Thoughts

Why Naissance Isn’t on Facebook (For Now)

It’s somehow become generally accepted that every business needs a Facebook page.  So, in preparing for the Naissance launch, Googling for arguments why a company shouldn’t be on Facebook seemed like a fun exercise.

After 20 minutes I gave up.  I couldn’t find someone who says “here are 3 good reasons why your company doesn’t need to be on Facebook.”  And yet we arrived at that conclusion.  Here’s why:

  • We’re neither big nor retail. Coca Cola has hundreds of millions of customers, many of whom are actually on Facebook.  They need a page.  We’re a small company with a focused group of businesses as clients.  And from what I can tell, most of the people we meet with haven’t taken the Facebook plunge.
  • We know, already use, and prefer other tools. LinkedIn has become indispensible to us for business networking.  So we’re there (here and here).  Twitter is easy and has been fun for two years.  So we’re there, too.  But neither Anu nor I have found a reason to register for Facebook yet.
  • We need a better reason than “repetition”. We think a Facebook presence should bring something different to the table.  Something that people can’t get on a blog, a Web site, or via LinkedIn or Twitter.  Unfortunately, we don’t know what that should be for Naissance.  And judging by the pages of many companies, we’re not the only ones struggling for an answer.

We only have so many things to say.  And so contrary to the prevailing wisdom, we can live without a Facebook page for now.  We suspect many other companies can, too.