Will the Facebook Fan Page make websites obsolete?

This is a topic I touched on before but I feel is worth exploring again. 

I have lots of friends and business associates who are a lot smarter than I am, and thankfully one of them is Sonali Shetty of Compleo Apps.  We partner with Sonali and her business partner Paul Spicer on social media projects because their firm brings our collective ideas to life.

One such idea was for National Harbor.  In an effort to enhance the destination’s Facebook Fan Page landing page, Sonali suggested designing a page that mirrored the clients web site, cool huh?

Not only does it mirror the website, but it includes easy-to-update links that our staff can change without too much fuss.  This allows us to drive fans to information on seasonal events, rotate links to retailers and restaurants, and provide information about special offers.

So of course that gets a marketer thinking.  If I can do this on Facebook and it is that easy, why do I need a website.  And then Sonali tells me about companies that are actually building in transactional elements (that means they can directly sell you stuff) into their Facebook Fan pages, and my mind goes racing.

Here are the advantages as I see them:

• Ease:  If I can easily update the content, why do I need a third party that takes a long time to update my website content.
• Community:  Web pages are one-way and static.  Fan pages are two-way and provide platforms for feedback.
• Cost:  Without giving away trade secrets, the cost of creating and updating Facebook pages has been less than the cost of creating and updating web pages.
• “They” are already on Facebook:  The “they” is more than 325-million people who currently are active Facebook users. 
• Viral:  Remember every time you update your Fan page, you fans see it.  And they can pass it along to their friends.  Don’t your wish your website can do that?

Am I missing anything here?  Seems like a no-brainer.  If you’ve seen those cool Honda commercials that includes the company’s Facebook address, here’s the Honda example of a landing page.

Maybe I’m not so crazy after all.  Comments?