Facebook Page URL Instead Of Domains For Honda and Cranium

In a recent post concerning Facebook being used to promote offline businesses I mentioned that this will have some impact on domaining even if it is just small. Meaning, that the more people put their Facebook page URL, or Twitter URL on their business card or billboards the more it will have at least some bit of an impact.

Well, as I am sure all of you have witnessed, more and more we see large companies using their Facebook fan page URL in commercials or other advertisements instead of their website. I understand a bit of what they are trying to accomplish here, I would say we all agree having the direct interaction with customers on social networks is a great thing and a huge benefit to companies but too see it be the only URL used in a commercial is something that I am not sure I would do. I would think the smarter move would be to use your primary web presence to drive traffic to your social media pages and then once the person is a fan or follower use it in the other direction, use it to drive people to promotions, etc that may be on your primary web presence.

Now, all that said, I can see where maybe by using the Facebook page as the primary URL in their ad is being used to get them to be a "fan" so they can get continued traffic to their main site once links are posted, etc but I am still not sold that I would only promote with my Facebook URL. I am a big believer in making sure all the pieces work together and to me that starts at the website.

An example of this happening more and more is what brought this post on, last night while watching some post Trick or Treating Halloween shows I noticed two commercials in a row with Facebook URLs instead of website URLs. The first was for the game Cranium, Facebook.com/cranium and the next commercial was for Honda, and it ended with the URL Facebook.com/honda.

Now, lets be clear, neither one of these is the typical Facebook fan page we see created, these are business pages with much customization and actually pretty neat concepts but all in all it still is not their primary corporate presence. I actually find it very interesting and refreshing to see companies use social media like this but still find it a but interesting they would not direct people there from their main presence.

I think it is more than a little over the top to say that Facebook is creating a new Internet (if you understand the definition of what the Internet is you would know it just does not work that way) but I have read more than one story in the past few months that had stated just that, Facebook is creating its own web. Well, the more companies promote like this the more that maybe I still think it is way over the top but maybe just a little less so.