By now, we all know the value of using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to generate leads and signups for our mailing lists as well as their well-documented place in the worlds of relationship-building and customer service.
On occasion, I am asked whether having a conventional website is even necessary anymore. We’ve all heard stories about the street vendors who use Twitter to update customers about their locations and small businesses who use Facebook to stay in touch with their customers.
There are even instances of B2B companies and consultants who conduct their business primarily on LinkedIn.
No one doubts the importance of Social Networking in your overall marketing plan, but there is a potential problem that you need to be aware of.
Social Networks are owned by private companies. Your presence on them is at the whim of their management. For a hint of the potential for a problem here, just ask anyone who has had their Facebook or Twitter account deleted by the service – often for trivial or frivolous reasons.
In most instances, a few days of wrangling with their support staff will get you back on, but in the case of Facebook, if your personal account gets flagged, all your business pages go with it.
That could be a problem for a business. If they have no website, they have no ready backup.
What if the Social Networks decide that they want to start charging fees for commercial accounts? What if those fees are exorbitant?
Or what if one of the networks you rely on suddenly becomes a LOT less popular (can anyone say MySpace?) Or goes out of business entirely? Not likely, but not out of the question either.
If you own your own website, you are independent of the whims, mistaken suspensions or deletions and uncertainty of reliance on a third-party for your Internet presence. Even if your hosting company suddenly went belly-up, you could easily find another.
What I am saying here is to be sure you have your bases covered. Use those Social Networks – after all, in addition to helping market your business, they are fun. But sure you have a backup plan. And that backup plan is owning your own website on your own domain.
This is just one of the subjects we will be covering in the Dominate Your Local Market Seminar at the Louisville Manufactured Housing Show. If you’re going to be in Louisville, stop by the seminar and then come my MHMSM.com’s booth #932 for answers to your specific questions.