David Rogers, a consultant, speaker, and author of The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age, in BNET, May 9th, wrote an article on Is it time to Shut Down Your Website? In the article, he compares the attributes of a company website with those of social media sites:

Website revamp
Creative Commons License photo credit: Imagaday

Benefits of Social Media

1. Inherently interactive.
That’s why it’s “social”. A static HTML web site is designed to read and click. Social media like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are designed around sharing, responding, and interacting.

2. Where people are spending time.
Most Web audiences are spending more time there than browsing company sites. Be sure that’s true for your demographic (Facebook is a nonstarter in Japan) and your own industry (no use of Facebook for learning about b2b topics).

3. Easy to acquire.
Clicking a “like” button on Facebook or “follow” button on Twitter is a lot easier than filling in a sign up form on a web page.

4. Virality.
Interactings on social media platforms, causes instant visibility to friends and contacts. This digital “word-of-mouth” is one of the most powerful tools for reaching new audiences.

Benefits of Your Own Website

1. Control the design.
This is essential especially if you have a lot of content or options that you need to organize for different audiences.

2. Own the data.
Social media platforms are owned by the companies that run them, and, as such, they are the only ones holding all the data on your customers and your interactions with them. On your own website, you own all the data.

3. Targeting and personalization.
You can target the interaction with your customers better than you can with social media platforms.

4. Reach all your audience.
Unlike Facebook, Twitter, or other services which might reach large segments of your customers, your own website is available to 100% of them especially if as your website has been optimized to work on a mobile phone.

At the end of the article, he calls for a fresh approach to your company website that encompasses the unique design capabilities of a stand-alone site, the capturing and leveraging of data and the interacting and building a database of your most loyal customers who care enough to do more than press a “like” button for you.

For the rest of the article please read Is it time to Shut Down Your Website?