The Facebook status update was horrifying. Somebody had been in a dentist’s and got out of there as soon as possible after the dentist started calling her teeth “toes”. It was a candid camera moment surely, except there was no Jeremy Beadle or Mike Murphy or one of the Naked Camera team to jump out from behind a curtain. The unhappy patient got out of the dentist’s chair and made a status update enroute to the next dentist. (There were other factors to consider like the dentist’s equipment breaking down and also the fact he thought the patient needed something serious done there and then, when a second opinion later differed completely, opting for a less serious and inexpensive solution).
The most interesting thing about it all is that the disturbed patient in question wrote about the dentist: “The fact that their website is a facebook page should have had me on awares!”
Lately, I had been of the opinion, in a bid to get all the businesses in the town of New Ross online, that Facebook pages would be a good stepping stone to an online presence where businesses didn’t have the resources for a website.
But maybe I was wrong. Because it seems, in this case at least, that your online presence is like a dodgy dentist’s drill. We may be talking about the fact that the dentist’s drill was dodgy but people may think we’re talking about drill belonging to a dodgy dentist. (Nevermind the fact the drill could have cost a lot of money – it’s also important to keep in mind that some organisations do go to a lot of expense in developing a Facebook page, so they’re not as cheap/free/inexpensive as a consumer might think).
Does a cheap (inexpensive) online presence cheapen the opinion clients and potential clients have of you? Is Facebook or a Google Local entry enough? Is it better to be online anyway and get in a few customers that way and risk comments like the above? What do you think?
2 Comments
Peter Grogan, Emagine Media · August 11, 2010 at 11:54 am
I think a Facebook page should be considered as one element of a business’s overall online campaign. I’d consider a company’s corporate ‘brochure’ website as being the first port of call giving those all important first impressions of the business.
Your social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter should springboard off your main site and provide that key interactivity and social element with your clients.
Facebook does take work though and shouldn’t be considered an easy-fix to online presence. There is nothing worse than a company Facebook page with only 3 fans 🙂 You need to give them something to ‘like’ – interact with your fans and make them feel loved 🙂
Julie · August 11, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I think all in all though, you can have the best web presence in the World but if the customer gets to you and the service is poor or the product shoddy you’re done for. These days any web presence is better than none for a small business. If someone hits Google and get a Facebook page and no website they may think this strange but if the content of the page is good enough they’ll quickly forget that. That said, if no time, effort or know-how is put into the Facebook page and it looks thrown together then you would have been better off not bothering. It’s all about putting your best foot forward – on- and offline.