For many regional businesses, Facebook is where customers already are.
A page can keep you visible, share news and maintain community connection. It can be a genuinely useful part of your marketing.
But it is not the same as having a website.
The difference is ownership.
You control your website. You decide how it is structured, what information appears, how people move through it and what action you want them to take. A social media page sits on someone else’s platform; under rules and systems you do not control.
That distinction can seem theoretical, until something changes.
I worked with a business that lost access to its Facebook page for more than a year. The page still existed. Customers could still see it. But the business could not update information, respond properly or manage what had become one of its main public-facing channels.
Regaining control was slow and difficult. In the meantime, the business had no reliable way to correct outdated information or direct customers elsewhere.
Australia experienced a more dramatic example on 18 February 2021, when Facebook blocked news content in response to the proposed News Media Bargaining Code. The restriction lasted less than a week, but its reach went well beyond news publishers. Health department pages went dark during COVID. The Bureau of Meteorology’s weather updates vanished during fire season. Domestic violence hotlines lost their Facebook presence.
The same exposure applies to any digital-first platform. A publication like the New England Times reaching its entire community online, is no less vulnerable when the rules change.
The lesson was not that businesses should abandon Facebook. It was that a platform can change the rules, restrict access or alter visibility overnight.
Social media gives you visibility. Your website gives you control.
A website gives your business a stable home
A website is the place where your business can explain itself properly.
On Facebook, information is organised by the platform. Posts move quickly down the feed. Important details compete with newer content, comments, advertisements and whatever the algorithm decides to show.
A website lets you create a logical path for the reader. You can explain who you help, what you offer, what makes your approach different, and what someone should do next—in places where people can find the information again when they need it. Every other part of your marketing: social posts, media coverage, and directory listings can lead back to it.
That matters particularly in regional communities, where word of mouth travels quickly but decisions often happen later: when someone searches for you, compares their options and decides whether to make contact.
Your website gives that decision-making process somewhere to happen.
It also helps people find and assess you
A Facebook page may appear in search results, but it cannot do the full job of a well-structured website.
Your website gives search engines and increasingly AI-powered search tools clearer information about your business, services, expertise and location. It can answer the questions customers are asking and build a body of useful content over time.
Just as importantly, it gives potential customers a place to check your credibility.
None of this is an argument against Facebook. For many regional businesses it remains a valuable channel, for connection, conversation and keeping people informed.
The risk comes when it is the only place customers can find meaningful information about you.
The risk is building your marketing around a platform you do not own. Good marketing doesn’t depend entirely on one platform. It uses social media to attract attention and start relationships, while directing people towards things you do own: your website, your content, and where it makes sense, your email list.
Facebook can start the conversation. Your website is where that conversation should lead.
Ingrid Rothe is a brand strategist and founder of Vivid Thinking, working with regional businesses to bring clarity to their marketing. She focuses on getting the thinking right first, so everything that follows works harder and lasts longer.
Marketing Clarity is Ingrid’s regular column.
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