It can be hard to decide where to market, and how to market to your
customers with Internet marketing. Of course, we’re making it a bit easier
on you by dedicating a chapter in this book to each of these social media
powerhouse networks, but before we get ahead of ourselves let’s do a
quick comparison of each of the networks, so you can understand where
they are alike and where they are different, to truly understand their
value to you as an Internet Marketer.
Strengths
Critical Mass: Facebook is the largest social media network, and often
competes with Google as the most trafficked website on the Internet.
Many people joined because so many other people and businesses they
know are already on the platform. At last count, there were more than
750 million users—and the thing that makes this so important is they
don’t just use the site—they use it often, and when they do, they stick
around for a while.
Keeping Up with Everyone: Keep up with what’s going on with
everyone in your life—friends, family, acquaintances, and business
connections.
Brand Promotion: When someone “likes” your business Facebook page,
they are essentially advertising it to their friends for you.
Internal Analytics: Facebook includes data about how users interact
with your page and how many users see the information right from within
its dashboard.
Ease of Engagement: Users can share an opinion about something
with the click of a button. That one click advertises an item to the
users entire social circle, with additional comment being optional.
Weaknesses
Segmenting Your Life: There’s no easy way to separate contacts from
your personal and professional life. Google+ has this covered with its
Circles feature, which we’ll discuss later in this book.
Privacy: Facebook’s privacy settings and mechanisms are constantly
changing—without announcement at that. Without staying up-to-date on
how to protect your information from prying eyes, the best thing you can
do is assume everything you say or do on the platform is public.
Environment: Facebook is known for its old interface style, though
they are currently undergoing some changes to bring it more
current. Facebook still, despite its high usage level, has a low
satisfaction rate. While we’re not ready to say it’s going become
another MySpace, it’s certainly worth mentioning the battle with
Google+.
Strengths
Following Interests: Through the use of hastags (#hashtag), Twitter
makes it exceptionally easy to follow topics and issues without actually
following the people in the conversation. This way you can keep up with
hot button issues in your industry.
Brevity: The character limit is ideal for short attention spans, so
people can quickly scan for the information they need.
Weaknesses
Brevity: While some love it, the 140-character limit can be frustrating
because it’s hard to whittle down important points.
Information Overload: If you have a large following, there’s potential to
miss a lot. With frequent tweets, you’re going to see a lot stream by fast,
which is enough to overload you, quickly.
Platform: While Twitter has made improvements, the system does
overload and shut down from time to time. Even though it’s temporary,
sometimes only lasting a few seconds, it’s frustrating.
Internal Analytics: There is a lack of internal analytics data available
for you to see.
GOOGLE+
Strengths
Segmenting Your Life: Easily keep your family separate from your
friends, and your work contacts separate from your personal life.
Video Chats and Hangouts: Meet face-to-face without ever leaving your
living room or office!
Integration with Other Google Services: Google+ fits right in with
all their other services, including search and maps.
Weaknesses
Difficult to Scan: The home screen of Google+ is difficult to scan. As you
add more people to your circles, you’ll have to scroll more and more to be
able to keep up with what is going on.
Lack of Brevity: While the lack of a limit on status update length is nice
for some, others will abuse the privilege, making it that much more
difficult to scan and digest information.
Lack of Critical Mass: While Google+ is gaining ground every day,
there’s still nowhere near as many people there as there is on Facebook or
Twitter.
Why Use It? As the Google+ platform becomes more clearly defined,
the answer to this question will arise. Many marketers see great
potential and use it to their advantage, while others are still
wondering what it really has to offer. We’ll cover it more thoroughly
its own chapter, so you can decide for yourself.
Bookmarks