Is Your Facebook Account Killing Your Website?

Let me first say that Facebook can be a great way to find customers.

I know that, and I appreciate it. It’s huge.

BUT, (and this is a big ‘ole but!) when you drive customers AWAY from your site to Facebook, you may as well be sending them to Times Square.

Facebook is the utmost land of distraction!

Here’s What Happens

I repeat this scenario more often than I’d like to admit. I go to a website (today it was a naturalist’s site), wanting to learn about the owner and his services and then I see the big “We are on Facebook” icon and a “Click to Follow Us” link.

The first thing I do is resist the urge to go to Facebook because I know that I will be distracted from my task. (By the way, this is exactly what you don’t want your customers to do!)

But in the end, I click the FaceBook link anyway because I don’t find the updates I’m looking for. The company’s most recent content can’t be found at the company’s own website.

When I get to Facebook, I check out the company’s timeline for about 30 seconds, then BOOM, I’m off to click the little red “Notifications” button, or I click an ad for that thing I was looking for earlier and forgot about (because I got distracted then, too!)

Don’t Lose Customer Attention With These FB Mistakes

Mistake 1: Starving Your Site to Feed Facebook
You post updates and photos to FB but not to your own website. You starve your site to feed FB. It’s just like the Cherokee 2 wolves story. Do you know that one?

How to Fix This:
Post updates to your site THEN share the link and the image on FB, or Twitter (or Google+, the 2nd biggest Social media site after FB.)

You want customers coming back to your site, where you can connect them to more of your helpful content. This builds your authority and trust.

You also need that content to be on your site so search engines can find it. Facebook is a walled garden. It’s not good for your site’s SEO.

Mistake 2: Sending Your Audience Away to Facebook
You send potential customers away from your site to FB.

How to Fix This:
The FB buzz is alluring, and you want them to see your content (it’s what people search for).

You become a digital sharecropper to FB very quickly if you are not careful. I hope you know that FB’s main reason for being is to get you to click ads. This is not an injustice, it’s just not working in your favor.

Mistake 3: Posting to Facebook Because It’s Easier
You send updates to FB because it’s easier than posting to your own site. Your site’s not set up for storytelling yet. Or maybe you are just stuck in an old groove. I fall into this trap a lot, myself. Change is hard, but so often necessary.

How to Fix this:
Find a way to post quickly to your site. The easiest way is to use web software like WordPress, a highly respected and easy system to use.

WordPress can be updated by the smartphone app, email or the normal “back-end” admin page (Page updates on WordPress are about as easy as Facebook updates).

Does your system update easily? If not, how can you fix that? Use a template? Another workflow? Find out!

Why is this such a big deal?

This is critical because people give themselves a limited amount of time to get things done on the web. The little time they give you is your best chance for them to know, like and trust you. Personally, if you don’t have me in 15 minutes, you have lost me.

We work hard to get customers to our sites, so don’t spoil your chance by sending them away.
Instead, keep them on your site where your stories and your personality can shine through. Get them to know, like and trust you in your space.