When it comes to social media networks, nothing beats Facebook. It can be safely assumed that almost everyone you know has a page and spends at least 2 hours a day on it. Again, it can also be safely assumed that people from all age groups and demographics are well-represented in the millions of the site’s users. You, as a business website owner, would be making a critical mistake if you were to underestimate the usefulness of Facebook. The accessibility that is offered through their network is in a word “unbeatable”. With a well planned marketing campaign, you would be able to draw customers in with relative ease. You would be wise to note that even the biggest companies (in almost every industry) own a Facebook page or place their ads on one. They have realized this platform offers their businesses the widest exposure possible on the internet.

It doesn’t stop there. If you wanted even more exposure, you could create a business page on Facebook. In addition to page-hits and viewership, you would get a two-way communication going on between you and your fans. You could interact with them and gather valuable information you can then use to enhance your services. In recent months, Facebook has made stores available to its users, for a price. The back-end application, Shopify, allows users to sell their products just like they would on their own ecommerce sites.

So, if Facebook has all these features (that are basically all you would need to run an online business) should you ditch your traditional ecommerce or business website?

The short answer is: No!

As wonderful a platform as Facebook is, you will be missing out on other features and aspects that will significantly help your business. To name a few:

1. Your “storefront” will first read “Facebook” and then display your brand name. You will take a hit in terms of being taken seriously.
2. Truth be told, the one option you have when it comes to promoting your site is sharing. If you manage to have a large fan-base you might achieve limited success. Comparing that to owning your site outright and having a set of site-promotion tools at your disposal, you realize that with almost the same amount of effort, you can reach a larger number of targeted audiences. For example, iPage, a leading hosting provider, lets its clients promote their sites using various methods (including Facebook) at no extra cost.
3. Search engine raking is crucial to a website’s success. It can also be said that no website will make it far without paying homage to the likes of Google, which doesn’t look favorably on social media pages. The reason is Google pushes sites with organic traffic to the top of its list. With a Facebook page, that traffic is missing. People need to search for your product through search engines and arrive at it. If you are adamant about sticking with your Facebook page, at least create the organic traffic by combining it with a WordPress website (try the dedicated WP hosting that is offered by Bluehost for best results).
4. You don’t own the store. This, as a business person, should really make you nervous. As mentioned earlier, the back-end solution that Facebook offers its clients is Shopify. Although you are given guarantees that everything will work as it should, you are passing on the control of your ecommerce onto a third party. To clarify this point further, let us look at 1&1 Web Hosting. In their ecommerce website option you get to create your own site the way you want it to look and start selling your products from it in a matter of minutes. By way of promotion, you don’t need to manually update your Facebook page – whether about your products or news and promotions – you get automatic integration and instant marketing. So, why complicate things?
5. Revenue generation is why you are in the ecommerce.. Your website is your e-real estate. You can sell ad space on your pages. That option is non-existent with Facebook.
6. Facebook is the “in” social media platform today. But there was once a site called “MySpace” that was the social media king of its time. It too was thought to be here for good. It wasn’t – ask people if they use MySpace and see what we mean. Who knows? A new social media platform might come into play. It would be a pain to migrate everything you have worked on for years.
7. Finally, as unlikely as it may seem, have you ever considered what might become of “your” Facebook business page if Facebook itself were to go under? Apart from being at a total loss about what you are going to do with all the free time, you will have to start building a new site from the ground up. Imagine!

So, what is the best option? Make use of both worlds: Build your business website and use all the marketing tools that are at your disposal. If you still think you need to be on Facebook, then go ahead and create your page. But make sure it is integrated with your main site so you don’t have to put in double the work for the same results.