Is Twitter turning into Facebook?

by denise 13. December 2011 17:20

Where once we saw Twitter set itself apart from Facebook as an information network rather than a social network, recent updates to the model indicate the contrary.

As social media platforms continue to evolve, they often appear to take the good features from each other’s models and integrate them into their own offering. The following features in particular illustrate that Twitter is attempting to challenge Facebook’s supremacy by becoming more like Facebook!

Profile Pages

In terms of design, Twitter has started to look a lot more like Facebook since the recent launch of its new design. With the addition of video and photo sharing features within every user’s profile, Twitter is moving closer to the ‘profile page’ style which exists within Facebook and Google Plus, and further away from its original information network model, where a user’s page was primarily a list of tweets. User information such as favourites, lists and images now appear in the upper left-hand side of the page, similar to Facebook.

Brand Pages

Previously there was no real distinction between a brand’s Twitter page and an individual’s personal page – both were places where content could be pushed into their followers’ streams but neither had a particularly strong identity. The recent update provides Marketers with an opportunity to customise headers to make their logos and taglines more prominent and feature a particular tweet of their choice at the top of their page, where it will remain and automatically expand, perhaps revealing a photo or video without any action required by your followers to access the expanded content.

News Feeds

Twitter’s 140 character tweet restriction may have restricted engagement to some extent in the past, but this has been counteracted by the introduction of a new ‘Activity Feed’ in August, allowing users to monitor their followers’ interactions with other Twitter users. This strongly resembles the Facebook model, where conversations between friends are visible via the comments which appear in a list below the original statement.

Twitter users can view media and conversations associated with tweets in the sidebar but by clicking on the conversation, the content can be inserted directly into your feed.

Discovering Connections

Facebook will update you when your friends become friends with other people, making it easy for you to increase your own network by also adding friends that you have in common. Similarly, Twitter now tells you what your connections are retweeting and who they are following via their new activity stream, located within the ‘Discover’ tab.

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Tags: social media marketing, social media, social media agency, social media belfast, twitter, facebook

Google Plus For Businesses

by denise 21. November 2011 10:14

Less than 6 months since the launch of Google’s new social media network, Google Plus has introduced its much anticipated business pages facility, but what does this mean for the network and its users?

Google Plus Business Pages Accelerate Growth

Hitwise reported that the two biggest weeks for Google Plus in terms of traffic were in late September, following the public launch of the network after its testing phase. The third biggest surge in traffic coincided with the recent addition of the brand pages. In the same week, Google also introduced additional features including the +1 facility for Google Image searches, one of many changes we are likely to see rolled out. The upgrade to the functionality of the network is a vital tool to strengthen Google’s bid to succeed Facebook as the No.1 social media channel for businesses and individuals.

Google Plus Versus Facebook Business Pages

1. No Advertising - Like Facebook, organisations are not charged to use the network to engage with their audiences but one key distinction that will appeal to the masses is that Google Plus does not plan to include adverts within their business pages.

2. Combined Features – Google Plus business pages allow businesses to create circles for different groups to share specific information, like Facebook Groups but they also allow users to post public updates to all contacts which can be commented on and +1’d, like an individual’s Facebook page.

3. Less Restricted – Within Google Plus it is easier than Facebook to find people and organisations with shared interests but the service is not quite as open as Twitter’s model.

4. Everyone can see your posts – Within Facebook, your posts no longer appear within all your fans newsfeeds. It depends on how interesting your page’s content is, the level of interaction your fans make with your content and how recent and consistent your updates are. Within Google Plus, when someone puts you in a circle, they will always see your Google Plus posts in their stream.

How Can Business Use Google Plus to Their Advantage

As the facilities offered by Google Plus evolve over time, an endless list of possibilities is likely to emerge. A few initial ways in which businesses can reap the rewards for their loyalty to Google include the following:

1. Brand Loyalty – businesses can use their Sparks to their advantage by engaging in commentary on popular news items, identifying topics for discussion within their own blog posts and content marketing strategies and simply monitoring who is mentioning your site.

2. Customer Segmentation – The Circles facility presents an opportunity to segment your contacts into different groups, such as customers, potential customers and peers. Various customer groupings may be made according to their size, spend, stage of the relationship and such like so that communications can be tailored to be more relevant to each.

3. Search Optimisation - For many businesses, the impact of Google Plus on search is one which appears to be worth investigating as Google Plus branded pages are already visible within search results and the ease of which brands can be added to your circles directly from a search page encourages interaction.

4. Video Communications – The Hangouts facility can be used to launch new products, have real-time Q&A sessions and make senior members of your organisation more accessible to your following.

Google Plus may initially have been dismissed as another lacklustre attempt by Google to rival its main competitor Facebook, but its growing member count, which has reached over 40million in only a few months suggests that it is more than just another fad in Google’s social media exploits. This is supported by Hitwise who reported that traffic from returning visitors rose by 18%, based on a comparison of the average of the first two weeks of November against the same period in October.

Stay tuned in to our blog to keep up to date with developments on Google Plus and if you missed our previous posts, you can re-cap here:

www.thewebbureau.com/blog/post/Can-New-Social-Media-Network-Google+-Challenge-Social-Giant-Facebook-.aspx

www.thewebbureau.com/blog/post/Google+-One-Month-On.aspx

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Tags: Google Plus, Google Plus One, Google Plus 1, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing Strategy, Social Media Marketing Company, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Digital Marketing

YouTube Marketing

by Lea Glover 17. November 2011 16:32

YouTube is now considered to be the second largest search engine after Google. With over 90 million unique monthly visitors and an average monthly view time of 54 hours per user, this platform is better for marketers than ever before.

It’s therefore surprising that YouTube is sometimes overlooked by businesses when considering an Internet Marketing strategy. Videos only take a few minutes to upload and the results can be significant yet many businesses in Northern Ireland seem to be missing out on YouTube’s online marketing value. YouTube can visibly promote your product or service in a creative way, but it is also a valuable tool for Search Engine Optimisation and analytics:

Search Engine Optimisation Value

Google puts high SEO importance on video content. With little effort your videos can easily out-rank competitor websites, top directories and article sites, often appearing on the first page. Google owns YouTube, so this alone increases its SEO value but there is also much opportunity to include links, tags and keywords in the description section.

YouTube Ads

The promoted video feature on Youtube brings the power of search advertising with keyword-based targeting. YouTube Promoted Videos work on the same basis as Google Adwords but are much better value for money. Target your video campaign with keywords and pay only when someone clicks to watch your video. This will drive potential customers to your videos where a ‘call to action’ overlay will link back to your website.

Analytics

Take advantage of YouTube’s Insights, an analytics tool that provides information such as demographics, abandonment rate, re-winds and fast-forwards. YouTube Insights will identify the exact point viewers leave your video and which scenes within the video are proving to be most popular.

Going Viral

48 hours of video content is loaded to YouTube every minute, therefore viral video marketing is in fact very difficult to achieve. Forget ‘going viral’ and think quality, not quantity. It’s important to focus on targeting your video to the correct market. A high number of visits isn’t as important as reaching the right customers.

If you’re serious about using YouTube as an internet marketing tool, then do your research. Find your niche, discover what’s hot, identify current video trends and recognise good ideas for video content.

Online Market Research

Test your audience before your video goes live by running two different unlisted videos backed by search ads to determine which one gets the best response. An unlisted video will not appear on any of YouTube’s public spaces. Only people with a link to the video will be able to view it.

The comments box below your video can be used as online focus group testing. These comments will provide valuable insight into the products or services you’re promoting. Interact with viewers by answering comments or enquiries about your videos. This will not only create creditability but also encourages viewers to return leaving new comments, ratings and more views.

For more information on YouTube marketing and seo, contact us on info@thewebbureau.com

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Tags: YouTube Marketing, video marketing, Internet Marketing, SEO Northern Ireland, SEO Belfast, ecommerce Belfast, digital marketing, marketing video, online video marketing, viral marketing