I opened an escape room business in Idaho about 3 months ago, and we have a website, facebook page, google (+,mybusiness,etc), twitter, and instagram account.
Our website is so important because it's how we connect people to our booking system, and for ranking in Google and we link our Adwords account to it as well.
Then we send people to our website first and on our business cards, promo materials, signs, and more, because it has our FAQ, email contact form, photos, the format we want, Book Now link, the message we want at the top, details about our services, and more.
I couldn't imagine just trying to manage all this with just a Facebook page or Google stuff. People would be very confused.
If I said, just got to our Facebook page, you'd be surprised at how many people say they aren't on Facebook. If I say go to our Google+ page they don't even know what I'm talking about. People call all the time to book because they say "I don't do the Internet thing" (not kidding)
Asking people for reviews is easiest through Facebook. I don't even know how to tell people to review me on Google. Not many folks here appear to be on Yelp it seems. But having a "Review us on..." section of our website will be nice when I add it, and then again, I can just send people to the site.
Lastly, the website is where I can put company specific information like our downloadable flyer, rules and regulations, orientation info, faq, specific details about each of our rooms, some player stats, and official info about our promotions.
So yes, a website for a small business is extremely important in my opinion.
That being said, I have heard of people just going to a Facebook Page, but I believe these are people who don't see the value in connecting EVERY aspect of the web to maximize their online exposure, and don't see the benefits they could reap if they use all these tools together effectively.
And while this is getting more and more OT from the original article... if you enjoy puzzles, it's definitely worth it to go and try it. Me, my partner, and two friends (also a couple) had a really great time doing one. There was a 1hr time limit, and we solved it with about 2 minutes to spare.
I suspect that how much fun it is is going to be pretty specific to how well the room is put together; ours was great. The puzzles were tuned so that the difficulty progressed nicely; a couple quick wins, and then they got harder. It was a mix of searching (find the hidden key) and thinking (from these clues, figure out the combination for this lock). This results in a great mix of individual effort and collaborative problem solving.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Great fun with the right group of people and well-done puzzles.
I opened an escape room business in Idaho about 3 months ago, and we have a website, facebook page, google (+,mybusiness,etc), twitter, and instagram account.
Our website is so important because it's how we connect people to our booking system, and for ranking in Google and we link our Adwords account to it as well.
Then we send people to our website first and on our business cards, promo materials, signs, and more, because it has our FAQ, email contact form, photos, the format we want, Book Now link, the message we want at the top, details about our services, and more.
I couldn't imagine just trying to manage all this with just a Facebook page or Google stuff. People would be very confused.
If I said, just got to our Facebook page, you'd be surprised at how many people say they aren't on Facebook. If I say go to our Google+ page they don't even know what I'm talking about. People call all the time to book because they say "I don't do the Internet thing" (not kidding)
Asking people for reviews is easiest through Facebook. I don't even know how to tell people to review me on Google. Not many folks here appear to be on Yelp it seems. But having a "Review us on..." section of our website will be nice when I add it, and then again, I can just send people to the site.
Lastly, the website is where I can put company specific information like our downloadable flyer, rules and regulations, orientation info, faq, specific details about each of our rooms, some player stats, and official info about our promotions.
So yes, a website for a small business is extremely important in my opinion.
That being said, I have heard of people just going to a Facebook Page, but I believe these are people who don't see the value in connecting EVERY aspect of the web to maximize their online exposure, and don't see the benefits they could reap if they use all these tools together effectively.