What is the Difference Between Twitter and Facebook?

Social media has become a part of every person’s daily life today. To add to it, businesses also thrive on these networks. There are so many options available, that they can be misleading to you when you approach it for the first-time. The most frequently asked question is – what is the difference between, Facebook and Twitter. The answer would be everything. Some of the major differences are discussed below:

Lifetime of content:

Statistics show that over 90% of activity that happens on Twitter is only visible within an hour of the post being made. But within Facebook updates, interactions tend to go on for hours and days even. It is kind of an ongoing conversation while Twitter is a real-time conversation. Thus, to be able to make a mark on your follower, facebook content strategy has to be something that can pull off an engaged and an informed user while on twitter, short and precise informative posts are the way to go.

MUST READ: The History Of Twitter

The History Of Twitter

Twitter is not much about social friends:

On the Facebook platform, people connect with friends, family and acquaintances to keep in touch with them. It is personalised for personal profiles and professional/entertainment if you consider liking brand pages on it. Twitter is more about following the people you want to and getting to know what they want to share; the connection here is more detached.

Time:

The posts on Facebook can be discussed about forever, but on Twitter the information is about now - relevant, important and forever changing. Your instant news is tailor-made for Twitter but a less focused post can go on Facebook. Although that should not be a regular activity. If you are posting on your facebook timeline at a time slot when most of your followers are going to be online, it’ll make a complete mess out of it. Thus, building content calenders with proper time scheduling works best for its management.

ALSO READ: How To Promote Business Events On Facebook


Different optimal times for posting:

Surveys show that 5pm is the optimal time for tweeting while noon is the best time for posting on Facebook because that is when the most attention is showered by the active users. Also, Saturdays tend to be the most popular days on Facebook while Wednesdays are the same for Twitter. This, obviously is different in different geographies. But the statistics have pointed at these timings. Saturdays are laid back and hence people like o be on facebook to catch up and make plans. Twitter is the mid week medicine for most people. You know, like knowing whats happening in the world and to consume some senseless yet witty tweets.

READ: Social Signals: Maximizing Social Networks

Social Signals: Maximizing Social Networks

There can be plenty of such differences pointed out between Twitter and Facebook, but what remains unmoved is the fact that Facebook is a much popular social networking site than Twitter. The latter keeps people updated about the current news that does the rounds around the world and also in people’s lives, which is why the conversation trends keep on changing always. This makes it less of a connecting platform than a medium for information. Businesses can thrive easily when depending upon these social networks by building social relationships with followers and fans.


Written By:
Campbell Fox loves to click wildlife and natural settings up. Most amusingly he has a whole collection of pictures he clicked of a Grasshopper that frequents his window pane. Professionally, he consults for a seo company in new york.

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Social Media 2020: The Future is Bright

Have you heard the Timbuk3 song, The Future is so Bright, We Have to Wear Shades? That was in 1985. We say the same thing now in 2013 about the future of social media in 2020. Bright, bright, sunshiny day, like Johnny Nash said. Speculations are flying about whether there is enough space for so many of these entities and whether they will all hold their own let alone, also expand. Survival of the fittest theory will obviously have its impact upon any competitive atmosphere and so will it the social media.

photo: theguardian.com

The most visible of them, Facebook and Twitter have entrenched themselves to such an extent that it is unimaginable to look at a future without these two social media websites. Making their own impact are the fledgling Google +, some biggies like LinkedIn and some photo sharing sites like instagram. Recent death of Paul Walker had the last said a busy center of activity. People are fast realizing the utility of social media in communicating thoughts verbally and visually very convenient.

photo: usatoday.com

We daresay, however that the future is bright. In fact, people in general and the young people in particular will almost fore go meeting people offline and depend only on online contacts to make friendships, make foes and exchange their ideas accordingly. Countries like India and China may not be at par with the West technology-wise but the followers of social media in these countries are increasing manifold every year.

MUST READ:How to Use Social Media to Find an Online Marketing Company

How to Use Social Media to Find an Online Marketing Company - See more at: http://www.moniways.com/search/label/Social%20Marketing#sthash.04HuhxnM.dpuf

Engagement for businesses

Social media communities are enjoying the interaction through the platform which is largely free of charge. Future developments may include paying for membership. This may put off some as soon as it is mentioned but in the bargain, you might be able to get rid of advertisements and protect your privacy in a more orderly and effective fashion.

This writer does not subscribe to the theory that Facebook has reached its pinnacle and so any move it makes will only be downwards. They cite Orkut’s and Friendster’s example. Orkut’s mistake has taught Facebook a lesson that it will not forget in a hurry. For argument’s sake, even if we were to concede Facebook’s demise, many smaller niche groups are likely to be formed and send memberships booming.

ALSO READ: The History Of Twitter


The productive addiction; on the handheld too

If you have a membership in a social media website, your fingers will stop itching only when you are asleep. More and more people have, hence, taken the easy way out of the dilemma they would be in, if they were to be on the move. Smartphones and other mobile devices provide the answer! This means that they can check the status messages at anytime they wish to. Is this facility likely to decrease the membership?

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Targeted Media Spends for Brands on Social Media: A win

Many businesses have tasted success through advertisements they display in the social media pages at a negligible cost. Local businesses have indeed benefited hugely by advertising in local groups. The Word-of-mouth trend has transformed itself into status-to-status. The followers’ list grows in all directions and the ad reaches innumerable people.

The future is bright, isn’t it?



Authors Bio:
Gideon TakSen has been authoring numerous brilliant directories reviews for years now on his official website. By the day, he offers NY SEM Services and by the night he turns into a royal saxophone player. He says he loves everything that comes his way in between both these parts of his life.

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17 Reasons Why You Should Use YouTube for Your Online Business

There are a variety of different ways to market your online business, but social media has proven to be one of the better ones as of late. Sure, you can target Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others, but have you thought about how YouTube could benefit you? Here are a few reasons why you should consider getting your business out there on YouTube.

#1 - It is a great way for you to show off your public speaking skills and show people that you have authority and know what you are talking about.


#2 - It is a great way for you to share industry specific tips that your clients and prospective clients may have an interest in, and it also is a great way to give them idea of your level of expertise.

#3 - Try recording an interview with someone who is considered to be an expert in your industry.

#4 - Leave comments and video responses on other videos that have a relation to your industry, because it can help to expand your reach and get you more engaged in the YouTube community.

#5 - When creating your channel! Make sure that you choose a URL that is going to reflect your name. This can really help to promote brand name awareness.

#6 - You can add your YouTube channel URL to your other marketing documents, including email signatures, social media profiles, business cards, etc. This helps to get the word out there, which makes it easier for your clients to share your information with others.

#7 - Create a video of a current client using or benefiting from your products or services, as this can really help people to see why they should do business with you.

#8 - Videos are a great way to connect with your viewers, because it gives you the opportunity to see you, listen to you, and even engage with you.

#9 - Partner up with YouTube so that you can have the potential to earn money off of your videos, which would increase your profitability and give you more visibility.

#10 - Use YouTube to help you run an effective contest that will excite your viewers and make them want to share your YouTube channel with others, which could also help to boost your other social media platforms.

#11 - Use Google Analytics and other tools, such as YouTube Insight to see how your channel is performing. This gives you the information that you need in order to improve your tactics and make your channel more profitable for your business.

#12 - In each and every video that you create, it is important to have key contact information available. List your business name, web URL, telephone number, email address and other pertinent information, and make sure that it is easy for the viewers to see.

#13 - Use your videos to gain viewership, then add a call to action to get people moving from your YouTube channel to your actual website. The number of viewers you can convert over to customers will give you an accurate idea as to how effective your marketing is on YouTube.

#14 - Use cross-promotion tactics, such as asking others to use certain products or mention certain services in their videos to help promote what you have to offer. You can then promote something for them, and it can be a win-win situation for both of you.

#15 - Use your videos to help answer some of the questions that your customers ask most frequently. When you have customers that ask you questions, you can then simply point them to the YouTube video that will answer their question, and they will really see that customer service and satisfaction is high on your priority list.

#16 - Utilize videos to show customers how to use the products and services that you have to offer. Many times, people have trouble using certain types of products and services, and if you go the extra mile to show them that you care- it will really benefit your business as a whole.

#17 - Ask customers if you can interview them and get feedback about the products and services they have received from your business, and post them to your channel. This will help to show people that you offer something that is actually valuable.


MUST READ: How to Promote Your Business on Youtube

How to Promote Your Business on Youtube

Getting started on YouTube doesn't have to be difficult. Just use these tips to help you publish video content that will actually make a difference.

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How to Design an Informative Error Page

A 404 page is very important, though it doesn't seem so, considering the fact it's the less viewed part of a website. The idea that this page is what has to help lost users makes it necessary to take into account and not ignore its importance but rather make the best use of it. It's very disturbing to search for something on the Internet and reach an error page. Error pages are usually quite unpleasant, annoying and absolutely useless, unless they are created in an entertaining or informative way. It's more than possible to design a nice error page and not only keep users on your website, but also makes them love it. An error page can be informative and super helpful allowing visitors to learn what goes wrong. Here are tips on how to create an error page that will put misguided users back in track, without leaving your website.

A Good And A Bad Error Page

404 pages can be either good or bad and the difference is significant. A bad error page would show no interest to users who've ended up on it. It will most likely display a 'Sorry, you're looking for something that's not here' message, which is totally useless, and basically that is all you'll get on that page. On the other hand, a good error page would provide visitors with full information and help them to find their way back on the website. It's really up to you what kind of a 404 page you'd like to have, most probably a good one.

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Make It Helpful


There are several ways you can create a helpful and informative error page.

The first thing you can do to make a useful error page is to include a search box. It's quite an obvious thing to do, but yet a very essential part of a good 404 page. You can't expect that what visitors of your website are looking for can be easily found. Therefore you should include a search box that allows them to search in depth.

Another important feature an error page should possess is contact information and an option to subscribe. These two things are more effective than you can imagine. These are ways to get visitors more engaged with your website. It gives a good feeling when users have the possibility to contact you in case they need help or more information. Whether you put a direct link to your contact page or a contact form on the error page itself, it will definitely make a good impression and show your concern.


READ: How to Jump Start Traffic in 4 Simple Ways

To make your error page more interesting, you can add personality to it. Make it funny and entertaining and this will surely keep visitors on the website and not angrily leaving it.

You can also add a link to the homepage of your website. Let visitors get back from where they've started by directing them to the real content.

Another thing you can add is a link to recent or popular posts. This gives users the opportunity to get involved with something they were not looking for and actually be interested in. You can add recent posts with or without a plug-in. Either way it will do the job and keep visitors on the page.


ALSO READ: How To Set Up A Website To Boost Your Business

You don't want visitors of your website to close it with the speed of light at the moment they reach an error page. Make this page useful and interesting and not only they won't leave, they will like it and remember it.


Author Bio:
Rose Finchley is a freelance web designer. Her last works is http://www.fasthomecleaning.co.uk/ and you can learn a lot from her.

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How to Promote Your Business on Youtube

As a medium of marketing and communication, video is a very effective and powerful tool. Having a short video on your home page can increase viewer engagement greatly. The video can be a behind the scenes clip of how your company works or it can be a short tutorial on using the company's products or services.

One of the world’s leading video platforms is YouTube. This site commands a great deal of traffic with millions and millions of views every day. The fact that YouTube is free to use means that businesses can use it as an avenue to carry out some video marketing for their brand. Not only is it rather easy to use, it also accords you a mass market that can be far reaching if tapped into in the right way.


READ: How To Promote Business Events On Facebook

How To Promote Business Events On Facebook

Of course, therein lies the problem. Most companies do not realize nor do they experience the full extent of what YouTube can do to their marketing efforts. This is mainly because they go about it in the wrong way.


Here are Useful Tips On How Small Businesses Need To Use YouTube.


1. Have a customized channel:

Most companies go straight into uploading videos without setting up the proper launch pads or avenues. Setting up a customized channel that bares your company logo, your URL and basically screams your brand is one of the most effective ways to stand out on YouTube. This means that viewers can subscribe to your channel and thus get notifications on every single upload and update you make. This ties them down as avid followers and helps increase their engagement level with your brand.


2. Have organized content:

Rather than haphazardly uploading tons of video, you should take the time to organize them in some particular manner. If your company deals in product development, you could have videos that follow through the entire process for those subscribers who might be interested in finding out how what they are using is made. Organize your videos chronologically or even lump certain materials together. Just make sure everything you upload is a part of a bigger picture or message and not just random videos to flood the platform and your viewers.

ALSO READ: Why You Should Use YouTube for Your Online Business

17 Reasons Why You Should Use YouTube for Your Online Business - See more at: http://www.moniways.com/search/label/Social%20Marketing#sthash.5HnNQCm1.dpuf

3. Promote your videos:

The era of 'if you build it, they'll come' is unfortunately coming to an end. Nowadays you need to promote, promote and promote some more. Once you have uploaded a video on YouTube, provided it is relevant to the subject, you need to promote it in other avenues. YouTube has many options that can help you when it comes to this. Linking your videos to Facebook and Twitter is fairly easy through the initial YouTube settings. Additionally, YouTube videos are fairly easy to embed in other media using HTML. This is the best way to get viewers to view your content and subscribe to your channel.


4. Make use of analytic tool:

The only way to know what is working and what isn't so you can tweak your approach accordingly is by paying attention to the free analytics offered by YouTube to its users. This data shows you views, community, demographics and discovery. The last part lets you know how the viewer came to know about your video. With this information, you can tell what you need to do to increase viewer engagement with your content.


5. Make use of the YouTube community as well as tags:

Being a social media platform, you need to connect with other users to increase your reach within the various communities. By connecting with other users, you can cross-promote your material. This can also be done by making use of tags. By having a wide range when tagging your videos, you can fall under several categories when a viewer searches for your niche specific keywords. For example if you offer flower services, you can tag as many species as you can. From roses to lilies, make sure that whenever anyone searches for any flower, your video will be among the results shown.

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6. Always work on your channel:

Many companies set up a YouTube channel and then neglect it after a little while. Try to avoid falling into this trap. Once you have set up a YouTube channel, make sure that you work on it regularly. This includes making sure that spammy and inappropriate comments are deleted, responding to viewer comments, respond to friend requests, add a few favorites every now and then and so much more. Neglecting your channel will render the whole process null and void in the long run.

There you have it, a few Useful Tips on How Small Businesses Need to Use YouTube.

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Best Social Media Apps Used for Lead Generation

The marketing world has been revolutionized in the last decade or so by the explosion in social media use. No serious marketer can afford to ignore social media. That’s not to say that tradition avenues of marketing do not remain important: they do. It’s not to say that other types of internet marketing are not important: they are. It does mean that any business serious about marketing must have a social media presence.

Social media platforms are not just for keeping up with friends. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites offer the marketer some of the most powerful tools she can have at her disposal. Marketing is more than merely telling and selling (it always was and always will be more than that).

Social Signals: Maximizing Social Networks

Social Signals: Maximizing Social Networks

Marketing is all about satisfying customer needs: and how do you do that if you do not know what those needs are? Social media presents marketers with various channels to find out exactly what their customers want.

Social media apps are changing and developing all the time. So it is always the case that you should check out what new developments are in the pipeline. You can use your social media presence to help you to do this. A simple Twitter post, asking about what’s new, will likely lead to a flood of responses. Your LinkedIn network is also a good source that you can turn to in order to find out about the latest trends. What follows are some of the current social media apps that will be useful for the marketer.

READ: How to Use Social Media to Find an Online Marketing Company

Offerpop

This was first launched in 2010. It was initially designed for markers to use on Twitter to engage with existing and new audiences. You use this to run photo and video hashtag and campaigns with the aim of growing activity on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

For example, a fashion retailer might introduce a competition for followers and fans to submit a video of their own fashion shoots with a prize for the winner of a new wardrobe from the stores new season’s lines.

Heyo

You may well know this app by its pervious name, Lujure. It was originally launched to make Facebook tabs a little easier to create. More recent updates allow apps to run on mobiles and websites as landing pages.

If you want to run a Facebook campaign, Heyo gives you a convenient and straightforward method to create a campaign and that will be optimized for mobile devices. You could, for example, run a group promotion that encourages your fans to get their friends to your promotion. The carrot for your fans to do this is the reward that they are offered for getting their friends to your promotion.

Tabsite

Internet savvy marketers had been looking for a something that would allow them to leverage Facebook. Tabsite was designed expressly for that purpose and was launched in 2010. If you have a Facebook presence, Tabsite lets you go to your fan page and create and manage custom tabs and run promotions. Tabsite also allows you to import content from your blog and add videos from YouTube.

Pagemodo

This is a great app if you are a small business, especially if you don’t have access to expensive technical help. Pagemodo lets you pretty quickly design and publish your own Facebook page apps. It has features that allow you to use slideshows and videos and to create contact forms.

Use Pagemodo for designing campaigns to increase the number of Facebook fans that you have. It has the facility for you to pick your theme and decorate this with your own images or pick from a range of free stock photos. Adding text is fairly straightforward even if you lack a little expertise in this department.

Fanz Appz

Fanz Appz is described as a ‘personalized marketing’ tool. Its purpose is to give marketers the opportunity to enhance their engagement on Facebook and increase their conversion of fans to customers.

The idea behind Fanz Appz is that social media is a world where information, including personal data, is freely shared. If business can tap into this information, with permission, it will allow them to more accurately target their marketing efforts.

ALSO READ: How To Integrate Social Media Into Marketing Campaigns

The above are just five available social media apps for marketers. To repeat the point made earlier, this is a dynamic field, so it’s always worthwhile checking out what the latest developments are.


Author Bio:
Bruce Young is a professional Online Marketer doing SEO Services for Australian clients. Bruce finds free time to write SEO, Social Media and paid search articles on his blog.

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