I seem to keep getting a lot of reader questions lately via e-mail. Anyway, this just came in a few minutes ago. A reader who’s operating a gadget store asked me if he should move his store out of Multiply and get his own site? He also asked what are the advantages and disadvantages of staying in Multiply as opposed to setting up your own e-commerce shop. My answer? No, you shouldn’t close down your account on Multiply. However, maybe you should think of expanding your business and moving your core business over to your own site while maintaining your account. You should also consider other online platforms to promote your products as well. More details after the break.
Re-evaluate your strategy and priorities
Social Networks shouldn’t be your main and only contact point with your customers. Social Networking profiles have too many limitations with regards to what you can customize and put in it. Not all of them are also properly optimized for search engines. Another big problem is that your business or company will perceived to be a scam or a fly-by-night operation because you didn’t even bother to buy your own domain and hosting. You just can’t build decent brand equity just on a social networking profile alone. If ever you do, then congratulations, you’re definitely a part of a rare breed of online business superstars.
The biggest draw of social networks is that it’s just easy to make accounts, post product photos, and send updates to your community. Let’s build on that strength and address the weakness by coming up with your own website for your business. Having your own site will allow you to:
- Build a stronger brand equity for yourself and your business
- Let’s you customize the site 100% based on the platform that you will be using
- You can add more database gathering tools for e-mail marketing
Building a website doesn’t have to be that expensive. You can buy your own domain and hosting for a little less than P3,000 per year. After that just pick a free or premium template from WordPress and hire a designer to customize it to your needs. If it’s an existing template that’s just customized a designer shouldn’t be charging you more than P10,000-P15,000 for it (depending on the number of pages, content, and additional plug-ins).
(If you can’t find anyone who can do that for you, then e-mail me and I will hook you up with a bunch of freelance WordPress designers and developers who can do that for you. You can reach me at carlo@catalyst.ph)
Social Media Marketing
Social Networks are good places to promote products and services. Instead of closing down your Multiply account, I’d suggest that you even spruce it up some more but this time try to let people know about your main site. Put the URL on the design and your announcements. Always lead them back to your site. Set-up accounts as well on Facebook. Create an official page for your business and start promoting it. You might want to try advertising since it doesn’t really cost that much.
Social Media and having your own website is NOT mutually exclusive. They are complimentary and when you leverage their respective strengths that’s the time you will see good things happen to your business.
Questions? Leave it at my Formspring account.
