facebook & twitter for beginners June 21st, 2009 by Nikola
i am skeptical about how much twitter and facebook can contribute to actual sales. i think an enormous amount of work has to be done for these to turn into proper marketing tools. there are always examples which show facebook or twitter working but i think this is very unlikely for an average business.
but i like that facebook and twitter do stimulate high level of client activity.
clients do not feel isolated and get immediate concrete feedback and this motivates them to produce content.
basic websites and blogs on the other hand are much more isolated and this often results in lack of motivation. usual result of this lack of motivation are decisions to only invest in paid advertising which seems easiest to organize and evaluate (and is most expensive in the long run).
facebook and twitter, by some wonder, make most introvert clients communicate regularly to their audience, and as this will hardly ever turn into surge in sales, it is great training and education, and also creates possibilities for that “stroke of luck” of being noticed.
my suggestion to businesses of all sizes is to always be active in most popular social networks and try to understand them. keep in mind that it takes weeks if not months to truly get into how they work (and chance is that they will already change by then).
one of the basic elements of marketing is content, and any way which stimulates clients to produce content (which after all is a highly personal and subjective activity no matter how big the organization is) is welcome.
if you have chosen internet as your medium respect it and take time to understand it before budgets are wasted… facebook, twitter and similar are a easy and good start.