Value of Facebook and/or Twitter in small businesses?

pastmybest

I have a number of friends who run small businesses and I see many small businesses have started saying see us on Facebook and/or Twitter. The friends are in retail, catering and one who is a photographer. All say there main market is middle class with younger 20-40 age groups.

Does anyone have any advice of the importance and/or value of these social networking sites.

[Deleted User]

pastmybest wrote: »

I have a number of friends who run small businesses and I see many small businesses have started saying see us on Facebook and/or Twitter. The friends are in retail, catering and one who is a photographer. All say there main market is middle class with younger 20-40 age groups.

Does anyone have any advice of the importance and/or value of these social networking sites.

It's free marketing, isn't it? Each of your customers who 'like' your business page in Facebook will have all their friends (usually several hundred) see that they like it. This means your company name will get a mention. If you link to your business website, it'll drive people there. Once someone is 'friends'/likes your page, you can then send them marketing. You can update people on new events ect.

Twitter.. well, i don't see the purpose in that. That's just a boring news feed.

At the end of the day, would you turn down a free website that can be viewed by millions of people?

paulwf

Social media can be very good for passing on news and updates to your customers. The problem with just having content on your website is that obviously no one will see the updates unless they specifically go to the site. There are many company sites that I won't ever visit unless I'm placing an order, yet I'll be kept up to date via their news feeds. Of course there are alternatives, most importantly email newsletters, but that has issues (just like any communication method) so the more methods you use the better.

If you are really pressed for time there are tools that link all your social media together so that for example if you post a blog update it will repost to twitter and facebook automatically.

That to me is completely missing the point of social media though. Facebook and twitter are really a two way process, they allow you to have a conversation with your customers. As an aside there was a lot of criticism of policiticians that used facebook/twitter in "broadcast mode" during the election e.g. they would post something but never ever responded to perfectly reasonable comments from their constituents.

Small businesses have the opportunity to get one over large businesses and politicians by genuinely interacting with their customers. Not only do you get to raise awareness and build a brand but you get instant feedback from customers...not long ago companies would have paid thousands to get that kind of market research. I have seen companies choose what to stock or design depending on customer feedback, so not only does it give you feedback on what you are currently doing it can help you to move forward.

Twitter is so much more than a boring news feed and usually gets more feedback than facebook. On the other hand facebook is better for longer posts and pictures. Twitter does take a certain amount of effort, you do need to follow other people, always respond to requests and comment on any interesting tweets from people you follow. Most people that complain that twitter is useless aren't prepared to put in the effort. OTOH Facebook at its most basic requires less effort...just set up a page and post to it. You won't get so far on Twitter with a one way approach.

In summary...they are very powerful and totally free interactive tools but they do require effort. If you unwilling to put in the effort they can potentially harm your brand so don't borther.

sturdygirl21

great question.......great answers. Guess what I'm doing on the weekend now?!!

Savvy_Sue

Don't know about small biz, but I work for a charity and we're using Facebook to publicise vacancies, volunteer needs etc etc etc. It seems to be quite effective, but I'm an old fogey not on Facebook so I leave it to the youngsters ...

I also keep reminding my colleagues that there are still people out there who do not 'do' e-stuff! So let's not forget them in this rush to the future. Of course Twitter and Facebook are massively cheaper than posting something out, but consider whether you still want to keep those who rely on having things posted out.

paulwf

Twitter and Facebook is also a very good way to keep up to date with rivals and similar organisations. Even if you never post you are missing out if you aren't keeping up to date with other feeds. To monitor rivals you of course need to consider using a separate account

Bad news travels very fast, especially on Twitter where retweeting is popular. Therefore keyword searches for your company/charity are essential. I've seen it where a customer has said a product is terrible, the company has responded quickly and then the customer has responded how delighted they are.

Monitoring also helps to keep tabs on staff, this can be a PR disaster especially with teenage staff who post before thinking what impact it has on a company. Social networking clauses in contracts are something I would strongly recommend, and make it clear that if employees bad mouth your company online it will be considered to be misconduct.

To monitor all this you need a tool such as TweetDeck which is free and lets you set up several columns with your multiple twitter and facebook feeds, various keyword searches and so on. Using Twitter through their website is painful so trying out free power tools really helps.

I'm old fashioned and whilst I think posts can be friendly and informal in tome I think spelling, punctuation and grammar standards should be maintained...to me at least it comes across as extremely unprofessional.

[Deleted User]

It's worth considering that there are more people who play the Farmville game on Facebook than use Twitter...

paulwf

ringo_24601 wrote: »

It's worth considering that there are more people who play the Farmville game on Facebook than use Twitter...

They're about even...hard to tell as Twitter and Facebook both have insane growth rates

Facebook does have more users than twitter (my rough estimate is 400m v 100m but as I say it changes daily) but...

- with both services there appears to me little rhyme or reason to the subscription rate of an individual or group. One branch of a shop might have 1,000 followers and another branch 100. Sometimes you see a celeb with a few hundred thousand followers and another very similar celeb with just a few hundred. I can't explain exactly why! However I expect that the longer you are on social media and the more effort you put in the better the rewards...twitter is getting bigger and bigger so why let your rivals do better than you?

- Twitter users tend to be slightly older than facebookers and some research suggests twitter users are much more likely to follow brands, interact with them and are more receptive to advertising. This is a HUGE generalisation but if you had to sum up a typical facebook user it would be a teen playing farmville...not always the best person to target but it depends on your market. Facebook feeds are clogged with junk from apps, twitter feeds allow your messages to stand out a lot more.

Sorry for such long ramblings on this...I see companies using Twitter with great success and dismissing a free and rapidly expanding tool as a "boring news feed" is ridiculous. Most of the criticism of twitter comes from people that post half a dozen messages, sit back and wonder why nothing happens.

Horace

I know of a voicemail artist who has picked up contracts from chatting to people on Twitter. I interact with Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones (both from Dragon's Den). I use Twitter all the time to interact with friends and fellow wedding planners etc..we support each other and share information.

I use Facebook and have a blog on my website which I update and then ping out to facebook and twitter.

Both of these forms of social media are fantastic and you can end up getting support from some amazing people. I am all for free advertising.

Mips

I am amazed that you need to ask this.

One page, updated frequently and monitored can rake business in for you no trouble.

Make a few jokes, do a little promotion, harass people to add more people.. show pictures of your work if relevant...

.. its real life 24/7 marketing!

olly300

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Twitter.. well, i don't see the purpose in that. That's just a boring news feed.

Then why did virgin media reply to me when I complained about their poorly targeted junk mail?