SEDO - Exclusive interview

[neddy]

MO.com have secured another teriffic exclusive interview - this time with the C.O.O. of SEDO - Jeremiah Johnston.

You can read it here: http://www.mo.com/jeremiah-johnston-sedo

One thing stood out for me:

MO:
What should business owners know after they have their domain?

Jeremiah:

It’s your main online presence – you own it – so use it that way. Every time I see a company promoting their Facebook or Twitter page in place of their own domain, I cringe. Don’t get me wrong, social networking is an extremely valuable tool to build communities and engage customers, but some people are relinquishing too much control of their brand to these third-party platforms.

 

[snoopy]

MO.com Every time I see a company promoting their Facebook or Twitter page in place of their own domain, I cringe. Don’t get me wrong, social networking is an extremely valuable tool to build communities and engage customers, but some people are relinquishing too much control of their brand to these third-party platforms.

He is cringing mainly because it is bad for his own business.

 

[neddy]

He is cringing mainly because it is bad for his own business.

Maybe so, but to me he makes some relevant points. Especially for newcomers.

 

[Shane]

Yeah I can't understand why people do this, they must think the kids will think they are cool if associated with Facebook or Twitter etc...

Why would you market facebook.com/widgets when you could just use widgets.com?

Maybe if you had a crap domain but a good Facebook URL?

 

[snoopy]

Yeah I can't understand why people do this, they must think the kids will think they are cool if associated with Facebook or Twitter etc...

Why would you market facebook.com/widgets when you could just use widgets.com?

Maybe if you had a crap domain but a good Facebook URL?

I guess it is working on the assumption that many people are far more interested in your facebook page that your website, because those people mainly hang around facebook. I think it probably works better for some areas than others. eg I can see it working well for movies, nightclubs, perhaps restaurants. For those selling an actual product online I can't see it working well but for more social businesses I can see the logic.

 

[FirstPageResults]

It's better than telling people to google "blue widgets Melbourne" via broadcast media, I'm still waiting for some savvy SEO to outfox a large corporate on that one

 

[Terrell]

I guess it is working on the assumption that many people are far more interested in your facebook page that your website, because those people mainly hang around facebook. I think it probably works better for some areas than others. eg I can see it working well for movies, nightclubs, perhaps restaurants. For those selling an actual product online I can't see it working well but for more social businesses I can see the logic.

I agree... Facebook can be much more engaging than websites - all it takes is a customer to "Like" your page and then you can pop up on their Facebook every day with messages (until they unlike you). While you can do this with email newsletters, I've found people tend to be more tolerant of Facebook posts than emails and are therefore less likely to unlike than unsubscribe.

However, I have long term concerns with Facebook. Having a Fan Page with thousands or more visitors is great as long as people stay on Facebook. However, if/when Facebook loses its coolness then you are left talking to yourself since there's no way of exporting emails for all of your Facebook fans. Not to mention that Facebook can shut your page down for random reasons that go against their TOS.

I like to use Facebook to drive visitors to my websites and newsletter signups though.

 

[payattention]

It's better than telling people to google "blue widgets Melbourne" via broadcast media, I'm still waiting for some savvy SEO to outfox a large corporate on that one

I heard this one on the radio yesterday for a legal firm in Melbourne. I didn't even understand the name they said to Google.. wasted money.