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I Pity the Fool who doesn’t keep an eye on Trendsmap today!

Mr. T., April 1st 2011

Don’t be fooled, check here before you:

• retweet a post,
• share a link,
• email a link!

Trendsmap has you covered with real time coverage of all the #AprilFools chatter on Twitter as well as trending links and media.

I get this question a lot.  So let me put it bluntly.  If you are not a celebrity or household brand, forget about twitter.  Unless people care about what you just ate or who you were seen in public with, as is done in the tabloids, you’re not going to get enough followers for it to even be worth your time. My twitter account has 3,502 followers, while my Facebook account has only 2,082 fans.  Facebook is the #7 referrer to my blog while Twitter is #20.  So even though I have more followers on twitter, I’m getting 6 times the traffic from Facebook.

And if you consider that the Facebook fan page for Dennis Yu has only 496 fans, the contrast is more stark.  Why?

Twitter is for existing brands and personalities that have massive recognition.  What you can say in 140 characters can’t possibly have much depth, though you can retweet pithy sayings, post interesting articles, or even communicate casually with friends.  But to generate more awareness, traffic, or sales for your business?  Unlikely.  The exception proves the rule– there’s that one donut shop that people cite as the example for small business success on twitter.

Facebook is where you can connect with real friends. You can interact with them and share in deep, meaningful ways (or at least as far as is possible online).  I’d challenge you to tell me what share of twitter users are bots, what percentage of tweets are done by bots, and what percentage of tweets go unread.  I’d wager that the ratio of spam pages on the internet approximates the spam ratio on twitter– although, I’d say that Facebook would be MUCH cleaner because of reinforcing mechanisms of the newsfeed filter and social graph.

This is no attack on journalist, professional internet marketers, or other prominent individuals who are using twitter to enhance their personal reputation.  But if you’re the local car dealer or dentist, you’re unlikely to be driving many leads from tweeting.  You get real value for your time by running PPC ads against keywords related to “pest control“, “denver liposuction” or other terms that are indicative of purchase intent, versus casual entertainment.  If you’re just hanging out with friends and use twitter socially, that’s a completely different matter than serious business to drive revenue.

On Facebook, there is a separation between personal and business profiles.  We wouldn’t put BlitzLocal as a group or personal profile– it would have to be a Facebook fan page for the many benefits that you get from fan pages– the ability to target ads, run insights, install custom applications, and so forth.  And if your group hits 5,000 users, you’re cut off from messaging.  Plus, you get more SEO juice from doing pages– Facebook said so themselves many times.

Regardless, test out what works.  Use your analytics to tell you what’s driving you the most traffic and leads.  Your time is limited, so choose your battles wisely.  If you have questions or would like to argue a different point of view, this is a great forum for discussion.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily SEM Samurai..

Background – In May, my car got trashed by a hail storm in Melbourne and After much back and forward it has been written off.

So the good, is I don’t have to go through the headache of getting it repaired, the bad – I love my car… and to add insult to injury, I’d spent $900 replacing the radiator 2 weeks before the attack of the killer hail storm occurred.

Anyway…  enough about me!

So my tweet was actually to see if CGU are monitoring their social media presence.

Verdict is no they are not.

In this day and age, there is simply no excuse for a consumer focused company to not be monitoring Twitter and Facebook etc. No excuse at all… CGU even have a Twitter Account!

I really wasn’t expecting much from them if they did respond to my tweet.

To be honest, I would have just liked a reply.

I’m also pretty sure the reason for the delay is the sheer number of claims post the ‘Killer Hail Storm’. That’s cool, I get it, but CGU, you need to communicate better if that’s the case.

The point of this post is that I was playing the disgruntled consumer who vented via twitter, and I got nothing back… Nothing! But the good thing, for CGU, is I’m actually not super disgruntled, just a little frustrated.

What CGU, and any other consumer facing service not listening to the social web, must ask themselves  is how many really disgruntled customers are complaining about them on Twitter every week only to have their voices go unheard?

Shame.

The Sydney event, held recently, received great reviews and I have no doubt Melbourne will be the same.

So what’s it about, and who should attend? Barry Smyth has set up this half day event in order to help people get the most out of Twitter as a marketing tool.

Who will benefit? Advertising  / Marketing Professionals, Individuals,  Business owners, and more. Ultimately, anyone interested in improving, or beginning, their Twitter experience.

The agenda’s fantastic and covers the following topics:

- How to use Twitter
- Writing for Twitter
- Correct etiquette
- Pitfalls to avoid
- Understanding the ROI
- Case Study

I’ll be discussing ‘What is the Return on Investment’ for your Twitter efforts  so if you’ve any thoughts or comments, I’d love to hear from you.

I look forward to seeing you there!

@leighhanney

It’s a good read and full of heaps of useful tips on how best to use Twitter for your small business.

Ultimately, from my perspective, You need to first make sure that  Twitter actually makes sense to your business.  Don’t just jump on the band wagon  because everyone else is! (That said though – at least register a twitter account with your business name so the no one else does).

As Twitter’s all about participation and connections, be sure that you’re able to find and participate in conversations occurring in your local area as, If you are a small business, it’s your local customers that are going to benefit most from your tweets, right?!  (As will you!)

A common question is ‘What are you going to Tweet about?’ Well the possibilities are really endless… If you run a café or restaurant how about tweeting out the specials for the day? If you are a Doctor, Dentist, Chiropractor.. What about notifying your followers of cancellations so that you can hopefully make some last minute bookings? If you’re a bakery, let your customers know when the bread’s just come out of the oven and is still hot! (mmm….  hot bread…)

Anyway, have a read of the 137 Twitter Tips for Small Business and let me know what you think.

…and Follow Me on Twitter Here!