Twitter & Facebook: Passing Fads? Not!

Social Media, which includes Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, and many other less known platforms, has become an important part of business marketing plans in the past few years. Recently there has been much written about how important it is to use Facebook to market your products and services. The same is true of Twitter. And until (and if) they fade away, which is unlikely because of the financial strength of their companies, home-based entrepreneurs should use them to the fullest extent they can.
Right now it is imperative, I believe, to utilize both Facebook and Twitter for your home-based business to be successful. At one time I advocated Twitter as a home-based business must; later, after trying unsuccessfully to use Twitter, I terminated my membership. Now, after reading a lot of things praising Twitter, I will reconsider using it. As for Facebook, I began using it as a way to find old friends; it was very successful for that, but, until recently, I never logged in more than once or twice a month. This will immediately change, for me. Most home-based business gurus say one way to succeed is with massive action. I can think of no more massive action than unleashing your business and presenting it to multi-millions of viewers every day.

COULD FACEBOOK AND TWITTER POSSIBLY BE FADS?
What is a fad? By definition, a fad is “a temporary fashion, notion, manner of conduct, etc., especially one followed enthusiastically by a group.” This definition begs the questions of how long must people use something before it is real and no longer a fad, as well as how many people need to continuously us something before it ceases to be a fad.
First introduced in 2006, Twitter now has over 175 million users. It has been around for over five years and it’s still going strong. Companies are willing to pay $125,000 every day to promote a trend, while Twitter costs almost nothing, you have to say Twitter is not a fad. It is real and here to stay.
In the same way, Facebook was started in 2004. Now, seven years later, Facebook is blessed with over half a billion followers, plus, there has been a movie made about it, so it seems Facebook is not a fad, either, and is here to stay.
The biggest reason why Facebook and Twitter will not go down in flames as fads is because we humans are very social creatures. This means that, regardless of the social platform we may choose, Social Media will never become fads that quickly go away. We must all learn to understand social media, and use it for what it is. It will never go away.

VERTICALIZATION
This blog says verticalization will win the fad race. Even if Twitter, Facebook, and other social media turn out to be just hype and decline into non-existence as fads, they have unleashed new communications methods that are not fads. These media make it possible to contact people with lightning fast messages, as many thousands at any one time as you want.
Using Facebook and Twitter, you are building business relationships one at a time. This is quite different from Friending people; your so-called friends care nothing at all about your business. What you are doing requires a lot of time; it is similar to building a house one brick at a time. The author calls this verticalization, meaning finance professionals interact with those in the finance industry, where investors meet the market, and so on. This requires a lot of time, so you need to begin immediately if you want to utilize Social Media.
The question is, “Where do you reach your prospects?” You must provide a place where people of mutual interests can meet and share their interests. This should also be a place where millions of people can see your message. Right now Facebook and Twitter provide such places; you just need to work hard to build these relationships.

TRENDS WE SOULD RECOGNIZE
This article talks about Internet ideas all entrepreneurs should recognize. Here are some of them:

• 47% of companies are spending more on online events. These allow the production of interactive experiences using these virtual actions to showcase your product line, build your brand reputation, provide content to your audience, and connect with prospects and customers. All this can be done from the convenience of your desktop, and your audience can enjoy the same benefits.
  
  
• Companies are increasing spending on videos. YouTube, along with increasing acceptability of home produced videos, has made possible the use of videos for business purposes. Ideas for business videos may come from executive interviews, talking with product managers, or product demonstrations.
  
  
• Several years ago the gurus said “content is king;” Well, it still is because your prospects and customers are seeking information to help them make better decisions. Your duty is to create excellent content and get it to them in a digital format.
  
  
• Banner advertising on the Internet remains a popular way to reach your prospects. Advertising networks offer the convenience of reaching many sites with a single purchase.
  
  
• One great advantage of digital media is the ease of analyzing results. You can always use A/B testing to check the effectiveness of your campaigns.

TWITTER VS. FACEBOOK; WHICH IS MORE VALUABLE FOR BANDS?
This article features an infographic that compares several Facebook vs. Twitter criteria. Here are some of the findings:

• 80% of Facebook fans use Facebook to connect with brands, while only 6 percent use Twitter.
  
  
• 37% of social networkers agreed that Twitter was more likely to drive purchasing among users, compared to 17 percent that believed as much about Facebook. The number of loyal customers that are following brands on Twitter is also on the rise, up by 6 percent from last year.

THE STRUGGLE OF SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS WITH FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
This blog discusses ways home-based business owners can benefit from using Social Media, but are not using these platforms. Here are some reasons home based business owners do not use Social Media platforms for their businesses:

• Don’t have the staff
  
• Don’t want to share everything
  
• No way to manage negative commentary
  
• Too many sites to manage
  
• Information overload
  
• Don’t know where to start
  
• Disclosing confidential information
  
• The prospect of building it is daunting. Few have hired anyone who knows Social Media to do it for them.
  
• 90% use classic marketing methods to get information about a business, such as blogs, company Website, Webinars, reviews, Social Media profile, magazines, newspapers
  
• 96% do not use any Social Media management
  
• 67% of small businesses were making no Social Media investment in 2012; 3% are moving out of Social Media, while 30% are moving toward it.

CONCLUSION
Facebook and Twitter are both significant platforms to use for promoting your home based business. They are both basically free to use, so give them a try. Learn all you can about how to use them.