In this section, we shall discuss the importance of having a website for your business and also highlight the dominance of social media over websites in terms of exposure and consumer traffic. Well, to begin with, if you’re a small business or a startup you may not need to create a website to market your brand. No doubt having a website is pretty useful for business but let us not forget the impact social media is making in the present day.

Now let us compare the two and have a look at all the advantages social media has over websites. Not that websites have become totally useless, but they are not pretty much required for a small brand or business.

User Ratio

To best explain the upper hand of social media let’s get some facts and figures on the topic. MarketingSherpa says that 95% of the adults between 18-34 years of age follow a brand using social media and 96% of those who discuss a brand on social media do not follow or visit the brand’s websites. This gives us a clear insight into how much social media is used and how insignificant websites are getting day by day. Simply said, people are spending more time on social media; talking and admiring brands and their products. People nowadays are too lazy to open up a website to formally place an order. Most people are just stalking brands on Instagram and if they really love or admire a product they’ll simply purchase it off there. So with all these virtual purchases going on, it’s pretty much advisable to have a social media presence before you go a leap to making a website for your brand.

Graphic Benefits

After describing some stats related to the traffic and audience, let us not forget the graphical benefits that social media platforms have over websites. For instance, Instagram allows you to post high-quality pictures of your products and/or services that are appealing and attractive to consumers. YouTube allows you to upload and broadcast infotainment videos of your product and its benefits that could be viewed by millions across the web. We have sites like Storenvy and Etsy that allow you to make a presentable storefront for your brand. All these quirks and features are vital in building your brand from scratch.

Budget

Talking about the budget we must not omit the fact that social media platforms are all free and anyone can make or market his/her brand on these platforms. On the other hand, websites cost a lot. To give you an idea, the average use of a website can cost you 300$ a year and this is only the starting point. One has to purchase a domain name and also buy/rent hosting to launch the site. Websites are heavy on the pocket and therefore are not recommended for business in their starting phase. According to a survey, graphic designers charge $40 per hour and no business in its starting phase can ever afford that. Therefore if you value your money and want to make good use of it, you should make a social media profile of your brand and spend that money on sponsored ads to get the best out of your marketing campaign.

Time

Having said about the expensive cost of running a website, it is also quite visible that setting up a good website requires a lot of time and effort. It is not an easy task to create a website. One has to put in sleepless nights, optimized keywords, quality content, attractive design, format, etc. All of this is a hassle compared to how easy and manageable social media is. Nowadays one can get to 10K followers in no time. Time is money and you do not want to be wasting it over creating a website, instead, go all out on social media and you shall see an impressive return on investment.

More Benefits

Social media definitely has a lot of benefits and advantages over websites. Let’s describe some more of them. There is a common saying that one should keep it simple and not burn oneself out before you have even started.

Instagram has huge benefits for artists and people with creativity. One can capture and edit convincing clicks and post them. Instagram promotes such posts giving you an abundance of consumers and exposure.

YouTube also has many benefits when it comes to marketing your brand. You have a video streaming platform at your disposal where you can post infotainment videos explaining and marketing your product or service. Apart from all the audience, you will get there are other benefits too. YouTube offers a monetization service as well where you get paid for the views you get.

Cutting short, all these platforms have great potential and businesses do not need a website if they properly make use of them.

Conclusion

As the topic started off with a question comparing the necessity of having a website to that of social media, we have an answer for you.

If you are a small business or startup looking forward to market and promoting your brand online, it is best for you to create a social media presence and start hustling. This way you require less time, money, and effort and it shall give you even better results. This however does not mean that a website is completely useless, Having a website for your brand really comes in handy when you are a reputable brand or business, but while you are still struggling to start, a website could prove a white elephant for you and your business. The final say on this topic is to get out there and make your brand viral on social media. The time that you could waste on building a website must be invested in marketing your business, be it through conventional methods or online. All the money that you would spend on websites could be used to run sponsored ads all over the web. Social media all the way!