I just read a post over at Anita Hills’ Small Business Trends, that I wish I had read a couple of weeks ago!  If truth be known I wish I had written it! 

The title of the post Is Facebook Turning Us Into Digital Sharecroppers asks a very provocative question.  But it’s exactly that question that caused a friend and I to have an extremely heated discussion around…websites of all things!

It started when she said that she didn’t plan to launch her own company website.  During the past year, she has been using Facebook to market her business and has established quite a following.  And just recently she added Twitter to the mix.  She’s been able to fill her seminars and grow her business with these social media tools.  As a result she sees no reason to add the additional cost and time involved with launching her own site.

JawDropping

In my career I have often been lauded for having amazing diplomacy…especially in situations where I’m on the absolute opposite side of the issue.  But this time…diplomacy was nowhere to be found. 

I literally heard myself shouting “What are you crazy!  A website is YOURS and it has YOUR stuff on it.  It is the centerpiece of all else that you do on the web!  Plus everybody and their brother can find you without “belonging” to the site! etc, etc,  etc”

Needless to say, the conversation ended on a really bad note.  And that brings me back to why I wish I had read this article.

It diplomatically lays out the very important business reasons why your own website is still the most important tool in your online marketing efforts.  While the article does acknowledge the value of sites like Facebook and Twitter to your online marketing presence…it concludes with powerful words of wisdom:

“Be an Owner, Not a Renter”

What do you think?