Driving traffic to your homepage…err Facebook

When companies first started investing in their Facebook presence, my initial counsel was to drive traffic from their fan page to their webpage since the goal was to drive purchasing behavior (and we could track analytics). Over the years, my opinion has wavered about whether to engage customers on their preferred social site vs. a separate e-commerce site. Now, as companies are able to sell merchandise directly on Facebook, it appears to be a moot point. For example, Express just announced that it’s offering its entire catalog for purchase on its Facebook page via its Shop Express tab. Pizza Hut also enables customers to order directly from its like page via its Order app.

Also of note is that Facebook has been phasing out its fbml, which previously enabled pages to create customized tabs and apps. Now marketers can use standard code to design apps, which allows for better design, tracking and selling.

Obviously there are plenty of reasons why companies should manage the purchasing process from their website, but Facebook is becoming a viable opportunity to drive sales too.

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