Twitter and Facebook - Now What?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Okay, despite my greatest effort to avoid the issue, too many people are focused on Twitter and Facebook. How can you use these tools to build a business? I'm here to tell you to calm down, take a deep breath, and realize that social networking can certainly help you with your online marketing but isn't all it's cracked up to be.
What do I mean? We'll if you are trying to earn a million bucks using social networking sites, then I'm here to tell you that you are going to be disappointed. Personally I think Facebook is a great tool for spreading the work and creating awareness. In fact, I recently spoke to an individual who heads up social marketing for a packaged goods company.
His company uses Facebook to create groups around product themes and launch events. For example, developing a video contest where people use his product and submit videos.
By having a fan page, you can reach a large network of individuals and create something of interest. The tie back to product sales may be a little loose, but using Facebook to "spread the word" is really the essence of the social networking tool.
This is very similar to what Nike did years ago by giving athletes and jocks a free pair of Air Jordans. They were influencers and Nike understood that once an influencer puts something on, others want it. Think about Facebook this way and you should come up with some pretty innovative marketing ideas.
As far as Twitter is concerned, I'm at a loss. This is like Cirq De Soleil - taking the best part of the circus and making it the show. Twitter is the same - taking the best part of Facebook (updates) and building a site around it. If you're popular enough to have hundreds of followers, indirectly mention a website or product you're using and you'll drive traffic.
That's about the full extent of social media right now. If you have additional uses or successes, share them in the comments...
What do I mean? We'll if you are trying to earn a million bucks using social networking sites, then I'm here to tell you that you are going to be disappointed. Personally I think Facebook is a great tool for spreading the work and creating awareness. In fact, I recently spoke to an individual who heads up social marketing for a packaged goods company.His company uses Facebook to create groups around product themes and launch events. For example, developing a video contest where people use his product and submit videos.
By having a fan page, you can reach a large network of individuals and create something of interest. The tie back to product sales may be a little loose, but using Facebook to "spread the word" is really the essence of the social networking tool.This is very similar to what Nike did years ago by giving athletes and jocks a free pair of Air Jordans. They were influencers and Nike understood that once an influencer puts something on, others want it. Think about Facebook this way and you should come up with some pretty innovative marketing ideas.
As far as Twitter is concerned, I'm at a loss. This is like Cirq De Soleil - taking the best part of the circus and making it the show. Twitter is the same - taking the best part of Facebook (updates) and building a site around it. If you're popular enough to have hundreds of followers, indirectly mention a website or product you're using and you'll drive traffic.
That's about the full extent of social media right now. If you have additional uses or successes, share them in the comments...
Tweet Adder
7 comments:
I think social networking is reaching a yet higher-stratosphere of how cynical consumers become of advertisements, in general. Here businesses are invading someone's social space and putting an ad out there...
Not to say we don't do social media - we do - but I think you invariably have to approach it with a sarc or less overt method of messaging.
Michael, I smiled in recognition at the first sentence about the over-emphasis of Facebook and Twitter. I'm barely on Facebook and haven't twittered a tweet yet.
Maybe I'll remain a Twitter virgin, and maybe not, but I think it's valuable to remember for people that while these social sites can be great, the under-current and pitfall is that they can easily be time-suckers.
If one is building a business for example, the direction of activity easily steers into one of the worst enemies of success- that of majoring in the minors.
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I am with you, it seems as soon as these new fads get useful or interesting everyone is all over it and it is over. We have looked at all of the tools and you cant move on Twitter for people selling stuff. It looks like Facebook and Twitter are just the latest incarnation of the impossible dream, doesn't compare with hard work and application though.
While I agree with you that using SM is not going to directly connect to inflating your sales revenue I do feel they are a very important brand awareness and PR tool.
The power to spread real time news and feedback to products on Twitter is unmatched. At the very least a company should be monitoring twitter and other social media sites for feedback on their brand. This provides an opportunity to interact directly with consumers and their issues in real time.
This morning at 7:48 when Google went down millions of people were aware in minutes even if they had not been to Google or checked their Gmail. If one of your manufactured products has a recall wouldn't you like to know what your customers are saying?
Hi, nice article.
Many marketer use facebook and twitter to promote their bussiness or at least to make their site rank better in google.
Social media is a good way to make your site indexed by google and rank better.
Keep post nice article like this.
i love twitter and facebook. it really made online marketing a lot easier.
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