Your Social Media Should Lead People to Your Website—Not the Other Way Around

A recent client asked us to help repair a Facebook feed that a former staff member had embedded into their website. We could have worked through the technical issues to get it functioning again. Instead, we recommended removing it.

The problem wasn't really the broken feed. It was what the feed was encouraging: using the organization's website to send visitors toward social media rather than using social media to bring people back to the website.

Your Website Should Be the Destination

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms are valuable ways to reach an audience. But your website should remain the center of your organization's digital presence—the place where you control the experience, organize information around your audience's needs and build a lasting library of useful content.

The flow should generally be simple:

Quality website content > Social media promotion > Visitors back to your website. 

As we discussed in "If You Build It, They Will Come" Is a Lie—Here's What Actually Works, a good website still needs ways to bring people to it. Social media should be one of those ways—not a destination you're sending website visitors toward.

Don't Let Social Media Become the Easy Way Out

We've seen organizations fall into a familiar pattern: something happens, someone creates a quick social media post, and the job is considered done. It's easy, but important organizational content deserves more thought than that.

When appropriate, developing that content on your website first means it can:

• Provide more complete and useful information for your audience.
• Be found through Google and AI-powered search.
• Remain accessible long after a social post disappears from someone's feed.
• Be linked, shared and reused in future marketing efforts.
• Live on a digital property your organization actually controls.

Embedding a social media feed into a website can enable the opposite behavior. It creates the appearance of fresh website content without requiring anyone to actually create meaningful website content.

Create Content Worth Bringing People To

This doesn't mean every social post needs a corresponding website page. Social media is the right home for plenty of quick updates, photos and conversations.

But it shouldn't become a shortcut around creating substantive content. Good digital marketing isn't about finding the easiest place to post something. It's about creating content worth finding.

Build valuable content on the platform you control. Then use social media, email, search and other channels to bring people to it.

If your website and social media aren't working together that way, let's talk. We can help you build a digital content strategy that makes your website the destination.