Why you need a website as well as social networking accounts

In today's Internet environment (early 2014) social networking services like Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter are all the rage.  Those services are making it attractive to put your entire online presence on their service, rather than owning your online presence.  The large number of people on those services mean instant attention and exposure in a large audience.

So why does someone need to build their own website?

When you post something onto a 3rd party service, you're feeding that 3rd party service.  Each Facebook posting or Tweet makes Facebook or Twitter more important.  Yes, you reach an audience via these social networking channels, and it's important to participate in the social networks in order to keep growing your audience.  But, your activity needs to produce the effect you wish to create in the world.  Often that means focusing on building your online presence on your own turf.

What happens when (?if?) your chosen social network bites the dust and disappears completely?  It's happened before, and will happen again.  The size of Google or Facebook today doesn't mean those companies will live on forever.  Say you've built up a following of thousands or millions of followers on a social network service, they're following your every word, but then the service falls out of favor, your followers disperse to other networks, and eventually the service you've worked through finally disappears completely?  Having your own online presence, hosted on your own domain name, means you can watch the social networks come and go, interact with people through the various social networks, drawing them over to your website, and when Facebook finally dies you'll have already moved on to the next big thing.

What we're talking about is owning your own domain (hereIamJH.com or whatever you choose), putting onto that domain content of your choosing, then reaching out to the social networks to draw people to your website.

Post by Marketing Management for Homeopaths.