It has been recently discovered that 92% of marketers (SocialMedia Examiner) use Facebook as a marketing tool – this makes it by far the most popular social network among marketers by a wide margin, with Twitter falling in second with an 84% adoption rate.  It’s of no surprise that Facebook has begun reaching saturation in its country of origin, as the massive social network now counts just over half the US population as members. So what does this mean for businesses?

For businesses Facebook represents an unprecedented marketing opportunity that transcends traditional middle men who connect companies directly with customers. The only way to benefit from your social media marketing through outlets like Facebook is by standing out in an increasingly noisy world.

When it comes to the consumer behavior, numbers do not get better. According to a new research by digital consultancy Beyond, 23% of consumers prefer receiving information from brands via Facebook, instead of a brand’s website (21%) or company blog (3%). This movement is encouraged by marketers who do not doubt anymore promoting their Facebook page instead of the official site. For example in recently, certain brands such as Orangina and Sony sign their TV commercial with a “facebook.com/nameofthepromotion”. Other brands such and Ben&Jerry have announced they will simply stop emailing, using in the future Facebook newsfeed instead.

Even with minimal time investment, when done properly, your social medial efforts will increase exposure for your business as well as helping you rise in search engine rankings. While Facebook is becoming the biggest relationship marketing tool for brands, it seems like that instead of increasing traffic to the company website, Facebook is actually absorbing it. This leaves marketers across the globe wondering whether their brand websites will disappear and if there will still be a need for an official website in five years.

Does this mean we should start ignoring company websites? Most definitely not! The dependence between Facebook and websites will increase, but especially from a global point of view – there really is life beyond Facebook. Only promoting a product in one social platform decreases the possibilities to reach all the potential audience out there. Most of the world is still not on Facebook and having seen the rise and fall of various hot, “world changing” platforms it would not be the most brilliant idea to kill the only secure place brand has in the Internet – the official webpage.

From SEO perspective, using only Facebook Page would drop search engine results considerably, pushing brand lower in ranking and decreasing amount of quality leads.

It also should not be forgotten that a marketer is still the master of his own website, controlling its structure, organization, design, content, SEO, marketing operations, customer data etc., while Facebook Page is defined…well by Facebook. Do brands really want to become fully dependent on Facebook and its rules, allowing it to control, restrict and have their say on the content, design and campaigns? I do not think so.

To stop the trend, start using Facebook to drive traffic to the official website. For example, create a Facebook competition/campaign which requires going your website, announce you will publish the competition winners in your official website, tell your fans about a special offer they can download from the website etc. It is also possible to integrate e-mail marketing with social media, increasing brand’s own customer database.

Facebook is just another way to promote an official website. More importance you give the platform, less power you have over your own campaigns. Do not let tail wag the dog.