Jay Baer’s story Is Twitter Massively Overrated? put it in a way that finally made sense for me. If Facebook is vanilla ice cream, then Twitter is IPA beer. Of course I had heard the statistics Jay mentions but I hadn’t been able to put my finger on what the meaning was. Certainly Facebook has the eyeballs, but I don’t think it has the “juice“.
Twitter is for content; Facebook is for deep connections
Personally, I’m not a fan of huge fan of Facebook or vanilla ice cream. I don’t feel I learn anything new or interesting on Facebook, it’s a mentally bland experience. On the contrary, at least once a day I see something awesome on Twitter (like this).
Jay’s take-aways were the following:
- Do more on Facebook – I don’t think I’ll do that. I check my Facebook feed a couple times a day to catch up with friends and family, but I don’t use it as a public platform. And I struggle to understand why others do.
- Use Facebook for B2B – I still feel Facebook is “friends and family”.  I don’t think B2B buyers want to connect with your business on Facebook. The exception is if there is some component of your offer that touches people in a very personal way.
- Use Twitter in a targeted fashion – Makes sense. Twitterati tend to be hyper-social, super-connected and very aware of outreach. Hitting the right people on Twitter can generate a lot of positive momentum.
Know your audience
My take away was “know your audience”. Where are your customers? What content would they value most? (and in what context)
If you’re B2C you know you need to understand how to leverage Facebook. If you’re B2B, Facebook is a much less clear. LinkedIn and Twitter may also be key networks in your social strategy.
2 comments
My #DSoB brother, I am going to agree with @jaybaer here. For the simple reason, you are not mainstream in this particular space. Please take that as a compliment from another who is not mainstream in this particular space. In the social world, we are still way before the chasm, and the mainstream world is on Facebook. We use Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, insta.gram, shazam, and plancast; the rest of the world for the most part uses Facebook for all the apps mentioned previously. You have to be where your customers are, and if your customers are on FB, we need to suck it up.
See you soon for the #DSoB event http://dsob1.eventbrite.com/
Author
Mike,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Good point about being where your customer is – I think that’s the biggest point. Coming from a B2B perspective, I just don’t see that as a primary social network connection. Using my former IT self as an example. I’m on Facebook all the time, but I’m not looking to connect with Cisco, EMC or Oracle.
Like Gary V said, if “content is king, then context is f*#%ing god”. My perspective is that people don’t want to connect with a B2B vendor on Facebook.
In any case, thanks for challenging my thoughts. I did find some examples of B2B on Facebook to investigate.