Declare your Independence: Ditch Facebook! Part 2 of a 2-part series

I’m worried that you, small business owner (artist, writer, non-profit), are writing fabulous and relevant blog posts for your small business and then you’re posting it to your business Facebook page. (Sad trombone noise here).

Why does this make me sad for you and your online business presence? Imagine that you’ve just written your 1,000th post about your business on MySpace. Where are those posts today?

Hmmm…probably…Poof! Gone.

Not that Facebook is on track to go the way of MySpace. However, lots of small business owners think that they need a Facebook business page. I did! So I created one several years ago and have spent ~4 hours each week, posting what I thought and hoped was relevant and helpful information for small business owners about websites, Search Engine Optimization, responsive design, logo design, the beauty of WordPress and social media.

My diligence has generated some clients via Facebook. But, lately, I’ve realized that all my Facebook posts are not helping me enhance my presence on the web. Why? Because Facebook posts are just blurbs of content in a big long timeline in my business Facebook page entitled facebook.com/julieholmesdesign. They are not indexed or searchable on the web, let alone in Facebook.

For instance, if you wanted to search for the nifty and helpful post I wrote late last year where I described the value of adding your website to Google Webmaster tools or another post where I provided step-by-step information about how to send a site map of your website to Google, Yahoo! and Bing, you would not be able to find these posts in a Google search. Nor would you be able to find these posts if you tried to search for them in Facebook.

In other words, the only way to find these posts is if you to take the time to scroll (and scroll and scroll and scroll) back through my timeline of my business Facebook page to October 24, 2012 and October 23, 2012. Otherwise, you will be unable to search for, see or easily find the information I provided in these posts.

Which begs the question? When WILL you see my posts in Facebook? Here’s when – if you ‘like’ my business Facebook page and you happen to be in Facebook at or around the time that I post another helpful, website tip for your small business.

So here we are, you and I, both small business owners who would rather be doing whatever it is we love doing in our small business endeavors. For me, I’d rather be meeting or Skyping with a new client or creating a new, optimized website for that client or crafting a nifty new logo or training that client to use WordPress or social media effectively. If you are a massage therapist or a restaurant owner or an interior designer, you’d probably rather be in front of your ideal client than the computer, too. And, while you’re meeting with that client, you’d like to think that your website is optimized and that Google is slowly but surely helping your next ideal client find you.

How can you make that happen?

With Google+. Google is indexing the posts you create in Google+. And, of course, you already know that, if you are writing your own blog posts addressing the top 10 questions your clients ask you, then each of these posts are indexed, too. YAY! Think of ALL of these posts as sentinels on the web calling out your business expertise…every hour of every day. Every time your ideal client starts to search using words that are relevant to your business and your posts, you increase the likelihood that they will find you, easily, if you are blogging and posting in Google+ – where posts are indexed in Google.

That, dear reader, is why I am suggesting that you declare your independence and ditch Facebook for your business. You want, need and deserve a social media tool that is effective, searchable and as hardworking as you are.

If you’d like to find out more about this topic, including how Google crawls and indexes social media posts, check out Jesse Wojdylo’s recent blog post about this very topic.

If you are starting to think that you might want to create your very own Google+ page so you can post your business information, expertise, and blog posts, here’s how to do that.

If you have read this and think I’m crazy and want to tell me so or – heck – if you have a follow-up question, please say so in the comments section below.

Happy Independence Day!