---|
| Costs | Free or expensive to set up, depending on what you want your site to look like and whether you build it yourself or let someone else do it for you.
Want to learn how to DIY? We created a free WordPress course ‘7 Quick steps to your own website’. |
Free |
| Knowledge | It is needed, but easy to learn through our free course (see above) and others available online. | None, just follow the prompts |
| Control | You’re totally in control. You decide what your customized website looks like (content and design). | You have a lack of control because you have to follow the terms of service from Facebook. Your page is NOT your property. |
| Market | You have to market and get visitors to your site on your own. | You have an existing market (family, friends and their network). |
| Marketing | You have plenty of space on your website to share your message and market your products or services. | The space for marketing on your Facebook page is limited. |
| Information delivery | Through subscribing. A visitor needs to subscribe first in order to receive regular updates, unless they bookmark your page and visit regularly. | Through the timeline. Your network receives the updates at once. |
| Statistics | You decide if you want to share the number of your website visitors. You can also get site analytics on the back end of your site. | The number of followers (fans) is known. |
| Interaction | Dealing with visitors who may cause trouble (spammers/hackers) can be time consuming. | Visitors who are causing trouble can be blocked easily. |
Looking at this summary the best way to expose and market your online business is to have both a website and a Facebook page. This gives you the best of both worlds, because you’ll have full control over your content and exposure with a website, while Facebook is an excellent networking tool you could use to draw visitors to your site.
What are you using as a marketing tool for your business? Please share in the Comments.