Could Facebook Take Over from Company Websites?
07/03/2011
Facebook is apparently now such a popular way for companies to interact with their clients that it may one day replace company websites.
The Commercial Director of the UK's Facebook Operation, Stephen Haines, recently said that interaction now takes place so much on Facebook that websites may become obsolete. To bolster his argument he revealed how many more times people have ‘liked’ famous brands on Facebook than actually visited the brand website.
An article on CNet News reveals more:
A day might be coming when the power of Facebook means that major companies no longer bother with their own Web sites.
That was the startling if self-promotional possibility sketched out by Stephen Haines, commercial director of Facebook's U.K. operation, while speaking today at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising conference here. Essentially, Haines argued, companies' interactions with their customers could take place so often on Facebook that company Web sites would fall by the wayside.
Read more at CNet.com
Written by Stephen Shankland, March 2nd 2011.
Comment
It is still early days to tell how the future of websites and social media will shape up. It is certainly a possibility that some companies could do business entirely from Facebook, perhaps having ‘sites’ on Facebook. However there are still pitfalls to using social media and websites are a tried and tested marketing tool. At the conference Stephen Haines pointed out a few things to ensure before you commit yourself to Facebook:
- First, be prepared for a long-term commitment to keep a site on Facebook lively:
"If it doesn't change, it's probably not worth dabbling" with a Facebook site, Haines said. For a social-networking site to be useful in marketing, it's got to "stimulate" the customers, he said.
- Second, plan to respond to very public criticism:
"If you ignore [criticism], it's the worst thing you can do," he said. "Be prepared for it, because it will happen."
Ideally, good responses can turn critics into fans, though.
- Third, companies should be judicious about the fine line between engaging customers and annoying them. One company, which Haines didn't name, had 200,000 people liking its page:
"They sent sent seven messages a day," he said. "Their fan base dropped off."
(Content from CNet.com)
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