A fair question with an honest answer. What social media does better than a website, what it cannot do at all, and how to tell which one you are missing.
This comes up in almost every first conversation, and it deserves better than the answer it usually gets from someone selling websites.
So, honestly: for some businesses, social media on its own is fine for a while. If you sell something visual to people who browse for pleasure, and you are getting all the work you can handle, you do not have a problem that a website solves. Carry on.
For most local trades and services, though, the two things do different jobs, and confusing them is what causes the quiet loss of work nobody notices.
The difference in one sentence
Social media is where people who already know about you keep up with you. Search is where people who have never heard of you go looking.
That is the whole thing. Everything below is a consequence of it.
Nobody opens Instagram and types "emergency electrician near me". They open Google. And when they do, what appears is a map of businesses and a list of websites. If you are not in either, you were never a candidate, and you will never know it happened, because a job you were not considered for produces no missed call and no unanswered message.
That is the real cost, and it is invisible. Social media shows you engagement. It does not show you the enquiries you never received.
What social media genuinely does better
Let us be fair about it, because the answer is not "delete Instagram".
It is far better at showing work in progress. A finished bathroom photographed on a Tuesday, posted that afternoon, is easier than editing a website gallery and it reaches people the same day.
It is better at reminding people you exist. Somebody who followed you two years ago and then needed a plumber has been passively reminded of you fifty times. A website cannot do that.
It is better at personality. People hire people, and social is where that comes across.
None of that is nothing. If you are good at it, keep doing it.
What it cannot do
Be found by someone who does not know you. The single most valuable visitor is the one searching for your service in your town at the moment they need it. That person is not on your Instagram; they are on Google.
Answer the boring questions. Do you cover my area, are you insured, what does it roughly cost, can you come at the weekend. Buried in a two-year-old grid of posts, these are unfindable. On a page, they are answered at eleven at night without you.
Belong to you. This is the one people underestimate. Your followers, your posts and your messages sit on land you rent. The rules change, reach changes, and accounts get locked by an automated system with no useful appeals process. It is rare, but when it happens to a business whose only presence was that account, it is a catastrophe. A domain and a website you control cannot be taken away by somebody else's algorithm.
Be quoted by anyone else. Google, an AI assistant, a directory or a local journalist can all reference a web page. None of them can reference your Stories.
How to tell which one you are actually missing
Rather than argue about it, check.
Search for your own trade plus your town, on your phone, not logged in. Actually do it now.
If you appear in the map results near the top, your local presence is working and a website is the next improvement rather than an emergency. If you do not appear at all, that is where your missing work is going, and no amount of posting will change it.
Then ask the last five customers where they found you. If they all say Instagram or word of mouth, that is not proof social is enough. It is proof that Instagram and word of mouth are the only channels you have. The customers who searched and did not find you are not in your sample.
What we would actually suggest
Not an either/or.
Get the free thing working first: a properly completed Google listing, which is what puts you on the map. We wrote about what actually moves those rankings and most of it takes an afternoon.
Then a small website. Not a big one. Four things: what you do, where, evidence, how to reach you. It gives the Google listing something to link to, it answers the boring questions, and it is yours.
Then keep posting. Now it has somewhere to send people.
Common questions
Can I just link my Instagram from my Google listing?
You can add it, but the listing wants a website field and a profile is a poor substitute. Someone tapping through from a map result to a login wall or an unrelated recent post often just goes back.
Is a one-page site enough?
For a lot of trades starting out, yes. It is far better than nothing and it can grow. What matters is that it exists, loads fast and answers the four questions.
I have a Facebook page. Is that different?
Slightly. Facebook pages are more visible to search engines than Instagram profiles are, so they do sometimes appear. It is still someone else's platform and still a poor place to explain what you charge.
What if I have no photos of my work?
Then start taking them on your phone from tomorrow, badly. Real photographs of real jobs beat stock images every time, and nobody expects a trade to produce studio photography.
The short version
Social media is how people remember you. Search is how people find you. If you only have the first, you are relying on being remembered by people who already know you exist.
If you want a straight opinion on whether you need one at all, send us a link to your Instagram and the search you would most like to be found for. We will tell you what we would do, including if the answer is that your listing needs fixing and nothing else.