Social Networking Sites

[Firefly Research]

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Hi Everyone,

I’m interested if anyone has had any luck with these sites to get business. I’m a member of Facebook, Twitter and most recently LinkedIn (which I have no idea how to use) and I’m finding Facebook pretty good, but Twitter isn’t getting me much.

The idea is, I set up a group for Firefly Research where I can explain market research groups, how they work, what’s involved etc. Then I invite ppl to join the group (hopefully registering on the website as well) and I can get word of mouth going on regarding the groups. Also, if I’m having problems recruiting for a group from the database, then I can post on Facebook etc. as an extra recruitment tool.

As I said, I’ve had a few ppl register to participate through Facebook, but none through Twitter – has anyone had any luck with Twitter? Maybe I’m not aware of how it works. You post on twitter (tweet i believe it’s called?) and then your ‘tweets’ are seen by everyone who’s following you? Is that right? Geez I hate these sites, but I feel – especially for market research recruiting -that’s it’s important I’m joined up.

Any thoughts?

[Wired Web Writer]

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Hi Firefly Research

It’s worthwhile investing time with social media marketing (via Facebook, Twitter etc) – it’s an important component of marketing for any business these days.

Twitter is useful for building up your brand, and you can also use it to help drive traffic and visitors to your website.

Start off by following a few people, and build your list of followers that way as others start to reciprocate by following you.

You should start to see a few of your Twitter followers visit your website and hopefully be prompted by your “call to action” to register as a participant for your market research groups.

Another thing you could do is to add a Twitter button to your website, so that visitors to your website know that they can follow you on Twitter.

It also helps to Tweet on a regular basis.

Hope this helps.

[Gordon Akman]

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I’m not getting much of a return from Facebook and Twitter but I still use them. I have added link buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Blogger to my website to make it clear to prospects who I am and that they are welcome to contact me in a variety of ways. Hopefully in the future as I add more and more clients I start to get some significant referrals and business from them.

[Carbonite Australia]

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Twitter is an interesting game. I just started out following a few people and then tweeting information about our service and how it worked. Gradually people started following me. I also began retweeting others which also helped. My goal is to use Twitter to reach new potential customers and to communicate the benefits of Carbonite. People can then decide if they wish to follow and stay following me. So far I believe that it has worked out well and I know for a fact that it has generated real sales.

[defyet]

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The only social media i use is facebook, i have a link to my fan page on every page of my website and i get about 40 – 60 visitors a day to my website and in 6 months i have never had anyone join. I had friends join and thats it. I update it reguraly but cause no one else is joining and all the people on it are my friends it feels pointless.

The only way i can think of adding people to my facebook page is adding friends of friends to my personal facebook then suggesting they join my business page, which is not something i want to do considering i dont know those other people.

To me social media to advertise is too time consuming for the ROI. Constantly posting and adding new content to your facebook to keep friends interested just doesnt seem worth it, and i find anyone will join a funny fan page or a tv show fan page etc.. but as soon as its business related the snow ball effect doesnt work when your friends join, when i had 40 people join i was hoping their friends would see there friend joined and they would join also, but i was wrong.

I’d rather spend that time posting on my website blog so google can see im adding fresh content to my site on a regular basis and rank for my keywords for people that are looking for my services rather then wasting my time marketing to people that arent looking to use me.

I would love it if facebook allowed business pages to become fans of other business pages because then i see alot of potential clients, you can personally join other business pages but i would love to be able to recommend that business to become a fan of mine then i see alot of potential being able to link with other business. But i dont see facebook adding this feature.

[Michael_R]

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Defyet is your potential customer someone that would use Facebook to find your product?

If you give some more information on what your product is there are a number of good people on here that will be able to help you make social media work for you and get a ROI!!

[Rain]

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I can’t use Facebook and Twitter, because they are screened.LinkedIn is a useful tool to connect so many business friend from different areas. But the useful right is still limited, some parts can be used only a premium member.

[CarolP]

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Social media has its place and it depends on what your overall business objectives are.

Twitter and Facebook are not only tools to drive traffic/generate business but are also good to “listen in” to conversations that people say about you or your service or brand.

If you “hear” people being negative about your service / product, it provides an opportunity to respond. Word of mouth is pretty powerful and I think people are responsive to businesses that are happy to listen in and engage with them.

Cheers
Carol

[Steven Hudson]

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Hello Amy

I noticed on your site you are looking for people in the Sydney area use this search tool to locate followers In Sydney…..

Advanced Twitter Search http://bit.ly/12PlPg twitter search tools

Twitter is easy but very time consuming, unless you sign up an automated program, can be expensive, but has some benefits.

Just understand this, Aussie’s are a lot more hesitant to follow everyone who follows them. And it will be a lot harder to build a following just in say Sydney. But on a global basis 30% to 40% of people will follow you back.

If you are just chasing followers you must follow then wait at least three days plus then you unfollow thoses who have not followed you back. Then start the process all over again. Follow, then unfollow those not following you back.

The karma tool will help you clean up your following and unfollowing.
http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

Using this method, along with regular Twittering and can easy get a 1000 followers per week, but it is a lot of work for low quality followering. However it will create traffic to your web site.

The other critical thing to remember with Twitter is it acts as a link to your site when you include your URL in your Twittering and sends the Google crawler to your site, same with Facbook.

Cheers

Steven

[defyet]

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Michael_R, post: 39970 wrote:

Defyet is your potential customer someone that would use Facebook to find your product?

If you give some more information on what your product is there are a number of good people on here that will be able to help you make social media work for you and get a ROI!!

No they wouldnt use facebook to find me, but who would use facebook to find a product or service anyway, its not a search engine or business directory, so they cant exactly look for me on there, only if they see one of their friends is a fan or go to it from my website.

I supply a mobile automotive service in sydney, most people drive a car, its not like im targeting teenagers on facebook, most the people on their i know are 20-50. I post picture of jobs on a regular basis and also tutorials and guides to attract fans, is there anything else i could be doing?

I look at the facebook page for the local pizza shop down the road and he has over 250 fans and growing everyday. Only because people are going on their and saying “Nice Pizza’s i love them”! So i can see its regular or previous customers that are going on to hes facebook. I sent out a newsletter to 200 clients for a promotion and if they join my facebook they win a $100 gift voucher, only 4 joined.

[Michael_R]

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Who would use Facebook to find a product or service?

2 Years ago – No One
Now – Growing every day

It is not a search or business directory?

Yes it is – try searching ‘automotive’ stacks of places come up!!

Facebook is a good element to a online presence – you should also have it running with other online presence.

So hooking Facebook up with a Blog(website) that is targeted correctly and you look at the ‘key words’ you want to target you should see a much better result.

You will also find that search engines are going to be able to find your good content much easier if it is based on a blog (website).

Also start an email mailing list with your current customers – if you keep in the front of their mind with good content on a regular basis they will be more likely to refer you in the future. Yes you tried the newsletter – was it snail mail? If it was then you will find that the link might not have been seen in their eyes.

I look at the facebook page for the local pizza shop down the road and he has over 250 fans and growing everyday. Only because people are going on their and saying “Nice Pizza’s i love them”! So i can see its regular or previous customers that are going on to hes facebook.

He might of been advertising for 3 years his Facebook page!! It will take some time.

[defyet]

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Ok so i searched automotive, and of course pages will come up because its a broad search term, no one looking for my service is going to search for “automotive”. Try searching for “Mechanic Sydney”. Nothing comes up but BING results for Lubemobile.

Problem is you have to have the keyword in your Page Name to show up on the results, so if you have your business name instead of keywords then your not going to show up for anything other then your business name making the search pointless and no one is going to use it unless there searching for your specific business name.

So this being the case i cant imagine too many people using facebook to find a local mechanic, or the local hairdresser. Its just too easy to jump onto google and look and find a thousand listings, sure you wont see reviews etc.. but you wouldnt on there facebook page anyway because if there was any bad comments im sure they would be removed, haha..

The newsletter sent out was by email, the competition and facebook address was in there face.

PS. The pizza shop has only been open for 12 months and their facebook page is 3 months old with no reference to it on any advertising material, what works for some businesses wont work for others especially since my customers are mostly once off jobs not regular.

[Gthing]

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For me i find Facebook not as useful as twitter and Linkedin
Twitter is great as your post is able to be searched by anybody in the world. For example i specialise in internet marketing and i link my twitter post to my blog and i get about 30-70 hits within a matter of seconds. About a minute later there your post is useless as there as now been another 100000 posted about internet marketing in that time.
Linkedin is great for its group section which i like a bunch of mini forums. While i don’t recommend spamming the groups but still it is easy to generate traffic to your site/business. The more people that know your business the better.

[Author]

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