Unfortunately some business owners today mistakenly believe that they don’t need a company website for their business and can just use a free, Facebook business page or some other network page for their business.

They say, why should I create and pay for a website for my business when I can use there’s for free and besides, their customers use mostly the social networks anyway?

This is a huge mistake, and one that could cost them dearly.

The fact is you cannot rely solely on social networks to keep your business and your brand alive.

And while social sites do play an important part in a businesses marketing strategy, they absolutely DO NOT replace the need for a business to have their own professional website.

Since you do not own any of the social sites, you are at the mercy of whatever they want to do with their sites and you have no control or say about any changes they decide to make.

All the content, your conversations with your followers, your fans or whatever you feel they offer is their property and can be changed, removed, deleted or shut down at any time and there isn’t a thing you can do about it, you could literally lose everything including all the hard work you have done trying to build and maintain it, in the blink of an eye.

That’s one of the big problems when dealing web 2.0 sites.

You build a great blog, build authority to it and it helps boost your videos and your websites – then the owner of the platform decides they no longer like you and they give you the hammer.

All the while – they say oh this is nothing personal, it just doesn’t meet our guidelines, and when this happens – your sites and videos tank.

This is no way to build a sustainable, reliable business.

All social sites should point back to your main website to build authority, NOT to be used instead of a website.

Your website is the ONLY place on the Internet that you have total and complete control over your brand and what you want to say and offer to your customers, it’s yours!

Social networking sites take the power out of your hands and into the power of the consumer, you really have very little control about anything bad that an angry customer wants to post about your business.

Yes, to a certain extent you can control your own wall like on Facebook, but your control ends there.

You are putting your fate into your followers hands and the network itself since at any time, any one of them can share and say anything they want on their own pages with anyone they want and again, there’s not a thing you can do to control that.

Since social networking sites are based on conversations with your fans, you are not always the one in charge of the conversation.

As I mentioned above, these sites can change anything they want at any time, and you have nothing to say about it.

For example, Facebook recently forced, and I do mean forced, all business and personal pages to conform to their new Timeline design, whether you wanted to or not.

Your web designer would not be able to re-create the look and functionality of your website without your approval or authorization, that is in your control, not theirs!

The simple fact is, you simply do not own the social networks you use they do, and they control them.

If anyone of this sites that you have based your total online existence on chooses to delete any or all of your pages for any reason or going against what they say are their terms of service that they have set forth, there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Your brand is completely vulnerable, and the presence of your online brand could vanish overnight.

How does free feel now?   I guess free wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I don’t know about you but, I’m not comfortable putting that much control over my brand into the hands of someone else.

With your own website, your future is in your hands!

Social networks do have their place and are a great addition to your overall marketing plan, but they should not be used in lieu of your on business website.