Just in case you were wondering – social media platforms are not website platforms. 😉
I’ve come to think of social media platforms like renting a booth at a trade show, craft fair, or maybe a sidewalk sale…
When you show up, there are lots of people there. You can talk to a few, maybe a bunch of people walk by and see your sign.
You can make sales that way, but it has to be the right audience that comes by your booth – so the right event, a good booth, a great product, a good audience, something to stop them on the way by, the ability to talk to them… is this all sounding like social media to you like it does to me?
But your booth is only yours as long as you show up.
Events can be canceled, even without notice (we learned that this last year). And being able to sell to that audience requires you to go to that event. You don’t have a way to reach them otherwise.
In contrast, website platforms can be your online storefront, your home on the web. Your website is yours.
You have to draw people to it, but you can help them on their customer journey once they are there. The goal is to help them enough to become a part of your community, one that you can reach out to again and again.
Your website, your email list, your content, and the other things you develop for your business – those are things that you own.
You can control how they work for you. Your website can bring in leads, offer information, sell products, build a community – and do it in a consistent way that other platforms can’t.
Social media can work well WITH your website, but it doesn’t replace your site.
It’s helpful to understand how both can play a part in a successful business marketing strategy. ✅
How about you? Website? Social? Both?
