Summary and Takeways:
New York Times calls Twitter one of the fastest growing phenomena on the Internet.
The Washington Post calls Facebook a Class-Act Website.

If both websites are so popular, how can they be used as Marketing Tools?
By definition, Facebook is a social utility i.e. a tool used to help people stay connected. Users use Facebook to stay connected with business associates, friends, family members and just about anyone in the user’s sphere of influence. The cross chatter on facebook is generally more personal in nature and users tend to be candid with their updates and posts in comparison to how one might communicate in an email, voice mail or on the telephone. Twitter, on the other hand, is a service that allows users to send quick, frequent 140 character messages using the Internet, text messaging or instant messaging. Generally users are responding to one simple question: What are you doing?

Companies like Dell, Apple, Amazon and so forth use twitter to stay connected with their customers, monitor comments and concerns, and provide special offers or promotions to customers who follow their company.

By staying connected to their customers, these companies are able to use the feedback they receive to enhance their services and product offering. At the same ti,e, they are building a relationship with their most important customers i.e.the customers who follow them and as a result, they are able to build customer loyalty.

Facebook is best for one-on-one communication with your perspective customers.
Facebook is ideal for salespeople who want to connect with their prospects on a more personal and candid format.

Twitter on the other hand is better for the one to many communication. It can also be use to monitor the “chatter” going on between your customer and prospect base.


When using Twitter, be sure to offer fun and informational tweets with your twitter followers.Companies that want to stay at the forefront of how their customers are receiving information should consider using twitter, facebook and other social media websites to stay connected.

My takeaways:
Just last month, Twitter had 7 million unique visitors. Not bad for a company that started a little over two years ago. With 10 million dollars in venture capital, the company has yet to turn a profit, which some say is about to change with twitter focusing on how to offer services to the big name companies like the ones listed above. Twitter plans to focus on offering analytics i.e the ability to track tweet and re-tweet of messages. Great, but there are some underlining things at play here that need to be address.

First, if you are going to use facebook and twitter as marketing tool, you need to know how to use them effectively to get the most bang or your time. I would have said “bang for your buck,” but these tools are free, which makes them so appealing to small business owners and business professionals.

The video above makes some inherent claims that are not necessarily true and as positive as the video would like you to believe. Facebook can be an effective marketing tool, but there is a lot of cross chatter among your friends and contacts that is not always business orientated or productive for that matter.

Just this morning, my facebook friend sent me an invite to see which video game character best matches my temperament. Even though it was a short 6 question survey, it was a time suck for me. In fact, all of the quizzes and surveys, invitation causes, and virtual gifts that facebook offers makes the site sometime undesirable.

Another misleading inherent claim in the video above makes is that you can communicate with prospects on facebook. I believe facebook is better at servicing your existing customer or client base and not so much prospecting since you generally have to know the person before you are able to share profiles. And if you are prospecting on facebook, you could be seen as a marketer and turn off our audience.

I was not using facebook until recently. In fact, when I was on facebook, I was merely using it to stay connected with friends and family. Then, I decided that I would try to promote myself and my business to the same sphere of influence. I am not sure how my contacts are taking my transition. I have no idea whether or not they turned down their updates from me, which is a neat setting you can use to customize your facebook interaction or net-action.

I can say that since I started to talk or post more about my business, I am getting more inquires, which is evidence that facebook works, but there is a lot of cross chatter that can be a turn off and counter-productive.

Twitter on the other hand is a great way to handle or service your exiting client/customer base i.e. the people who follow you are doing so because they are somehow interested in your business or brand. But without any program or way to analyze how your promotions or offers are being received or acted upon, I believe that it remains to be seen if twitter is an effective marketing tool, but I an agree that it is an effective customer service tool with the nature of it’s immediacy.  That’s just my take for now. It could change once the young company comes up with a way to get analytical tools or metrics in front of marketers.

Advertisement