Recently, Posterous announced on their blog that they were closing down on 30th April 2013. Many of you may not have even heard of Posterous, but as a quick explanation - it was a blogging social network that was positioned somewhere between Twitter (a 160 character micro-blog service) and a full-blown blog such as this one.

It was most similar as a platform to Tumblr, although Tumblr is far more popular. Posterous was purchased by Twitter in March 2012 and at the time of purchase had 15 million registered users.

A social network closing down or fading away isn't new - think MySpace and Google Buzz. However, this does highlight a very important point:

Occasionally I'm asked by some of the small business operators I meet "Do I really need my own website? Can't I just set up a Facebook Page?"

The answer is YES, you do need a website. AND yes, you need a Facebook Page. But if you spend time and money just creating a magnificent social media presence, and that particular social network "does a MySpace", then your time and money is wasted, and your web presence may disappear quite rapidly.

I'm not saying you shouldn't utilise social media - you absolutely should. But it should be set up as part of an overall web presence, in conjunction with a personalised website, with links pointing back to that website. Imagine that the website is the centre of a spider web, and all other social media points back to it.

If you need assistance with your web presence or website, please contact us.