Use Twitter and Facebook to promote company

bibbly

I have been asked into looking into setting up a Twitter and Facebook account for my company, i work for a major company that has many different business units, it is mainly involved in retail but generates revenue from a good few other activities...

I have been asked to investigate setting up a twitter and Facebook page.

I am guessing that Twitter would be more useful as you could highlight promotions and have links directly to the particular section on your website.. but I am not sure about Facebook as perhaps annoyed customers could use it as a forum to publicly bash the company.

Are there any resources out there that would help me investigate the benefits of either site?

It is an opportunity to promote your company and your companies website? or is it a waste of time..


many thanks,

W!zard

For one, it is not a waste of time as you can see many small, medium and large International companies using both Facebook & Twitter. It's what "in" now, so do make use of it rather than thinking long-term value as something else could over take either and that system will be in use then.

Web 2.0 is all about users giving feedback and interacting with each other. So go for it, keep the pages fresh and maintain, you will do fine.

cousin_borat

Check out Yammer for Internal Business communications. Winner of TechCrunch50 last year. Basically Twitter for business

jrochie

I'm working for a small company and we are doing both as well. Facebook is proving much more successful so far, have made 1 or 2 sales through it and have met people out and about who have asked me about the company after seeing the page. All have noticed a pretty decent increase in page visits since we started the page.
Twitter doesn't seem to be doing much good, but I will freely admit that none of us working here know much about it, or many people who use it. Actually I was the only one in the office who had even heard of it!

kikel

I find twitter great for updating a website of mine with minimal effort. No need to design a new page for a special offer you want to run for a short period of time. All ya need is twitter feed onto the website and then update via twitter. Website updated in 3 minutes.

Love it.

link8r

Facebook and twitter are hugely different in my opinion. Facebook is deeply personal, whereas twitter is really a 24/7 networking event.

I would classify Facebook as important for brands and brand association.

I would class twitter as engagement. If you use it as a marketing tool I think you will struggle. I use it not to generate leads but to meet people and engage. Its probably the people you meet from twitter who will connect you with customers rather than directly, depending on your business.

Its also a great way to find out more information and get real insights from the people behind the news. I find that I need newspapers and RTE less and less as I can now talk to the people who they interview rather than reading the highly diluted, shortened, for-dummies version that Irish Journo's insist on printing under "quality investigation"

People will talk about a brand or company or supplier in a negative way anyway - by ignoring twitter/fb because it is as good as putting your head in the sand. Go and answer them in the best way without being confrontational.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Twitter is about building relationships and maintaining relationships. Its really not about marketing and PR. Most companies in Ireland misuse / misunderstand it. If your intending on using just to generate sales, chances are you'll fail. There's only a handful of companies that have successfully used twitter and there on it all the time. ie. Blacknight, komplett.


In summary:

http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

StuartC

I agree with fancy dresser, there is nothing worse than a company, merely joining and all his posts read, "BUY MY STUFF" etc...Will do more worse than good.

See if you can build some relationships or build some contacts instead.

Best of luck

AdMMM

Similarly, is anyone here advertising on Facebook? If so are you noticing any returns?