Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Your Website and Social Media For Business Growth

Websites and social media are all great communications tools, as with everything there are always advantages and disadvantages, we've kept it simple and listed only the ones a new business needs to be concerned about.

Advantages

• Websites can help you to establish the credibility of your company, and engage with customers in a unique way which will help convert them in to lifetime customers and company/brand advocates.
• Combine this with social media platforms, and the combination can be used to move customers from that one off purchase through to spreading the word about you.
• Your website is a controlled environment as long as you are moderating it.  Added value can be given to the site continually when new high quality content is added, your customers engage with it, give reviews and share that information across social media platforms. 
• Social media can help to create awareness and engage customers all the way through from purchase to becoming a company advocate.
• Social media, creates awareness, changes attitudes and helps to convert prospects into new customers and new customers into lifetime customers.
• Your website is generally not a tool for building awareness, it is a tool for nurturing awareness into relationships, and where your customers come to buy your product or order your services.

Disadvantages

• Websites require traffic, without it they are redundant.
• Investment is required for a marketing campaign to generate relevant traffic to the website, then maintenance is required to keep the content on the website fresh and appealing.
• Equally, social media requires a continued feed of fresh content, as well as having the resources to be able to respond to discussions and customers questions.

Conclusion
As you can see both a website and social media require your time, that time costs money, don't make the mistake of thinking it doesn't cost anything to do it yourself, your time is money.

Ask yourself do I have the time to run my business (admin, preparing orders, phone calls etc), sell your products, communicate on social media as well as design, update and deal with other website issues such as server crashes, security hackers, scams and spammers.  If you answered no, and you know your business needs to be online then invest in a developer/designer who can get your business online, and an SEO and Social Media Manager who will create engagement and start those sales coming in.

In the right hands both websites and social media involvement can start generating sales and help to grow your business at a steady rate.

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