All About The Facebook vs Twitter
Facebook is best suited for a promotion that has more visual content than a text while Twitter is more text-based of a shorter size of 140 characters. Facebook is expanding its live video streaming to all iPhone users in the US, and it is built on FaceBook itself. It means users don’t need to download or open a separate app. Twitter is planning to increase its character length of tweets from 140 and also launching 15-30 second pre-roll ads as a part of its Twitter for Business Amplify program. It is a significant increase from the six-second standard adopted in a video-only platform called Vine.
Facebook vs Twitter
Marketers in recent times have seen social media as a strategy along with traditional mass media but analysts have already predicted social media to become a medium of its own. This means marketers can no longer afford to ignore this medium that is engaging millions of people worldwide. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Reddit have all emerged as options for people to share their photos, videos, text, thoughts, news, and just about anything. For businesses it has emerged as a new medium to reach a wider audience through advertisement, post and event promotions, sharing news relevant to the industry.
Until recently not much was known about how social media operates especially with respect to content placement in subscribers’ pages and news feeds but with recent changes in algorithms in FaceBook, social media marketers need to evaluate their content and analyze how far it meets the requirements of the target audience.
In Facebook vs Twitter article we are going to discuss the following:-
- Options in FaceBook marketing
- Algorithmic changes and how it may affect Facebook postings
- Using Twitter for Business
- Conclusion – Facebook vs Twitter
Options in Facebook marketing
There are mainly three options to market your brand, company or product through FaceBook-1) advertisements 2) increasing page likes 3) boosting posts.
The advertisements in FaceBook more or less follow the strategy as in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) marketing as the effort is to reach the specified target audience interested in the product or relevant to the industry in which the company operates. The advertiser has the option to choose the region, interests of the users, language,age-group, gender, hobbies, work, country, particular state or province of the target audience for achieving a better return on investment (ROI). The target can also be specified on the basis of whether they access through a desktop, laptop or mobile device.
- Use Facebook ads to focus on discounts and offers: FaceBook itself advice marketers to focus on discounts and offers in ads so that it can attract more customers to purchase. Some urgency can be brought to such as ads by flashing ‘limited period offer’ ‘offer ends in 48 hours’, ‘free delivery’, ‘free shipping’ among others. Link ads can be given to driving the audience to your website. Care should be taken to promote only products that the audience is interested in.
- Increase page likes organically and through paid promotions: The number of people who like your pages, the more likely that they will be informed of the new postings on your page. Likes can grow organically based on the content, pictures, and infographics but there is also a paid option whereby Facebook generates new likes to your page based on the target audience specified by the marketer. The more the number of likes the more visible your Facebook page becomes and eventually get top rankings in Google searches.
- Boost your posts: It is the cheapest and most cost-effective way to get more people to see your Facebook posts and page. FaceBook boosting can be done for as small an amount as Rs 40 per day to reach 800-1000 people in your area. On any particular day the campaign is running, Facebook shows how much of the new views and likes were organic and how much of it was through paid effort.
The difference between Facebook and Twitter of boosting is that it shows the reach of the particular boosted post, how many people are ready, and the names of people who liked it. Those people who liked the post can be invited to like the page too, in which case there is a twin benefit accruing from boosting the post.
Algorithmic changes and how they may affect Facebook postings
Just as in Google and other search engines, Facebook is also constantly working on improving its algorithms for better user experience and putting the most relevant news feeds. According to the new algorithmic changes effected, the Facebook News Feeds will be determined by a formula that analyzes the qualitative feedback based on user experiences, to serve more relevant posts and garner higher engagement.
Some users may witness referral traffic rise, and others may see the decline, depending on whether the rate your stories are clicked on matches how often people report wanting to see them near the top of their feeds. There is an option for users to choose the posts of people or organizations they don’t want to miss. When those preferences are indicated, the user will always find their feeds on the top.
Here are some tips to get better results for those using Facebook for the business difference between Facebook and Twitter
- Post consistently: Once a Facebook page has been created, it should not remain idle and show postings at the top which are three to six months old. On the other hand, there should not be too many postings in a day that may be construed as spam. There should be a regularity or consistency in the quality and type of posts so that people who have liked your page come to know about the different messages that can be expected from you and how they are related to your business. Having a content calendar will be of great help to marketers. This will enable them to plan the posts ahead of time- especially for holidays, major business events, political events, etc.
- Post Targeting: Unlike mass media where all sorts of people including your target audience and others, the social media tools enable the marketer to expose your brand communication at a time to a focused audience. This enables the user to control who all sees your posts. At the top of the page, there is an option in the Settings tab to select targeting and privacy. Targetting can be based on gender, interests, age, location, language. The more refined the targeting is, the more relevant will be the reach achieved.
- Post appropriate text and images: it is always in the interest of the marketer to create good quality, original text in the postings and images should be original. Content should be interesting, lively, and engaging to be shared and liked by Facebook users. Content should be timely and relevant to the targeted audience. Special occasions such as Republic Day, Thanks Giving Day, New Year, Martyr’s Day, et al can be used to create meaningful messages for the audience that connect you with the event and audience with the brand. There should be an effort to immediately respond to comments and questions from readers. It is better to create different posts with the same objective, but with changes in text and pictures. The right combination of images and text that reflect your business objectives is capable of making your audience really interested in the content making them want to know more.
- Use high-quality photos
- Sentences should be short and crisp
- Avoid call-to-action-such as Buy Now, Shop Now.
- Review Facebook page performance: Just as in Google Analytics, the Facebook user has the advantage of reviewing the performance of the posts and page through the Page Insights menu. It shows the number of posts that were shown to, likes, comments, shares, the demographic, age gender and locational profiles of people who liked your page. Once the most engaged audience is identified, the boosted posts can be refined to appeal to that audience.
Using Twitter for Business
Following the huge popularity of Twitter across the globe, the company has now started aggressively wooing the business community to take a serious look at Twitter as a tool for business promotion.
Twitter appears to be a result-focussed, cost-effective way of reaching a wide audience across the globe. There are several a few options to use the 140 character tweets to promote your business:
- Get more traffic to your website
- Gain the right or relevant followers to build an engaged and connected audience and lastly to drive mobile app downloads.
Twitter claims that their promotions are result-oriented and 50% of Twitter followers of small and medium businesses visited or shopped at the websites, 60% purchased and 43% plan to purchase regularly.
- Twitter can be used to listen and learn about what’s going on in your industry, what customers are interested in
- Communicate with your followers regularly using Tweets and Twitter Ads
- Several small and medium business users use Twitter to reply to customer service issues. It can be used to quickly and easily respond to support queries, develop a good reputation and build strong relationships with customers.
A Tweet can contain 140 characters and it can have text, photos, and videos. Business houses can ‘reply’ to tweets to build relationships with followers and join in conversations. Retweeting and liking tweets can be an effective way of appreciating content posted by your followers or target audience.
As a first step, it is important to create your business profile on Twitter with an account name that begins with @username, a profile photo that represents your business which will not just be on the profile page alone but will be shown as the icon in every Tweet you post. Logos are often best for a profile picture. The biography part enables the company to tell its story in 160 characters.
Pay special attention to content as tweets that spark conversations will keep your audience engaged. As in FB, it is better to have a content calendar so that the marketer can develop own content strategy based on it.
In Twitter ads as in FB, it is possible to do targeted marketing. The marketer can choose the right audience based on interests, geography, gender, device or users similar to your followers. The relevancy of the message can be maximized by targeting keywords in peoples’ tweets. The marketer can choose a budget to work on twitter business and pay only for following, liking, tweeting, retweeting or a click on the promoted tweet. There is no minimum spend and ads can be started and stopped at any time.
Once you have a business Twitter account, use it (@username) wherever you can make it visible- in advertisements, visiting cards, mailers, business cards, websites, Fb and so on. The website should contain Facebook vs Twitter buttons for sharing the content on those platforms.
Twitter can turn out to be ideal for product launches, by adding photos and videos week in advance, content can include trade shows, conferences, holidays, sporting events and other events that are relevant to large groups of users on Twitter.
Make the Twitter account interactive by asking open-ended questions. They can be asked which products or services they want to see more and they should be appreciated for their inputs.
Conclusion
A lot of changes are happening in the social media space-FaceBook is ready to launch six emotions to its Like button- angry, sad, wow, haha, like, and love. It comprises the reactions to the posts. This will help users express themselves more accurately and held FaceBook to gather a range of new metrics to improve the News Feed algorithm and better serve ads which in turn is beneficial for the marketers. The 2.5 million advertisers on Facebook were exposed only to third-party mobile applications but now are exposed to a much wider audience on mobile sites.
The changes in technology and new features added to existing are opportunities for users and marketers to better utilize the features of Facebook vs Twitter. It could e a win-win-win situation with Facebook vs Twitter, users and businesses benefit from it. However, the success of social media marketing would hinge on identifying the buyer persona, creating the right content and pictures, and utilizing the available options for targeted marketing in Facebook vs Twitter.
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