Recently, I often search for local restaurants to dine in or takeaway and I found out that, it seems to be a trend for local Malaysian business owner to simply just get their business online by having a Facebook page alone.

I’m not sure about other region or countries but I’m certain that we, the Malaysians are not alone.

As a blogger and internet marketer, I personally think that this is not the right way to use a Facebook page.

I’m not opposing the usage of Facebook page because I personally have a couple of them as well, but I don’t treat them as my one and only source of online presence.

I still believe that having a proper business website, with a proper domain name and web hosting is the way to go to bring your business online.

Here are 10 reasons why Facebook Business page is not even close to be the alternative for your business website.

[Read: How to start an internet business today]

 

#1 – You don’t own them

Whatever you have in your Facebook page belongs to Facebook.

They have the final say whether to remove or remain your contents in your Facebook page.

And if one day they have to shutdown their business (although is very unlikely to happen), you are tagging along as well.

As a conclusion, you don’t really own anything in your own Facebook page.

 

#2 – You are showing people that you are cheap

Having a Facebook page only without any proper website, you are just showing people that you are too cheap to even invest for a website.

You might have your own reasons such as no webmaster to maintain, no time to build one and etc., but you can’t fight it when people think that your business can’t even afford a basic web hosting.

Starting a business website is nothing rocket science today.

Stop giving yourself excuses and start one today.

 

#3 – You don’t have full control

On a Facebook page, you can’t control how you want your page to be.

Facebook tells you how you and everyone’s page should look like.

You can’t even control where to place your text and images.

Everything is already been defined and what you can do is just to follow.

 

#4 – There are terms & policies (I call them limitations)

You have a long essay telling you what you can do and can’t do on a Facebook page.

It could well be a policies that make the world a better place but I see them as limitations.

Those long written essays are the blockage to your creativity.

You can’t succeed when you have so much limitations and restrictions.

 

#5 – It is not your brand

A Facebook page is a Facebook page.

It doesn’t matter who’s Facebook page because it is eventually a Facebook page.

You don’t get any branding of your own there.

The brand that I only see in every Facebook page is the brand ‘Facebook’.

Whichever page you go, you see Facebook for sure.

So, there’s no branding when you are running your business on a Facebook page only.

 

#6 – Social media trend is your risk

You might be doing well now because the traffic to Facebook is awesome.

However, if one day there is a social network over taking Facebook traffic, that is where your traffic drops as well.

And when traffic drops, it directly reflects your revenue.

Hence, you need to pray hard that Facebook will be the number one social network forever.

 

#7 – There’s no e-commerce

I see people selling things on Facebook.

Let me get this straight, there is no e-commerce in Facebook.

Whatever you are doing now are all manual works and these manual works are your limitations that stop your business from growing bigger.

If you are serious on selling anything at all, get a proper e-commerce site.

 

#8 – You need to go the Facebook way

If tomorrow Facebook says that Timeline 5.0 is going to launch and whatever older versions will be automatically upgraded, you are tagging along as well.

You will need to learn the new Timeline 5.0 things and run your business the Facebook way.

There are arguments that having own website has more maintenance than a Facebook page but that is not really true.

If you really own a business website, it is your call whether you want an upgrade in place or not.

Not anyone else and most importantly, you run your business your way.

 

#9 – Losing revenues indirectly

If you run a business website, you can place things like image advertisements on your own website at some places such as after a news, at the sidebar or probably a pop up.

This is some sort like a ‘call-to-action’ where you remind your visitor that they should take action now to buy your services.

But in a Facebook page, you don’t get to do such ‘call-to-action’ thing.

That’s where you lose revenues indirectly when you don’t have control for such simple thing.

[Read: 7 ways you can make money from the internet]

 

#10 – The more the less merrier

I mean, the more social network being created out there, the less merrier you are on Facebook.

Rewind back to couple of years ago when Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ are not in place.

Almost everyone is obsessed with Facebook but ever since all these new social media networks came out, some started to focus on the social network that can benefit them more.

This is how I come to the conclusion where the more social media network out there, the less merrier your Facebook page is.

 

Conclusion

Does that mean I should stop using Facebook page now?

NO!

In fact, if you have a very active Facebook page now, you should convert all these Facebook fans into your email list.

How you do that?

First, sign up for an autoresponder solution such as GetResponse to keep your email list.

Second, bring these Facebook Fans to your website landing page that has the capability of turning them into your subscribers (also known as leads). You can also use the Page Tab of Facebook Page to do so.

Third, start sending them emails to build a strong relationship and trust and convert these leads into your paying customers.

As I said, I am not opposing in creating a Facebook page but rather, I see that as an opportunity for you to get more email subscribers that can turn into your revenue one day.