This is not going to get into the intricacies of how to run a business using social media accounts. We all know that social media is a good way to extend the reach of a business. What I have noticed over the last few years is that many businesses are moving away from having a website for part of their online presence and focusing only on their social media accounts.
One of the problems I see, from a marketing perspective, is that removing a website from a business' online presence and focusing only on social media means that any static information that their audience could have been looking for starts to disappear from the internet landscape. Things like location, hours of operation, schedules, menus become only available to those who are accessing that information through a social media account. Social media platforms are only available to those who have accounts.
As someone who uses the internet everyday, all day, for work, I see how prevalent social media has become. I also see how toxic it can be. Unlike social media platforms, websites are a more passive medium that do not require almost constant interaction. For smaller businesses, this form of marketing is still very useful. Social media platforms are great for the "what's happening right now" portion of a business. The website is the place where the constantly useful information lives.
Prime example, I posted a link to a local guide for the upcoming summer season. This guide has many different businesses that have seasonally related marketing. All of these businesses had a short description with one or two links, and those links only went to their social media accounts. This means that if you wanted to know their schedules, locations, or hours of operation you need to go to their social media account to try to access that information.
I received a comment on the post stating a thank you for the link, but they found that they could not access any of these business' information because the person does not have an account on most of the social media platforms that were being linked. Because I too have a limited number of social media accounts, I checked for myself. Sure enough, I was unable to access most of these links. After doing a couple of quick Google searches, I found that some of these businesses did not have anything but social media presences.
As someone who has pulled back substantially from the social media sphere (I only have facebook now in order to do tests related to work), I find that the move away from basic web presence in favour of social media is somewhat shortsighted. The basic website doesn't have to do much, and it doesn't require much in the way of care. I would recommend to any business to keep a basic website as your minimum online presence. The social media platforms can be useful, but as time passes they are losing their shine and that basic website will always provide your clientele with your most important information.