What is better for establishing a digital presence, a website or social media? Learn why a website is the right step to build a brand and connect with your audience.
In the early stages of starting a business, a leader’s primary role is deciding where to allocate your limited budget and effort. How do you maximize your growth potential while limiting your expenses?
One of the first allocation questions business owners face is whether to spend money building a website or learning to leverage social media marketing.
The appeal of social media is obvious. The first few shares and comments are easy wins with instant feedback, and quick wins feel good. The goal is immediate engagement with your social media audience, and social media is good at making sure we feel progress!
So, a new business should prioritize social media, Right? We think the answer is yes. Mostly yes. But before you put all your eggs in that basket, let’s re-evaluate your long-term business goals.
A website may not offer the same instant gratification or immediate customer engagement, but it provides you more control of your brand, your messaging, and customer interactions.
In this article, we’ll explore:
Why you should think of your website as the foundation of your online presence.
Why a social media-only approach is limiting.
How you can affordably leverage both channels to reach your audience.
Keep reading to learn why starting with a website vs a social media profile is the best first step toward sustainable startup success.
Your Business Needs a Website
Whether you are an e-commerce business, a brick-and-mortar business, or even a non-profit organization, you need a website. Why? Websites have many purposes, but the most important one is that websites are how people verify your organization is legitimate.
Have you ever done a Google search to see if a store exists in your area? Have you checked whether a business is permanently closed or still operating? Have you checked a restaurant’s hours or searched online for a phone number? While there are many ways to find answers to these questions, a website provides a single source of truth to answers to all those questions and more. Businesses with websites that answer those fundamental questions are considered more trustworthy than organizations that don’t.
A professional website is the central hub for your digital presence, providing total control over content, branding, design, and user experience. While you can add many details to third-party platforms like your Google Business Profile, a Yelp Profile, or a Facebook Page, website ownership and control are key benefits that those other channels cannot offer.
“But what about social media? Everyone always tells me I need to be on platforms like Instagram and TikTok to sell.”
Great! You’re already thinking ahead. We will tackle that question in this article!
To make a long story short, we highly recommend building your website first. Think of your website as the foundation of your digital presence. All your other sales, marketing, and customer service efforts will point back to the foundation, making it easier for customers to dig deeper if they have questions or to make a purchase when they are ready to buy.
If you still need to decide whether building a professional website is the best first step for your brand, we’ll give you one more reason to consider it: search engine optimization (SEO).
No matter the platform—Google, ChatGPT, Bing, or some lesser-known search engine—people turn to the Internet to answer all kinds of questions. A website gives you the best chance of reaching audiences who are asking questions your organization can help them solve.
By knowing and using optimization strategies throughout your website by a professional to help your website, you can significantly increase your chances of earning visibility on search engine results pages (SERPS) and driving the right traffic to your site.
A well-structured website is one of the only passive sales and marketing tools you can rely on to bring you the organic traffic you need to scale your business.
Comparison Chart
To help you better understand the roles of a website versus social media when building your digital presence, we’ve prepared a simple comparison chart. As we explore social media in the following few sections, you can refer to this chart for an overview of some differences.
Web Site | Social Media | |
Channel Ownership | Yes | No |
Weekly Time Commitment | Low to Moderate | Very High |
Content Lifecycle | Long - Months to Years | Short - Days to Weeks |
Social Proof | Moderate | High |
Credibility | High | Low to Moderate |
Reach Potential | Moderate to High (Search and Ads) | High |
Customer Interaction | Low to Moderate | High |
Social Media Isn’t Enough on it’s Own
Reaching an audience through social media is attractive because of its immediacy. We all love those little dopamine hits whenever we earn an ounce of audience engagement or growth. Social commerce features like TikTok Shop and Instagram Shopping, as well as marketing tools, make social media incredibly lucrative.
However, relying on social media alone is a common mistake. We’ll tell you why:
You don’t own your channels
We discussed website ownership in the previous section and will discuss it again. Ownership is a big deal for several reasons.
First, you have complete brand and messaging control on your website. Social media platforms will always limit your branding and messaging in some way.
Second, owning a channel makes you less susceptible to platform updates. Socials can add or remove features, and there is not much users can do about it.
Third, you make the rules. Information security, community guidelines, and interactive features are in your control. It’s hard to get de-platformed for violating community guidelines when you write the guidelines.
Fourth, owning your channel makes you less susceptible to algorithm changes. Sudden algorithm updates can render social media strategies performing well today ineffective tomorrow. These changes often require businesses to adjust their approach or pay for boosted visibility to maintain results. While search engine algorithms also change, owning your website ensures the stability unavailable on social media platforms.
Social media is a full-time job
We see “social media manager” in many LinkedIn profiles because it’s a full-time job. Many brands don’t realize that writing and posting content is only a fraction of an effective social media strategy.
To build a highly engaged community, you must spend significant time on the apps you’re targeting to stay current on trends. Keeping up with social media requires running hashtag experiments, participating in daily inbound and outbound engagement, and showing up in your stories.
You can’t expect to “post and ghost” and see your page take off; it’s not how the algorithms work.
Impact is short-lived
Every piece of content you create for socials has a very short shelf. For reference, a carousel post on Instagram might appear twice in your followers’ timeline. Twice!
A genuinely fantastic reel might be relevant for two months. But that is only if you are lucky enough to strike a chord with the virality gods.
On the other hand, a well-written and optimized website blog post tends to hit its stride three to six months after publication and can earn you qualified traffic for years with minor updates. The fleeting reach of content on social doesn’t offer that kind of lasting impact.
Use Social Media To Support Your Website
While we don’t think a Facebook profile should be the foundation of your online presence, we don’t hate social media. You should be using it!
Social media offers powerful tools to help you meet your audience where they are. But don’t get sucked in! Limit your social media efforts in the early stages of your business. For most organizations, we recommend a 3:1 ratio. For every hour you spend working on improving your website, spend twenty minutes working on your social media presence.
If that doesn’t seem like much time, you are right. A social media “to-do list” can grow quickly. So, let’s help you prioritize your effort. Here is our list of what will help you drive the most significant impact in that limited time.
Brand Awareness
In the early stages of a startup, focus on building brand awareness. Social media is a great way to reach new audiences, discuss product releases, and promote brand values. Help your audience develop an emotional connection with your brand.
Strategic Content
If you follow our 3:1 ratio guideline, you are making valuable content for your website. Rather than trying to create new ideas for social media, rework the content you’ve been working on.
Make a thirty-second video where you talk about the most interesting part of the blog you just published. Share some behind-the-scenes photos of your product development process with your audience. Or, grab some FAQ answers from your website and use them to provide positive and fun responses to bad reviews.
Lead Generation
Before you start posting, map out your sales pipeline. Seeing your views and likes grow is fun, but if social engagement doesn’t translate to more leads, you might be wasting your time. Posts should move people along the marketing funnel and down the sales pipeline. Yes, have fun with your audience, but also be purposeful.
If using social media for your lead gen efforts, include a single, strong call to action (CTA) in your caption. Let your audience know you want to engage with them and make it easy for them to understand how to engage with your team.
Social Proof
Social proof is powerful. Unfortunately, it isn’t something you can create yourself.
In years past, we called it word-of-mouth marketing. However, social media has dramatically changed how potential customers seek social proof. While conversations between friends and loved ones are still part of social proof, customers now turn to social media to gather product reviews and gain use case insights in ways that were impossible ten years ago.
Use your social media presence to encourage social sharing. People on social media are honest, and you should value that honesty, even if it is from a negative review.
Be transparent about product and service criticisms and demonstrate to your audience how you have learned from them. Encourage your audience. Highlight the excellent reviews you see in your comment sections. Make a video about how you responded to a customer complaint. Add pull quotes from those reviews to your website. These activities will help make it easy for new customers to learn what others think about your brand.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Promote user-generated content (UGC) on your social media presence. Finding and sharing UGC makes creating brand content easier and leverages social proof.
Have your customers taken photos featuring your product? Did an influencer review your service? Reach out to people making content about your brand and ask them to share it.
Remember to respect creator usage rights. UGC can be a cost-effective way to gather content for your website, email newsletters, and other social platforms.
Your Business Needs Both - But You Should Start With a Website
Long-term growth. Customer confidence. Conversion optimization. Scalable online presence.
These are all things small business owners need to consider as they navigate the early days of a new business. You will have to compromise when deciding how to spend your time and resources growing your business. Don’t over-invest in your social media efforts early on.
Keep your long-term goals in mind. Look for ways to build a foundation with a great website and then grow your strategy by integrating social media campaigns.
At Forth & Sons, we specialize in helping new and small businesses establish a digital presence to grow their brand trust and credibility with their audience.
Not sure if your web strategy is setting you up for success? You’re not alone, and we’re here to help. Schedule a free consultation, and we will help guide you toward a digital presence strategy that works for you and your customers.
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