Both Facebook and blogging are powerful tools in the Social Media Marketing tool box, so when people ask if they should focus on Facebook or a blog the answer is a straight-forward: It Depends.
Pros of Facebook: the readership–there are over 600 million active users, you can reach out to people by searching on their name–great for finding people with unusual names like mine, maybe not so easy for the John Smiths of the world; advertising–you can advertise on Facebook relatively inexpensively when compared to Google AdWords; connecting–okay, this has to do with the readership, but it is such an important part of Facebook that it deserves a second mention, introduce yourself, your product, your service to lots of people; fun–people enjoy being on Facebook, it is viewed as a fun & friendly place, some of the games and apps may not be right for your business but they are there and they do bring people in
Pros of Blogging: control–as long as you host your blog (as opposed to the free blog options) you can put pretty much anything you want on your blog, content, advertising, photos, products, without the threat that it will be taken down or you will be shut down by Facebook; Branding & Appearance–sure we build Facebook FanPages and have them look consistent with your brand, but the look is still Facebook with your brand on it, whereas on a blog you can make the page look anyway you want–it IS your brand; Tools–there are so many more tools available to you on your own blog–and easy to use if you create a WordPress.org (not .com) blog, you can build a site to function in ways that no Facebook page can, at least not yet; Content Options--with a blog you can build an entire website around your information, it might be a membership site whether free or paid, you can schedule your content to be delivered in sequence or post it on a variety of pages, you have lots more options for organizing and delivering your content; Advertising revenue–sure you can advertise on Facebook, but with a blog you can actually have people advertise on your site if you desire and find it appropriate thereby creating a source of income for yourself and your business; Google search results–your blog is a website as far as the search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo are concerned, and your blog will have a chance of showing up in those search results.
Truly, both Blogging and Facebook deserve a place in your marketing platform. They serve different functions for most businesses and like most business tools, should be used differently. Do keep in mind if your goal is to upload a lot of original content, to be a source of information, if you put it on Facebook you don’t technically own it. OK, in theory they have backed down and said you own your content…but since you don’t control the site it would be possible that your page could come down and all your content would go with it.
Bottom line, you want to have all your Social Media Marketing in place, including your blog and Facebook page and use each medium in a way that is best suited for it. Where you begin depends on your business and your marketing goals. Ideally both with guidance from someone who has been there before you, whether that is a mentor, experienced business adviser or a Social Media Manager.
