I believe businesses are also realizing that there are thos who may never
want to use Social Media and what I believe some are wisely doing is offering
both. The content on the Website in addition to Social Media. Even if all the
content is not on the website, some should be.

Small business websites are typically static and don't offer much engagement opportunities with customers. I believe most SMB are relying on social media properties because they are beginning to see the advantages of having an idea/promotion/discount go viral. If one influential Facebook user 'likes' a small business offer, all of that person's friends will be notified. This can provide a huge avalanche of traffic to the SMB.    Having only a social media profile at the exclusion of a company owned website is not advisable though. Do both if you can.

Most small businesses don't have the know-how to build and administer a website and wind up hiring a web design company to build them a website..ie..4-5 pages. They pay the web design company a monthly administrative charge for a limited amount of changes per month. The SB owner sees no return on their website investment, because their site is virtually non-existent. The only winner here is the web design company who will gladly accept the monthly administrative charges for doing absolutely nothing. The SB owner cancels the contract and their website goes to the bone-yard. Oh if it were only so easy...'hey, I think I'll get a web design company to build us a website'....now what? Wait for all the traffic and customers that never materialize....Oh, you wanted us to advertise and market your site...that'll be an extra 100K. SB website owners have no site-building knowledge, limited budget, no SEO, social networking, link building know-how. In most cases they are totally dependent upon their web design company.

Hi Crosby52 Ditto... a company website is critical. Nevertheless, website development should be done very carefully, because the website introduces the company and the products world. There are many affordable templates and web hosting companies.

Because they don't like to make money :-)  In my experience in dealing with S.B. owners, they know that they need to have a website, but they don't understand how to properly incorporate it with their marketing plan(if they have one).  Since there are monthly fees associated with having a website and because many S.B.'s are on a shoestring budget, when they don't see and immediate connection with having a website and increasing the bottom line,  they will sometimes just cancel the website in favor of a free facebook account or something similiar.  Unfortunately, this is a huge mistake that is actually costing them money, as you said yourself, you'll just choose another business.

For some smaller businesses it costs less to maintain a site primarily on social media like Facebook or Twitter, in other cases it's where most of their customers 'hang out.'  I always recommend to my clients they at least have their own domain and a simple brochure website -- couldn't imaging not at least having a domain for e-mail.   Sincerely,   Justin

Those businesses that are thinking about the web in the long term should maintain their website for a number of reasons.  A lot of them seem to be ditching their sites to save on hosting/development/webmaster costs, and just putting up a business page on Facebook (which is wonderfully free, and worth doing).  But to do this in isolation is a HUGE mistake, because Facebook is limited, and also may wane in its importance down the line.  There have been trends just this year encouraging people to ditch Facebook and close their accounts.   Don't get me wrong, I LOVE FB and what they do, and they improve their product every day.  Their social search functions are going to give Google a run for their money, as people will use FB to get business recommendations more often.  But to not maintain a website is short-sighted.  Building equity and rankings with the search engines takes time, and to close your site puts all that history in the trash.   I recommend every business have at least a one-page site to represent themselves.  Like a business card on the web, but on your OWN domain.  Just my thoughts....

I understand your complaints. But allow me to give you a different take. When I visit a site for the first time - especially if it is a business site from which I'm contemplating making a purchase - I know I look for the 'follow me' buttons. And when I see these buttons, I click them. I want to know more about the company, to get familiar with it, before searching deeper into the site. I want to find out who their customers are, and what was their experience with this business. I want to know that there are real people back there, who actually care about me and my needs. Seeing these types of buttons - especially the Twitter button - makes me feel a bit more comfortable with the business. I just recently noticed this. I noticed that I feel somehow 'safer' doing business with a company that has a Twitter account with regular engagement. I think this is partly because Twitter fosters transparency and interaction. It's pretty hard to use only marketing-speak or company-slanted PR speak, on Twitter, but very easy to do on a commercial website. That is, of course, if you're actually engaging with your customers and followers on Twitter. I just realized that this is the main thing I'm looking for when I visit the business' Twitter feed or Facebook page. I'm looking for whether the business actually talks to people, how it talks to people, and whether it reveals anything human (ie., non-corporate) to its people. You don't get this from a commercial website. A business website doesn't facilitate much actual engagement with the visitor. You basically just go there, and it's a one-way communication from the company to you. But not so with a Twitter feed. On Twitter, the business tweets, but others on the perimeter respond. Observing this interaction can tell you a lot about a company. This, I think, is what fosters that feeling of comfortability when seeing the buttons on a website. The buttons remind you that there are real people behind the 'persona' of a business website. If these buttons really do have the power to invoke these emotions, it seems plain that there is huge branding value to social media sites. I would love to see more research done on such phenomena. Apparently, when you see these buttons, you don't get the same feelings. But many people do. I, for example, always check a business out of Twitter and facebook, if I can locate them there, before shopping further.

I agree with you and I believe that any business should have an online presence, that being a webiste. Obviously, the website could even be just a static page with some information that is pertinent to the business (like a retaurant) or something more complex, depending on what the business is about. Social networks are pretty much in a big hype nowadays and everyone believes that it is a good 'place' to market themselves and in my opinion that it is a big mistake to solely rely on these type of medium. Proof of this is what you are saying right now, 'If I can't access the information online from the businesses own website, I chose another business'. And I am convinced that just like you, there are millions of people who think the same way. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that one should not eleiminate the power of social networking, but rather, not solely relying on it. Most of the time it works the other way aorung. People use FB, Twitter and the likes to drive traffic to their website :) That's my take.

I think a lot of SB's don't really have the knowledge about the Internet. They seem to run with what the 'Lastest' thing is. Someone told them to get a website (so they did), then someone told them to be on Facebook (So they but their efforts there). I think most of them are so busy with the day to day, they don't take time to think 'Big Picture'. What they are missing is having all marketing working towards one thing....making it easy to have a customer do business with you, and find enough information to make an intelligent decision on your services.