Moe Tamani’s Internet Marketing and SEO Blog, Articles and Search Engine Optimization Tips

I’m of the opinion there are two camps when it comes to
online marketing and the use of social media to drive business messaging and customer action:

• Those who mostly use Facebook
• Those who mostly use Twitter

Sure, many businesses display the blue-based badges for
both Facebook and Twitter on their homepage, which suggests that they maintain
an active profile on both platforms. But if you take the time to analyze their
efforts, you’ll find that in most cases, only one profile is kept current. And it’s that profile that might stand a chance of
producing positive measurable results.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic: Don’t think for one moment that automatically sending your Facebook status updates or blog posts to Twitter — or vice versa — means you’re keeping either of those social media platforms up to date. In fact, if that single action accounts for half or more of what you do on Facebook or Twitter, it’s a sign of laziness — not to mention being out of touch.

So when someone asks me why Twitter doesn’t produce the same type of results for their business as Facebook, or they want to know how they can use Twitter to lift sales and grow their business, I tell them they’re asking the wrong question. The best way to determine which social networking platform is best for your business and then how to use it starts with having a clear understanding of who your customers are; where it is online that your customers choose to gather and why; and what exactly it is that motivates your customers to act.

Once you have that information in hand, you’ll likely have the answer to your question.

What’s important to know is that these two platforms are inherently different. These days, for instance, pretty much everybody knows what Facebook is. The same can’t be said about Twitter. And therein lies one of many challenges facing the businesses that choose that platform. Put simply, anytime you have to stop to explain to your customers how to use a service, in addition to why they should use it, you’ve lost them.

Other challenges associated with using Twitter include:

Characters: Twitter limits the number of characters in its messages to 140. While communicating in 140-character messages isn’t impossible (far from it in fact), for those new to truncated communications, it can be rather challenging.

Images: As I pointed out in last Thursday’s entry (New Report Uncovers the Anatomy of a Facebook Post), messages with embedded images tend to receive more attention. And since Twitter doesn’t naturally conform to embedded images, it’s just not as useful or as inclusive a platform as Facebook.

Branding: Facebook, aside from your profile image, presents a clean and unified user experience from page to page. Twitter allows users to customize their page’s background, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the user’s talents. If done correctly and according to recommended specifications, a branded Twitter page can look spectacular. Unfortunately, more often than not — and due to a variety of factors — most business-customized Twitter backgrounds look butt ugly. Not nearly as awful as the majority of MySpace pages, but bad nonetheless.

Timeliness: Twitter is an “in the moment” and “moment-to-moment” platform. If your audience isn’t online and paying attention at the moment you hit the Tweet button, chances are your message only reaches a small percentage of your intended audience. On Facebook, businesses have Pages, which users are accustomed to visiting and then scrolling through.

Usage: You might have noticed that it’s a lot easier to use Twitter improperly than Facebook. As a result, some people report experiencing irrelevant noise and chatter, which ultimately makes Twitter less useful — and more annoying — for some.

Before you get the wrong idea, I’m not suggesting that businesses shy away from using Twitter; nor am I intimating that Twitter holds little or no value to businesses. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Numerous case studies from leading brands such as JetBlue, Dell and American Apparel (as well as from smaller organizations such as Teusner Wines, CoffeeGroundz, and even the U.S. Geological Survey) clearly outline how Twitter is being used to help businesses meet and exceed their goals.

But if you’re wondering why Twitter doesn’t produce the same results as Facebook or other socially engaging efforts, it may not be you. It might just be the platform. In any event, to get a leg up on exactly how to use Twitter to support your business-related goals, read Twitter’s 101 Guide for Businesses.

You might say a little bird sent you.

With everybody from Starbucks to Apple cutting prices during the recession, it’s little wonder that small businesses are feeling pricing pressure, too.

But, if your business needs a pick-me-up, does it really make sense to cut prices or offer discounts at a time when your customers may not be in the mood to buy?Before you pull the trigger on your pricing gun, step back and ask yourself these questions:

•
Do you know how much money you make on every sale?

Most
businesses focus on two metrics — sales and bottom-line profits — to gauge
their financial success. By contrast, gross margin — the ratio of gross profit
to revenue — measures your company’s efficiency in turning raw materials into sales. Think of it like this: For every $1 of sales that your company rings up,
how much money do you have left over after buying the materials and other
supplies necessary to make your product or provide your service? If the answer is
50 cents, your gross margin is 50%. If your prices aren’t high enough to allow
you to maintain at least a 20% gross margin on every sale, it’s unlikely that
your business is going to be able to clear much of a profit after you
subtract rent, payroll, insurance and other fixed expenses.

•
Do you have “people costs” you need to cover?

Just
because you’ve got a gross margin of 50% doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re
making a healthy profit. That’s why your pricing needs to reflect your total
cost of doing business (not just your cost of goods sold), which, in many cases, can be much
higher. Don’t forget to factor in the “people” costs — the admins, sales reps, production staff, contractors, etc. who do the work that makes your company tick. Before you cut your prices, remember
that you need to pay these people, too!

•
Do you need to pay to bring business in the door?

If
you run a restaurant or retail store, customers walk in the door and you don’t
have to worry about paying for sales leads and referrals. But that isn’t true
of a manufacturing or service business in which small businesses without their own
sales force rely on the Internet or on independent reps or agents to bring them customers and orders.
Depending on the industry, these reps can charge commissions as high as 20% on
every sale. Web traffic isn’t cheap, either. That’s why, if you need
to rely on third parties to help sell your product or service, it’s important
to build in enough margin to maintain a distribution network and still make a profit.

The bottom line: If you’ve got a good relationship with your customers and sell
a specialized product or service that the market wants and needs, you should try to find a way to hold the line on prices without losing business — and build a solid
foundation for your company’s future. If not, it may be time to go back to Starbucks
for a $2 cup of Joe.