Fortune 100 Companies Prefer Twitter Over Facebook

In mid-July I did a series a posts on Facebook or Twitter?. According to yesterday’s eMarketer article: Marketers Embrace Twitter Over Facebook,

“Burson-Marsteller, in a July 2009 study of Fortune 100 companies, found that more companies had a presence on Twitter (54%) than on Facebook (29%). “

eMarketer Chart showing Fortune 100 Companies favoring Twitter

Furthermore when resources are limited in terms of time to spend on various social media channels, 21% of Fortune 100 companies use only one channel and 76% of those companies were likely to use Twitter, with only 14% choosing Facebook and 10 choosing blogging.

Why?

  1. Twitter means business, where Facebook is entertainment.
  2. Twitter is a place to connect around specific topics, where Facebook is a place to connect with friends and family.
  3. Twitter is about following people you respect and being followed by people who respect you. Facebook is about having friends, sharing photos, events and having fun.
  4. The twitter platform enables sharing of good links more freely and with a bigger reach than Facebook. Repeating on (and retweeting) on Twitter is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged, where repeating on Facebook makes your brand across as annoying.
  5. Picture 1

  6. Twitter is faster than blogging
  7. Tweets are more easily digestible than blog posts. Think “byte” sized chunks of valuable information.
  8. Tweeting a link to a blogpost is the norm
  9. Twitter combines the fun of Facebook with the information and knowledge value distributed in blogs.
  10. Twitter is more mobile and easier to do quickly than Facebook and blogging.
  11. Twitter requires more listening than Facebook and blogging and that means the people that embrace the medium are better conversationalists, because dialog means listening and responding.
  12. Twitter is real-time, blogging is as soon as I can get to it and Facebook is whenever.  Time means money and money means business.

Twitter Tips: Why is Retweeting important?

If you don’t know what retweeting is, it is simply repeating a tweet or post made through a Twitter account. Retweeting has many benefits including:

  1. Sharing content of value with your followers, i.e. friends, colleagues, student, clients and potential clients
  2. Saying thanks (aka giving kudos) to the author of the original post/tweet.
  3. Sharing links which is beneficial from a search engine optimization standpoint
  4. Since people are not on Twitter all day, they may have missed an important post. Retweeting helps spread the word, because the information is repeated and shared over a number of hours or days versus just appearing once in the Twitter timeline.

The presentation by Dan Zarella below details some key research findings.

tr.im no more

I just went to tr.im my favorite URL shortening tool to find the following message.  This is very sad news.  If you’re looking for a tr.im alternative, try http://bit.ly or http://ow.ly.
“tr.im is now in the process of discontinuing service, effective immediately.

Statistics can no longer be considered reliable, or reliably available going forward.
However, all tr.im links will continue to redirect, and will do so until at least December 31, 2009.
Your tweets with tr.im URLs in them will not be affected.

We regret that it came to this, but all of our efforts to avoid it failed.
No business we approached wanted to purchase tr.im for even a minor amount.

There is no way for us to monetize URL shortening — users won’t pay for it — and we just can’t justify further development since Twitter has all but annointed bit.ly the market winner.
There is simply no point for us to continue operating tr.im, and pay for its upkeep.

We apologize for the disruption and inconvenience this may cause you.”

Farewell and RIP, tr.im.

A Comparison of Twitter with Blogging

I’m reading “Naked Conversations” by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel as a result of reading “Putting the Public Back into Public Relations” by Brian Solis and Deidre Brekenridge. What is it with dual authors? I guess the “two minds are better than a guru” adage applies with book writing too.

Anyway, “Naked Conversations” is an older book about blogging and while it is old in terms of the fact that blogging has been around for years now, I am enjoying the corollaries that I am finding between blogging and microblogging (and more specifically in my case Twitter, since that’s my microblogging platform of choice.)

On page 28, Naked Conversations talks about Blogging’s Six Pillars (from 2006) and I chuckle as I think about the similarities that Twitter has in 2009:

1. Publishable – “Anyone can publish a blog.” Anyone can tweet.
2. Findable – “Blog posts are search engine friendly.” Twitter posts (tweets) show up on search engines all the time.
3. Social – “The blogosphere is one big conversation.” Twitter is a great conversation starter. Many people think of twitter as a cocktail party where you chat with people who share similar interests. Conversations are short and fun. You converse more with those who you have more in common with.
4. Viral – “Information often spreads faster though blogs than via a news service.” Anyone heard of “Twitter-time?” Some say they get their news from Twitter now instead of any other news service.
5. Syndicatable – “RSS…” Um… RT is the ultimate in syndication and there are all kinds of tools that allow you to syndicate other people’s tweets.
6. Linkable – “Because each blog can link to all others, every blogger has access to millions of other bloggers.” Twitter is all about sharing links and repeating (RT’ing or Retweeting) the links that other people have tweeted. It’s a love fest of links and information on your favorite topic.

Fun isn’t it? Are you tweeting yet?

Friday Fun: A New Boyfriend and Twitter Interviews

What a great find!  I just learned of the joys of Jay Baer (@jaybaer)and I’ve decided he’s my new boyfriend for social media advice.  You can convince and convert me any day, Jay!  I love your blog.  Not only do you practice what you preach, but you share it too!  Thank you.

Since I’ve been a fan of Beth Kanter for several months now I was tickled to find this twitter interview with her that Jay is doing as part of his 20 Twitter Interview series.  My favorite question and answer from the Twitterview was:

13. @jaybaer: Social media is inextricably linked with inbound marketing. How important is search engine savvy for NPOs today?

  • @kanter: SEO is very important for nonprofit marketing plans – part of the rule of thirds (Web site, social media, SEO).

Good to hear we the web site and SEO still need to get attention in this wildly social time.

Dew-mocracy and Customer Engagement

@Jason_Pollock on Twitter posted a video introducing the Mountain Dew Box. It’s an exclusive box of several unmarked cans of different flavored Mountain Dew which they will be sending to an undisclosed number of participants in the Dew Box Campaign. To receive a Dew Box, contestants must send in a 2 minute video about why they are the best candidates for the taste testing job or just send an email explaining why.

Mountain Dew commissioned 50 artists to design the box and is will be using the artwork in the campaign as well. It’s a social media campaign and a creative way to engage customers in discovering the next new flavor of “Dew” and really involve brand and product fans.

The contest is short – starting on Friday, July 17th and ending on Tuesday, July 21st, so those “Doing-the -Dew-ers” are going to be drinking lots of @Mtn_Dew to get that video in this weekend.

Here’s Jason’s introduction:

And here’s the campaign landing page: DewLabs 12 Seconds Challenge. It looks like 12 Seconds, a new video sharing service (social video) is partnering with Moutain Dew. What a great way to increase exposure for 12 Seconds as well as do something fun and exciting for Dew drinkers.

No surprise that there’s a way to connect via a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and a Flickr gallery. But no MySpace? No link to Twitter from the DewLabs page? Interesting.

What dew yew think?

Facebook or Twitter?
A Conclusion

In the last five days I posted responses to an article titled 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your Business. Here’s the conclusion to those posts:

While both services off ways to expand your network and become more visible in the social sphere online, I don’t believe it is wise to focus on just one over the other.

I use Facebook mostly for personal connections with friends and family, for sharing photos and for having fun. The entertainment value on Facebook is big, but for me, it’s not really a place to be thinking about business. That’s not to say businesses shouldn’t be there, but if you are, you need to engage your fans and group members to keep them interested in what you are doing.

Is having a Facebook page a way to keep in touch with your customers and reach out to potential customers? YES, but only if you actively monitor it and keep adding interest to it.

Does Facebook have something to offer advertisers? YES, especially if your customers are active on Facebook.

Can Twitter help you understand your customers and build your brand? YES, but you also need to listen to what people are saying on Twitter and engage in conversation with them around your brand and related industry topics.

Does Twitter itself offer value for advertisers? No, but third-party sites can help you reach out to Twitter users who may be interested in publishing your ads.

Finally, I don’t believe it is an either/or question. Participating in any marketing medium means you have to do the research to understand what the medium has to offer and whether it is the right medium for you. For some businesses a presence on Facebook will perform better than a Twitter presence, and for other businesses vice versa. Comparing Facebook to Twitter is like comparing apples to oranges. Yes they are both fruits, but they have different textures and flavors and require different preparation and treatment for consumption.

It’s interesting that Facebook is ranked number 4 and Twitter is ranked number 25 on Quantcast and also that both sites skew more towards women than men.

Also according to Quantcast, Facebook “attracts a more affluent, teen and young adult, very slightly female biased following.The typical visitor reads USA Today and subscribes to People,” and Twitter “attracts a slightly more female than male group.The typical visitor reads Perez Hilton, subscribes to Entertainment Weekly, and visits tennayalayouts.com.”

What does that say about Facebook and Twitter? Could it mean that Facebook is old and Twitter is new?

The conclusion: It all depends on who you are talking with.

Facebook or Twitter?

For the past four days I have been talking about why I am not convinced that Facebook is better for business than twitter. This is the final in five posts in response to 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your business.

5. Facebook Connect API

There’s no doubt that Facebook Connect has extended the ways people share information from sites external to Facebook on Facebook. The Connect application was a brilliant idea and many companies are using it effectively to showcase their stories and products within the Facebook networks.

Since Twitter also offers an API and countless developers have created tools that enable sharing through twitter as well. For example take a look at any Mashable article and you see the “ReTweet” button.Retweet

Retweeting on Twitter may not be the same as Sharing on Facebook, but both enable benefit to the sender and the recipient.

Facebook or Twitter?

For the past three days I have been talking about why I am not convinced that Facebook is better for business than twitter. This is the fourth in five posts I am writing in response to 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your business.

While I am a Twitter fan, I believe there is a lot of value in participation on Facebook as well, however, to provide reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter without describing what Twitter has to offer is leaving out half of the story.

4. Advertising Platform
While Facebook’s advertising platform within the Facebook interface offers very good targeting opportunities for advertisers and I agree with everything Mr. Smith is saying in his description of advertising on Facebook, there are ways to advertise using Twitter as well. Take a look at Magpie. As a twitter user, you get to share ad tweets with your followers if you approve of the ad that Magpie offers you.

Do I like the fact that I am receiving ads on Twitter? No, but the point is that there are ways to advertise with Twitter click through rates with Twitter still seem to be pretty high. With Facebook you can pay per click or per impression. I like to think of Facebook ads more like banners and Twitter ads more like Google AdWords. Twitter ads tend to be more editorial in nature and if the tweeter is respectful of their followers they will only allow ads that will add value to their followers.  I know that this won’t always be the case, because there will be people that allow all ads, but I’ve seen many ads served to me on Facebook that haven’t been correctly targeted either.  Recently though, this is infrequent, so either Facebook or the advertisers are doing a better job with their targeting.

The problem with leaving the targeting in the hands of the advertiser, is that not all advertisers are created equal.  I.e. some have better knowledge about targeting than others and some just don’t get it at all.

On Facebook at least you know it’s an ad though.  Sometimes on Twitter you’re not given the disclaimer information although what I have seen from Magpie does.

The option to vote on advertising that a Facebook user sees is helpful as well.  I.e. the Facebook user gets to tell Facebook what kinds of ads they are interested in, thus allowing Facebook to personalize the ad content to each user.  And that’s value to the user, and value is good.

Bottom line up front:  If you are an advertiser on Facebook or a publisher of ads on your twitter feed, the more value you ad for your customer and/or follower, the more respect you will receive, the better the ad will do and the more return you will see.

Facebook or Twitter?

For the past two days I have been talking about why I am not convinced that Facebook is better for business than twitter.  This is the third in five posts I am writing in response to 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your business.

3.  Viral Promotion

Quoting from William Smith’s article:

In a sense, social media marketing is about giving your fans a platform to talk about you in a positive way – something Facebook makes seemless. If a fan of your Facebook business page decides to comment on something you’ve posted, their friends will see that action in their news feed. If your fans mark a photo as something that they “like” then their friends will see that, likewise, if they sign up to attend an event by sending in their RSVP, it shows up for all of their friends to see. In this way, Facebook can make any content viral.

Similarly if someone talks about you in a positive way on Twitter, and you’re listening to the conversation, you can thank them for their comment.  This will then show up in your timeline which will be available for all your followers to see.  Also, if a person is commenting about you on Twitter, it’s available to the whole world and often indexed by Google.  Have you ever tried Google Alerts? On Facebook, the comment is limited to the network of friends of the fan who posted the comment.  Twitter can have a similar viral effect as Facebook, because the core of both services is the sharing.  Retweeting is prolific on Twitter and if you engage with the people who are interested in your product or service they can become advocates of your brand.

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