Stop neglecting your website to focus on social media marketing
Stop neglecting your website to focus on social media marketing
A common problem we see in businesses that are starting to grow past the point of being a start-up (referred to as the scale-up phase), is the same marketing tactics that helped them grow from just an idea into an actual business, is using the same growth tactics.
Recently released data suggests global internet users are now numbered at 4.95 billion, compared to the 4.74 billion social media users. Google alone serves more than 40,000 search queries every second on an average day, that’s over 3.5 billion searches per day – something that social media cannot measure up against.
The biggest failure we see is the dogged focus to grow a social media account as the prime lead generator at the complete expense of the website – which can actually be a bigger source of leads if the organisation just invested some time into search engine optimisation (SEO) and ranking pages.
Why do companies focus on social media?
It’s understandable why some companies solely focus on their social media channels, they give easy-to-understand data and metrics, informing a largely unsophisticated marketing strategy. You make a post, see the amount of likes and subscribes it gets, interrogate the simple analytics the platform gives you, and you feel that you’re doing something to grow the company’s profile.
Website development and search engine optimisation on the other hand, is complicated, it involves coding and is difficult to see a short-term result from, therefore may feel like a fruitless investment.
Build your website to instil trust in your new customers
Have you noticed that most of the top 10 performing YouTube channels are real people making content, not companies trying to do it?
Let’s be clear, we’re not saying give up on social media, but just be aware of what it is there to do: Drive traffic back to your website and convert into commissions or sales. But a lot of businesses (particularly those in the first few years of operating), seem to forget the website is a strong lead magnet if it is gets a small amount of investment also.
But depending on your sector, a website is also a vital source of information for your customer.
They might view your website and digitally wander around to answer some concerns – ‘Does this company invest in its website yet, or is it still just a start-up’, ‘is it a scam’, ‘what is their actual market position?’, etc. All questions a potential customer is asking when they first come into awareness of your brand.
So, if you’re trying to show you’ve moved out of the ‘organisational sandbox’ and look more like a legitimate enterprise to customers, investors, or partners – look at your website and ask if it’s helping you grow, or preventing customers joining you on the journey.
