Twitter, Facebook?? - Help Me!!

[Jynell]

I prefer LinkedIn and Twitter with Facebook more as my social site instead of business. Twitter is great for networking with other professionals if you can't find what you need on LinkedIn.

[imsmall]

Social media & social networking can really be used to increase traffic. we can't underestimate the power of Facebook for getting traffic to website. In the US alone, there are almost 40 Million people age 18 and over that have Facebook accounts. the potential business we can generate on this site is staggering! I heard that a Internet marketing expert used Facebook extensively and personally do over 30,000 visitors/day to one of his websites just from Facebook traffic alone.

[terra_cotta]

I don't use Twitter or Facebook for business, but a few of my friends do use Twitter for their businesses. Twitter seems to work best if you're willing to put a human face on your business and interact with other users about more than just your business. Nobody wants to befriend an ad, so your tweets would need to be a good mix of business news and other information.

[bizcard]

Originally Posted by menexis

most of these social network sites are only good for increasing brand awareness about your business. as far as sales and conversion, i would not bet on it.

Not quite true, once you build reputation within these social networks most of your friends becomes prospective customers.

[vincent-v]

It's a good idea to use social networking sites to promote your business only if you have an angle that fits seamlessly into the social purpose of the site.

For instance, entertainment venues work well on Myspace because they allow a community to form and organize toward the various events going on, and is generally accepted as not being spam-like. Clothing and other retail companies may have more difficulty at creating such immediate social relevance because it is more about the products themselves than the company being a part of the community.

Twitter works quite well for providing immediate updates to your products and services to those who are interested, as well as networking within similar fields. However, blindly following everyone under the sun may cause disdain for your brand if you are not paying attention to who may be really interested in your tweets.

[bayinghound]

I have never tried my biz on myspace because I can't stand to go to myspace sites myself with all the clutter and junk.

My store has a facebook page but I haven't received any customers or input from it so I don't spend much time working there.

Twitter is a different story. I tweet about sales, new reviews, blog posts, etc. I have generated traffic and sales from my twitter updates. I unfollow people who are ONLY about self promotion, though. I keep my traffic seeking tweets to under 10% and the rest are personal updates.

Even better is the search.twitter.com feature. You can manually search through that link, but I use tweetdeck software that allows me to set up searches tweetdeck monitors for me. My searches include my product names and some keywords. I see someone has a question or problem related to a product I carry and I offer gentle advice. This has also resulted in traffic and sales of people I would never otherwise been able to reach.

I'm @bayinghound. Gonna go look for how to get that in my profile now...

[carstuff]

Thanks to all with their helpful comments--I tend to overthink everything. I've decided to start social networking with twitter, though I'm not sure I understand everything. Is their a twitter for dummies????? I can't find answers to some basic (well maybe ignorant) questions.

[Tom Young]

Originally Posted by carstuff

Is their a twitter for dummies????? I can't find answers to some basic (well maybe ignorant) questions.

It really is not all that mystical.

Essentially if you follow the same same model as you would to post on any other social networking place you will do just fine. Keep in mind that what you post will over time will create your Tweeter identity that will be you as a Tweeter.

Adjusting to the limitation of 140 characters and spaces for each Tweet may actually be the biggest difference to get used to while Tweeting rather than posting in blogs or forums.

So, just be yourself and have fun.

Tom

[smartbookings]

Twitter is great and very very adictive - be warned!

[torka]

Originally Posted by carstuff

Is their a twitter for dummies????? I can't find answers to some basic (well maybe ignorant) questions.

Yes, as it happens, our own Jennifer Laycock has written just such a thing:

From Twits to Tweeple, Why I Embraced Twitter and You Should Too (this links to Part One; follow the link at the bottom of the article to the next article in the series).

Enjoy!

--Torka