It’s clear the Web itself is alive and well. Web-based transactions are more convenient than ever, and Web-based entertainment has begun to take hold with sites like hulu.com offering on-demand TV. But websites? But shouldn’t your business be focusing on social media? Aren’t static, brochure-like websites passé?
Quite simply, Twitter is “broadcast text messaging.” Anyone who wants to follow what you’re broadcasting (“tweeting” in the Twitter lexicon) can do so. They can receive your 140-character messages on their mobile phone or computer (using a browser to access twitter.com, or a desktop application like TweetDeck, which offers more, possibly useful, features).
Why would anyone want to follow your business on Twitter? The most successful businesses use it to make special offers to their followers (this makes following a potentially valuable activity), such as DELL’s outlet store (twitter.com/delloutlet). I can imagine a restaurant tweeting daily specials, or retailers sending info about new products in the store.
You can also use Twitter to listen to you customers. Comcast (www.twitter.com/comcastcares) watches for references to its name in the “twitterstream” and responds to people having trouble. One local deli lets people send pickup orders.
If you’re going to twitter for business, you’ll want to select a “handle” (user name) that closely matches your business name. You’ll also want to take some time to customize the background of your Twitter home page to match your business (see the DELL and Comcast pages mentioned above). A search for “twitter theme tutorial” will give you lots of help.
Promote the fact you’re on Twitter on your old-school website, blog, print materials, cash register—anywhere you can imagine—along with the benefits of following you. And it goes without saying that you need to be responsive to information flowing your way. Sound like a hassle? Then it probably isn’t for you.
Facebook fan pages
As you probably know, Facebook began as a Web-based replacement for the college “face book,” a printed book that showed the pictures, names and hometowns of all the students in your class. It’s since expanded to include pretty much everybody. I have a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/michael.e.duffy), and so does my NorthBay biz editor, Julie Fadda. My wife has one, as does each of my daughters. And increasingly, businesses have a presence on Facebook via Fan Pages.
Two networking tools on Facebook are relevant to businesses: Groups and Fan Pages.They have a couple of important differences. Groups can send a message to everyone in the group (within limits), which makes it sound like something just made for businesses to spam, er, communicate with customers. But Groups were originally intended for more private interactions, like a club or sports team. As such, they don’t get as much visibility on the site as Fan Pages, which are more like a regular Facebook profile. More important, Facebook is clearly promoting Fan Pages as a marketing opportunity in conjunction with its advertising offerings (www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages).
Probably the biggest single reason for a business to use a Fan Page is you can track activity on your Fan Page, something you can’t do for a Group. Good marketers know measuring results is the key to making any marketing activity a success.
Setting up a Fan Page is easy. The only two decisions that are set in stone are the name of your Fan Page, which should obviously be the name of your business, and the category. The three broad categories are Local; Brand, Product or Organization; and Artist, Band or Public Figure. For your business, the choice is most likely going to be between the first two. Local gives you a subcategory choice of business types, like Bar, Health & Beauty or Real Estate. Brand, Product or Organization has subcategories like Consumer Product, Hotel/Lodging and Finance, which are more oriented toward national chains.
You’ll also want a high-quality image of your logo to upload as your profile picture. After that, it’s the usual marketing problem of promotion (telling people you have a Fan Page) and conversion (getting them to become a fan). Facebook offers this (good) advice: “Updating your page regularly with fresh photos, upcoming events and the latest promotions means your page won’t just look like a profile, it will feel like one, and that will keep users coming back. Facebook users are used to getting information sorted by what happened most recently.”
If you’re a Facebook newbie, you should definitely start by setting up a regular profile for yourself and experience the service as a normal user before trying to set up your Fan Page. You almost certainly know people already on the service whom you can “friend,” and you can become a fan of other businesses to get a feel for what it’s like.
In all cases, when you set up a Fan Page, you’re asked to certify that “you’re an official representative of this brand, organization or person and that you’re permitted to create a Facebook Page for that subject.” This is to help resolve the inevitable conflict between the rightful owner and an enthusiastic customer who creates an unauthorized fan page.
One final note: you can have your tweets from Twitter (and posts from your blog if you have one) automatically added to your Facebook Fan Page (on its “Wall,” which is sort of a real-time news feed). It’s easy and worthwhile to do.
No matter how you make yourself known on the ever-growing Web, you’re going to need to invest some time each week to maintaining that presence if you expect a significant payoff. The risk is that you may be missing a great way to connect with your current and potential customers.
