Websites vs. social media

For the purposes of this comparison we'll use FaceBook as the social media platform because it's by far the most widely used social media platform with over 86% penetration.

Attribute	Website	Facebook
Visible on Google	Yes	Yes
Update your own content	Yes	Yes
Promote your club yourself	Yes	Yes
Promote your club by others	Sort of	Yes
Bi-directional links between your website and social media	Yes	Yes
Flexible design and user-defined layout and menus	Yes	No
Photo Galleries	Yes	Yes
Manage contacts	Yes	No
Enquiry forms	Yes	No
Manage members	Yes	No
Send out newsletter	Yes	No
Send out Bulletin	Yes	No
Members-only access	Yes	No
Generate income for your club	Yes	No
Manage committees and project teams	Yes	No
Promote events	Yes	Sort of
Take bookings for events	Yes	No
Manage events	Yes	No
Manage online member directory	Yes	No
Interface with District	Yes	No

This is not an exhaustive list of course. The essential difference is that social media allows you to talk about yourself and allows others to talk about you to their friends. Websites are far more interactive and allow transactions to take place.

In other words, social media talks about your club, whereas a website does things for your club.

And what does the word "transaction" mean? At its highest level it allows online payments for event tickets to occur. It also means being able to automatically capture the contact details of visitors, to accept member dues, to generate newsletters and to automate much of your club administration.

Is it a case of one or the other? Emphatically NO! To get the best out of your online presence you need both Facebook and a StreamScape club website.

Having only a FaceBook page is a bit like printing brochures and handing them out - but omitting your address, phone number and other contact details. Readers say "Wow! I really like this!" but have no way of contacting you. Even if they go on to Google and search for you, all they'll find is the original Facebook page they started with.

Facebook is excellent in extending your publicity reach, and is excellent in target marketing. On the other hand, your website is the gateway through which people can get in touch with you.

How your website holds you back

StreamScape can help your club