Why Businesses Still Need Twitter

Your Business Needs Twitter

It’s hard to miss articles about Twitter’s troubles, and its decline in usership. If your a marketer you may be considering rethinking your social strategy, but to discount Twitter’s capabilities would be a mistake.

The Trouble

Facebook was an easy transition for Myspace users who already knew how to upload pictures and post comments. It’s first users were college students who probably had a Friendster account, Myspace page or at the very least chatted online with instant messenger. They were young people from around the world starting a new school and looking to make new friends.

As Facebook’s users evolved, so did it’s usership and dashboard. They were able to grow by keeping it simple to share and interact. The reason people still use Facebook isn’t any different from why people keep purchasing iPhones. Everyone has one.

Unlike the transition from Myspace to Facebook, Twitter was an entirely different platform. It worked differently. Your “success” or happiness with Twitter was entirely up to you as a user. Unlike Facebook where you could be added by someone because you went to elementary with them, on Twitter you started with 0 friends.

Like the early days of Facebook, not many of your friends had a Twitter account. You followed business pages or celebrities, but all that did was fill your newsfeed.

Twitter is challenging. You could tweet all day, only to find that no one likes, reposts or tweets back. We all like to feel accepted and liked, and without engagement or reciprocation it’s easy to get disheartened and give up.

Overcoming

I created a Twitter account and let it sit there for three years before I started using it. Like many I tweeted a few things, only to see them die in the abyss and gave up. Fast forward three years when I started blogging. I was looking for a way to reach other bloggers and grow my traffic.

I did research, and read articles about how to grow your Twitter followers and increase engagement. I went from having 3 followers to over 1,500 in a few months without investing in advertising or a professional media manager.

Why Businesses Still Need Twitter

After a while I found that it was actually easier to network and interact with potential clients on Twitter than on Facebook. On Facebook hashtags are relatively useless, and while it may be easier to make friends on Facebook it’s not as easy to earn business. Unless you invest budget towards advertising.

On Facebook landing high up on Facebook search result pages takes a lot more optimization than Twitter where hashtags come into play. In order to gain engagement on Facebook as a business, especially for those smaller brands, boosting and advertising is almost always required.

On Twitter you can post several times a day without losing your audience. You can increase engagement by retweeting and engaging with other users. Use hashtags to come up in search, and actually be found by other thought leaders and customers.

Unlike Facebook ad campaigns that offer no support, Twitter provides ad support and has led to many closed deals.

Getting Started

Regardless of the platform it can be difficult to get started on social, but with the right guidance your brand can grow significantly with the power of social traffic.

Learn more about I Dream of SEO and our social media services today.

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admin February 8, 2017 0 Comments

Where’s My Social Ad Support?

What to do about declining social ad support

If you’re not new to social ads, you’ve probably noticed a decline in ad support.

First, Facebook removed your ability to call in. Next, it disabled the chat function – the chat function made it possible for you to reach out to a Facebook representative who could answer your questions, and help you troubleshoot your account. Now your only course of action is to submit a support ticket to receive an email or phone call response in 24 hours.

Twitter historically offered better ad support, with an account representative and support option. However, Twitter has also disabled the chat function and for the most part eliminated your ability to submit support tickets.

The industry has shifted to a “help forum” model, where advertisers must hunt for the answers to their questions by browsing through countless “help” articles.

While eliminating ad support may reduce the employee count, and the bottom line, it does make it very difficult for new advertisers to build strong, successful campaigns on social platforms.

Experienced social ad campaign managers are more important than ever before.

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admin February 8, 2017 0 Comments

Boost or Bust: Why You Need to Be Boosting Posts

Do I Really Need to Boost My Posts?

Yes. Whenever I suggest Facebook boosting to a client I’m met with trepidation. “Facebook advertising hasn’t really worked for us in the past,” is often the first response I get. I’m then faced with a Mount Everest sized up-hill battle.

Understanding Facebook

Many of my clients use Facebook on a daily basis, utilizing many of the same features that make it so difficult for advertisers or businesses to grow engagement and traffic.

Facebook makes it very easy for potential clients and prospective fans to avoid your posts. For example, a person likes your page, and you think “Yay, I’ve got a captive audience for all my posts. They’ll see every promotion, contest, campaign and sale I promote.”

Unfortunately that’s not how it works.

If I like a page, but never engage with its posts, Facebook will soon remove it from my newsfeed. Why would Facebook do this? I’m essentially telling Facebook, that while I “liked” that page, I’m not really interested in receiving updates. If I like, I can visit that page when I want, but Facebook won’t busy my feed with constant updates.

Wait what? So you’re telling me that I’ve been acquiring fans for nothing?

Not entirely, but sort of.

If your posts aren’t earning engagement (likes, shares, comments) then it’s highly likely that your “fans” aren’t really seeing your posts. Besides the fact that Facebook naturally hides posts that aren’t engaged with, users also have the option to “hide” your posts from their feed, or “unfollow” your posts.

What Can I do?

Here’s where Facebook boosting comes in. Yes, it is convenient that Facebook buries your posts, only to provide you with a way to pay to have your posts viewed, but whoever said Facebook wasn’t in it for the money?

The fact of the matter is, that if you want engagement, and you’re not a well established brand, you’re going to need to do a little boosting in order to spark engagement on your page.

The good news is that once users start engaging with your page, they will start to receive your updates naturally. You’d also be surprised at how far a small budget will go when it comes to engagement.

Measuring Success

As with any marketing campaign, it’s important to track performance. While engagement looks nice on your page, it has to lead to actual conversions in order to show a return on investment. Track traffic from Facebook with Google Analytics, and monitor how many leads/sales your boosting generates.

Will you start boosting? Have you seen success with boosting posts? Contact I Dream of SEO for help managing your social ad campaigns.

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admin February 8, 2017 0 Comments