Mike Michalowicz got me to thinking about the concept of not having to have a website to have a web presence when I read his book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

I brought it up during a few web/social media conversations down at The Morning Times referencing a friend who has started his own company and is already on Facebook but not familiar with blogging and wasn’t sure about making the investment in having someone build a website for him. Each time this topic came up, it seemed to raise more questions than answers, so I turned to a few friends who are communications experts across the country and fellow PRSA Counselors Academy members. Here are their answers:

Abbie Fink, HMA PR: Dana — interesting question. I say no, you don’t NEED a website to have a web presence but you should consider where and how your customers are going to interact with you on the web. Social media puts everyone and everything on the web. Smart businesses work to manage and control that content. Jason Baer wrote an interesting post about “hubs” that I think is quite relevant to this discussion.

Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group: It isn’t necessary to have a website to have a presence on the internet. Ashton Kutcher proves this with his twitter account @APlusK, now boasting 4.4 million followers (most of whom the FBI can’t even find). Continue reading “Website vs. Web Presence”