Is your Facebook page outpacing your website?

That's the question in "What Happens When Facebook Trumps Your Brand Site?," in which AdAge looks at both sides of the coin. Among the most popular brands -- whose Facebook fan bases outrank the entire user base of sites like Foursquare -- Coke has seen a shift toward Facebook, where it has 10.7 million fans:

That certainly trumps U.S. unique visitors to Coke's brand website, which fell by more than 40% to 242,000 in July compared to a year ago, per Compete.

But other major brands on Facebook, like Starbucks and Walgreens, aren't seeing the same drop-off in web site traffic.  And one commenter notes that the difference lies between retailers and consumer and packaged goods brands, saying, "Candy and soda brands and such are hard-pressed to build an owned website worth visiting more than one time in your life."

The best nugget in the article? Apparently Facebook is advising major brands to focus on status updates rather than apps, which are more difficult to track and to get users to adopt.

Even if you're not a product or retailer, what are your experiences?  Can you see a day coming when your Facebook page is your web page?

Check out don't get caught on Facebook, where I'm floating ideas and discussing them before they appear on the blog.  It's shaping up as a great networking community for communicators.


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