Social Media & the Enterprise, Part 2
Facebook vs. Twitter
Choosing Platform & Strategy
For Social Media Engagement
Presented by Sean Gallagher
sean@seanmgallagher.com
Twitter & Facebook Both…
• Offer a way to “microblog”
• Provide ways to network around areas of
interest
• Can be used to engage in public
conversations and engage customers and
business partners
• Can drive traffic to commerce sites, other
Websites, and social media
Twitter: An Open Global
Conversation
• Twitter “timeline” is open to world unless you
protect everything
• Anyone can “follow” anyone (unless tweets are
protected)
• Highly searchable, trackable, instrumented
• Can respond directly to people, engaging a large
audience – regardless of whether they “follow”
you or not
• “Retweet” pass-along amplifies message
Twitter Demographics
Source:
Quantcast
Twitter Users Are...
• Largely mobile (and not afraid to share
where they are)
• Diverse education and income
• Gen-Y and Gen-X
Twitter and similar services have been most avidly
embraced by young adults. Nearly one-in-five (19%)
online adults ages 18 to 24 have ever used Twitter
and its ilk, as have 20% of online adults ages 25 to
34. Use of these services drops off steadily after age
35 with 10% of 35-to-44 year-olds and 5% of those
ages 45 to 54 using Twitter. The decline is even
more stark among older internet users; 4% of 55-to64 year olds and 2% of those age 65 and older use
Twitter.
̶ Pew Research Center
Twitter Limitations
• No differentiation between people and brands
• Limited in-site rich media
• Limited information on individuals directly
available through profile
• Limited advertising opportunities
Twitter in Customer Engagement:
ThingMagic
• RFID company started Twitter campaign
to drive more traffic to blog
• Twitter reached a larger potential
audience outside of existing
customer base
• Web visits up 37%, 20%
increase in blog email
subscriptions
• Increased visibility to media,
made it easier to pitch stories
Twitter & Sales: Dell
• Dell's @DellOutlet Twitter feed posts
e-coupons for specific system deals
• Made adjustments to “tweets” to
improve response
• Tested different discount levels,
added deadlines
• Working on a Twitter-specific landing
page to better measure response
• Over $1 million in sales attributable to
Twitter traffic
Facebook:
Mass Social Media
• Facebook has a much larger membership
than Twitter (500 million vs. 190 million)
• Richer media options (embedded video,
audio, photo sharing, shared link preview)
• Drives huge volumes of Web traffic, and
has higher interest levels
Facebook Demographics
Source:
Quantcast
The Facebook Audience
• More teens
• Over 40 is the fastest growing demographic
• Tilted toward higher income
• Half are college-educated, half have kids
Facebook & Conversations
• Comment threads invite interaction
• Control over comments – can delete
unwanted user posts
• “Liking” a post subscribes to updates
in notifications
Identity & Facebook
• Distinguishes between people, brands
• “Fan Pages” for brands
• Collects vast amounts of relationship information
• Offers greater granularity in tracking preferences
• Taps into activity on other social networks,
aggregates behavior
• While much of this data is “private,” users often
give it away for apps, other incentives
Facebook & Brand Marketing
• More directed marketing opportunities
through preference-driven advertising
• Pages around brands offer a way to
directly contact “fans”
• Downside: Competitors can see who “likes”
you, and target customers and key
influencers
• Customers can share your message, reach
their networks, if your content is strong
Facebook Limitations
• Some limitations on extracting information
on users, compared to Twitter
• Brands can be hijacked – auto-fan pages
and other groups
• Not as easily searched or mined for
discussions about brands
• Outreach is more passive, permissionbased
Facebook Branding
Approaches
• Microsites embedded in “Fan Page”
• Apps and games
• Customer engagement through links,
status updates, and comment
Customer Relationships
With Facebook: Macy’s
• Engages customers through Wall, allows
customers to post
• Holiday “Gift Guide” drives users to Macy’s
e-commerce site
• Interactive apps collect user info, get them
to “like” page, and permit messaging to
user home page
Downsides to Facebook
Pages
• Brand hijacking
• Open conversation means negative
comments can be posted
• Macy’s fires Santa, comment firestorm
• Unmonitored areas of page with wrong
settings can create opportunity for hijack
• Nike page photo section: hijack links, sexual
content
Facebook Locations
• Built-in location-based marketing
• Can extend offers to mobile
users for “checking in”
• Locations can be claimed by
others, hijacked
Twitter vs. Facebook: Takeaways
• Twitter is an open forum,
straightforward, with
limited rich media and no
presence customization
• Twitter advertising
opportunities limited to
sponsored tweets,
“trending” topics, and
recommended follows
• Twitter works well for
testing social media
approaches
• Facebook is a media site
built around behaviorbased advertising and
marketing
• Facebook can be heavily
customized
• Facebook requires
vigilance against
brandjacking
• Facebook is best suited to
mature social media
marketing efforts