Should Facebook-based business promotion stand alone?

It goes without saying that Facebook currently offers considerably greater business advertising outreach opportunities than any stand-alone small business website can hope to achieve. According to figures posted on the website, it had 845 million monthly active users at the end of December 2011.

Facebook's colossal success has prompted some in the small business marketing industry to claim it isn't necessary for small enterprises to set up their own websites anymore, CIO magazine reports. Rather, they claim, creating and maintaining a business page on the social network will be sufficient.

According to a recent report by Network Solutions that offered insight into the state of small business in the United States, 9 percent of small enterprises across the nation plan to eliminate their traditional websites because of the rise of social media.

Facebook is free, which allows companies to quickly and easily engage in online outreach to local community members belonging to their targeted demographic. This acts as a powerful incentive for cash-strapped businesses to forego creating a separate website.

Before social networking, entrepreneurs either had to create their own company website or pay a professional to do it for them. In contrast, setting up a business page on Facebook is quick and easy, and doesn't require users to have HTML skills or a background in coding.

Companies such as ShortStack, which offers interactive widgets and other tools for building Facebook tabs, have made the process even easier, Fox Business reported last month. The news source noted that the possibilities for adding tabs to a Facebook business page are virtually endless, extending beyond the typical "Wall" and "Info" options to polls, embedded video content, Twitter integration and contests.

What's more, visitors are more likely to interact with the features of a business page because they're already familiar with Facebook and have faith that the website isn't going to expose them to a virus or security breach.

"There's this trust already going on, versus a website, where (consumers) may have just found it on Google," ShortStack founder Jim Belosic explained to the news source.

However, Facebook has certain limitations, according to Diane Buzzeo, founder of ecommerce software provider Ability Commerce.

"Your page is real estate on Facebook's page and you have to play by their rules," Buzzeo told CIO magazine, adding that some changes - such as the recent Timeline feature - are rolled out without a lot of notice. "It might be easy to get a page up and running but difficult to maintain over time - not only from a community management, but a technology perspective as well."

Many small business owners use Facebook as a business promotions tool to showcase select products and inform page visitors about who they are and what they do. This is a great way to increase outreach and get more people to look at your offerings. However, linking to a stand-alone website that gives more information, provides further product options and even facilitates online orders would probably still necessary in conjunction with a Facebook page.

In fact, business pages are likely to be most effective when used in conjunction with a company's own website, according to the news source.

"First and foremost the relationship is built between the user and the Facebook platform, not your company," Peter Kim, chief strategy officer of SaaS-based social business solutions company Dachis Group, told the news source.