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 with a shorter size of 140 characters. Facebook is expanding its live video streaming built on Facebook itself to all iPhone users in the US. 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 launch 15-30 second pre-roll ads as a part of its Twitter for Business Amplify program. It significantly increased 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. Social media is a new medium for businesses to reach a wider audience.
Only recently, we knew very little about how social media operates, especially regarding content placement in subscribers’ pages and news feeds. However, with recent changes in algorithms on 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 on FaceBook more or less follow the strategy 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 advises marketers to focus on discounts and offers in ads to 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’, and ‘free shipping’, among others. Link ads can be given to drive the audience to your website. Care should be taken to promote only products the audience is interested in.
- Increase page likes organically and through paid promotions: The number of people who like your pages, the more likely they will be informed of the new postings on your page. Likes can grow organically based on the content, pictures, and infographics. Still, 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 gets 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 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 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 who liked the post can be invited to like the page too, in which case there is a twin benefit 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 improving its algorithms for a 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 a 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. The user will always find their feeds on the top when those preferences are indicated.
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 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 regularity or consistency in the quality and type of posts so that people who have liked your page 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- especially for holidays, major business events, political events, etc.
- Post Targeting: Unlike mass media, where all sorts of people include your target audience and others, 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 sees your posts. At the top of the page, there is an option in the Settings tab to select targeting and privacy. Targeting can be based on gender, interests, age, location, and language. The more refined the targeting is, the more relevant the reach will be achieved.
- Post appropriate text and images: it is always in the marketer’s interest 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. You can use special occasions such as Republic Day, Thanks Giving Day, New Year, Martyr’s Day, et al. to create meaningful messages for the audience that connect your brand with the event and the audience. There should be an effort to respond immediately 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 reflects your business objectives can make your audience interested in the content and make 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, likes, comments, shares, and the demographic, age, gender, and locational profiles of people who liked your page. Once you identify the most engaged audience, you can refine the boosted posts to appeal to that audience.
Using Twitter for Business
Following the huge popularity of Twitter across the globe, the company has 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-focused, cost-effective way of reaching a wide audience across the globe. There are several options for using 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 drive mobile app downloads.
Small and medium businesses claim that 50% of their Twitter followers visited or shopped at their websites, 60% purchased, and 43%
- You can use Twitter to listen and learn about what’s happening in your industry, discover what interests the customer, and find useful tools like how to download Twitter videos
- Communicate with your followers regularly using Tweets and Twitter Ads
- Several small and medium business users use Twitter to address customer service issues, quickly and easily respond to support queries, develop a good reputation, and build strong customer relationships using it.
- If you own a business and have a Twitter account, it’s a good idea to analyze your most liked Twitter posts, i.e., the posts that attract the most engagement from your audience. By doing this, you can gain valuable insights into the type of content that resonates with your followers. With this information, you can refine your Twitter and overall content strategy to improve engagement from your followers.
A Tweet can contain 140 characters and text, photos, and videos. Business houses can ‘reply’ to tweets to build relationships with followers and join in conversations. Retweeting and liking tweets can effectively appreciate 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; tweets that spark conversations will keep your audience engaged. Use a content calendar in FB to develop a content strategy.
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. You can maximize the relevancy of the message by targeting keywords in people’s tweets. The marketer can set a budget and pay for specific actions on promoted tweets on Twitter Business. There is no minimum spend, and you can start and stop ads anytime.
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 a week in advance; content can include trade shows, conferences, holidays, sporting events, and other events relevant to large groups of users on Twitter.
Make the Twitter account interactive by asking open-ended questions. You can ask them which products or services they want to see more of, and you should appreciate their input.
Conclusion
Facebook is launching six emotions to its Like button – angry, sad, wow, haha, like, and love. It comprises the reactions to the posts. Social media benefits marketers by providing new metrics for improved ad targeting and helping users express themselves more accurately. Facebook now exposes 2.5 million advertisers to a wider mobile audience.
Changes in technology and new features present opportunities for better utilization of Facebook and 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 on Facebook vs Twitter.
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