There has been great discussion if social media sites could fully replace company stand-alone websites. Although this may be plausible for small entities at startup phase, at some point they will outgrow the space that is provided by these social sites. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are three of the strongest marketing tools a small business can have but businesses that out grow certain limitations will require a full website.

Social Media greatly enhances online visibility and reputation but I believe there will always be the need to have at very least a simple website on your company. 
Having a standalone website with your company's name in the URL and a paragraph on your product or services shows that your business is paying attention to online brand management and it assists with your overall search results. 
A simple website coupled with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and several other social media sites will provide all businesses with a very strong online presence and a much broader reach. This social media marketing platform can be achieved with minimal expense but there are still 5 strong reasons that these social media sites will not completely replace independent company websites:

1. Vanity Branding
2. Brand Management
3. Customized Content Control
4. Strategic Marketing Concepts
5. Customer Relationship Building

For a small business with limited budget to have a full online presence, I would suggest having a small site and leveraging social media to the fullest. There are extremely low cost starter site solutions in the marketplace that allow a small business owner to create their own site. This suggestion is primarily based on the ease of creation of a small site and the ease of integration and content management on social media sites and the low overhead required to establish a true online marketing platform. These inexpensive platforms allow the smaller company to level the playing field and utilize the Internet at low cost.

With larger companies that require much more flexible content development, there is always going to be a need for a stand-alone web presence. An example of this is from one of my own experiences with a major shoe manufacturer. I was approached by Vans Shoes, last year to sell them a second level domain I owned with one of their company's catch phrases "Off The Wall". At the time I was under the impression that it may be a better idea for their marketing team to use Facebook as the platform for the "Off The Wall" content they were looking to deliver but the single platform wasn't able to deliver the multi media experience they required from www.offthewall.tv. They ended up requiring a more robust feature rich site and are promoting that domain in all of their retail shops worldwide yet Vans still has an extremely loyal and large social media following. 


The need for feature rich website solutions is not just limited to large companies anymore. Many small companies are now requiring the need to deliver webinars, branded blogs and multi-media content that is not fully supported by social media sites. One of the best ways to use social media sites is to drive traffic to your own branded site. This can be done very efficiently for both small and large companies using social media.


Social media outlets are quickly being embraced but businesses are still going to need a solid independent web presence that is coupled with social media, to create a full online marketing presence.

A great deal was learned, after recently taking inventory of our marketing agency’s own online marketing plan. We were a bit embarrassed to find that we were in fact making many of the mistakes that we so adamantly work to keep our clients from making. I’d like to share a bit of my company’s experience with you and some of the ways that we greatly improved our own online marketing campaign for FREE.

The first major step we took was to update our website’s look, feel, function and usability. Here are the 5 FREE Marketing Necessities that have already started driving our inbound leads:

1. FREE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES Setup or Enhance your social media pages and set a schedule to update them with industry or details specific to your company. Maintain accounts on at least 3 of the following 5 Social Media Sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Yelp, Angie’s List or Vimeo.


2. BLOG about your company’s own experience 4 times a month. You can do some in depth pieces but just 1 to 3 paragraphs a week on your experiences and opinions on news in your industry.


3. FREE ENEWSLETTER SERVICES Create and maintain a monthly e-newsletter, utilizing free services like MailChimp.com or ConstantContact.com. Use a compilation of your daily posts and weekly blogs to develop content that is consistent with the conversation you’ve created.


4. SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Write your website’s content to be search engine optimized. Create content that emphasizes the exact service or product that your viewer’s search phrase is intended to drive traffic to.


5. FREE GOOGLE ANALYTICS Setup and monitor your FREE Google Analytics account. Monitor this FREE SERVICE and use the statistics to improve your customer’s online experience and funnel to a point of sale.

There are still a number of improvements we are implementing on our own site, but these 5 FREE marketing platforms have already increased our organization’s visibility and inbound sales traffic.

The Internet is an ever-changing business landscape and as with any wild environment you must adapt to your surrounding. Make sure to use all of your resources wisely and always take advantage of any low or no cost marketing solutions. In addition, treat these marketing campaigns like you would a client meeting. Put them on a calendar, plan for them, be on time with execution and follow up. Using these 5 FREE marketing platforms will increase your company’s online marketing success.

Please feel free to comment below and leave suggestions on additional platforms that you think will help create successful online marketing campaigns.