facebook v twitter

The_Banker

I started an ecommerce website about 6 months ago. My biggest problem is driving traffic to that website.

I hear a lot of people speaking about facebook and twitter with regard to using social media to market their websites...

Is it any good and which is better twitter of facebook?

I havent tried google adwords yet but any feed back on that would be welcome also.

jimmii

Both are good for different reasons. If you are a service you can reach people quicker on twitter but if images are important to what you are selling you will get that across better on facebook. The two are so big that you really need to be making a go of it on both.

Graham

Also depends on your target demographic. Twitter is generally younger/more tech-savvy (sweeping generalisation I know), if that's not your target perhaps Facebook may work better for you.

Adwords is worth ago and you'll usually get €75 free the first time you spend €25 on Ads. Just start very very very tightly targetted and set a daily budget/limit.

Atomico

The_Banker wrote: »

I started an ecommerce website about 6 months ago. My biggest problem is driving traffic to that website.

I hear a lot of people speaking about facebook and twitter with regard to using social media to market their websites...

Is it any good and which is better twitter of facebook?

I havent tried google adwords yet but any feed back on that would be welcome also.

Twitter and Facebook are fine, but more so as backing up your main traffic sources, which should be search traffic and direct traffic - since this will bring the vast bulk of revenue and sales. Social media is better for branding and awareness, and for supporting your other efforts.

AdWords can be great for driving awareness as well as traffic, but as mentioned, you need to keep your costs under control and you need to know what you are doing in terms of setting up and managing your campaign.

Hanley

Targeted FB ads for the win.

Atomico

Hanley wrote: »

Targeted FB ads for the win.

They can work very well. I recently ran a campaign on one of my own sites, where I was getting a new like roughly every five minutes.

It most definitely depends on your sector and what you're offering though.

Graham

Do any of you run any kind of f-commerce allowing users to purchase directly from within Facebook?

printanddesign

Atomico wrote: »

They can work very well. I recently ran a campaign on one of my own sites, where I was getting a new like roughly every five minutes.

It most definitely depends on your sector and what you're offering though.

Sounds interesting. Did you spend much? How many new fans did you get?

Axwell

Atomico wrote: »

They can work very well. I recently ran a campaign on one of my own sites, where I was getting a new like roughly every five minutes.

It most definitely depends on your sector and what you're offering though.

Likes are all very well and good but its about conversion rates and turning those into actual sales that matters. What increase did you see in conversion rates as a result of the extra likes from the facebook campaign you ran?

Atomico

Axwell wrote: »

Likes are all very well and good but its about conversion rates and turning those into actual sales that matters. What increase did you see in conversion rates as a result of the extra likes from the facebook campaign you ran?

Yep, I know all that but it depends on your goals. In my case it's more for branding, there are no conversions as I am not actually selling anything and am targeting a particular market.

Agreed that generally it's not all about likes though, it's about the end result / outcome.

Axwell

Atomico wrote: »

Yep, I know all that but it depends on your goals. In my case it's more for branding, there are no conversions as I am not actually selling anything and am targeting a particular market.
/ outcome.

Are you not looking to direct these people to your website for example? There has to be an end goal no matter what the market you are targeting is. Just looking to have your facebook page to have a bigger number beside 'likes' serves little purpose. I know pages who have paid for fake likes and have thousands of likes on their page but this is pointless. Unless people are interacting, be it sharing the posts or in most cases converting to visits to a website from good posts and converting to sales then they serve little purpose.

To the OP start off with a facebook page and have regular updates and content on it. Have those linking back to items on the site, blog posts etc. The purpose being to drive traffic to the website and convert those to sales. Its all about good content, if you have a facebook post that interests me I am more likely to read it and in turn visit your website. Run some competitions to increase likes and shares or offer discounts via facebook. In terms of getting followers and likes you should have a link to your facebook page in your signature, on your website, on emails and other correspondence - every little helps.

Once you are happy with your website and facebook page you could look at some targeted facebook ads and run them over a test period of a few weeks and see what works and what doesnt. It does depends on your product and target market obviously too but it will cost you very little to at least test it out and see how you get on. Its a long process with social media to achieve very good results but the more you put into it the more you will get out of it.

Are you running any sort of analytics on your current site? Do you know where your existing traffic comes from, how long they spend on your site? Have you looked at focusing more on that area to try increase the amount of traffic coming from those?

Hanley

Axwell wrote: »

Likes are all very well and good but its about conversion rates and turning those into actual sales that matters. What increase did you see in conversion rates as a result of the extra likes from the facebook campaign you ran?

I direct all my FB ads to a squeeze page now.

Very quickly determine the weak link in the process.

Good CTR but poor conversion = good ad, but weak squeeze page

For normal FB posts, I'll just lash a subscribe link in to anything that I think will be good or engaging and let organic movements take care of it.

I added around 2,500 people over a few months using sponsored posts to generate likes. It DEFINITELY helped and got me business. I just don't know how much. So am reluctant to spend that 100/month again on doing it.

That being said - only need 1 sale to cover that cost, so may just see again.

puneetgopal

Both are good platform for driving traffic on a website but only facebook or twitter is not a enough task for marketing..If you want to promote your website then consult with SEO specialist...

socialnidge

Agree with the above posters.

It can depend on the demographic you are targeting but I would building a presence for your brand on both.

Make use of Facebook's conversation tracking tool as it will help determine what works best in terms of social ads. I'd also recommend looking into ad retargeting software which will allow you to target your visitors on Facebook.

For example, if a user has visited a webpage football related products, you can retarget them with Facebook adverts for football products. As far as I know, Adroll and Perfect Audience are only 3rd party vendors that provide this kind software. It cannot be done within Facebook's advertising dashboard.

PM me if you have any questions.

skimpydoo

Next Monday E-commerce Ireland are holding their latest free monthly seminar in NCI at 6. More details are here http://t.co/DboePSNSIU One of the speakers Samantha Kelly will be talking about using twitter to generate business. This will be one not to miss.

Melody Maker

Hanley wrote: »

I direct all my FB ads to a squeeze page now.

Whats a Squeeze Page?

Cheers.

bdo

It is a page which you create exclusively to get the page visitor to do one thing .... eg. squeeze their email address out of them, get them to register, get them to buy something etc. Often squeeze pages are where you end up if you click on an ad and the advertiser wants to capture your contactt details, your money etc. A squeeze page usually has no navigation on it, to stop you wandering off and doing something else ...