A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook and Twitter

If you’ve spent any time reading about website building, you’ve probably come across at least a few articles talking about how important it is to maintain an active presence on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

But what if you aren’t ready for the “latest tips and tricks” on how to effectively integrate these tools into your website’s promotional campaign?  What if you’re still simply wondering what these sites are, why you should care and how to get started?

In this article, we’re going to go back to the basics, examining the purpose behind these social networking titans and identifying ways to use them successfully in conjunction with your standard website.  So if you’re ready to finally get up-to-speed on social networking – one of the web’s biggest paradigm shifts – let’s get started!

First of all, let’s make one thing very clear.  Social networking sites are tools that can add an element of interactivity to your traditional website – they aren’t replacements for your website.  Most visitors who interact with you on new media sites will still want to reference information on your regular website, and it’s important to remember that you don’t own any content you build on social networking sites (information shared there becomes the property of the network itself).  For these reasons, it’s important to maintain your website even as you add social networking profiles into the mix.

So, with that caveat out of the way, let’s jump in to our first social networking site – Facebook.  Although Facebook isn’t the first social networking site (that distinction is usually given to the now-defunct Friendster website), it’s one of the longest running social networking sites online today and the one with the largest reach in terms of total users.

Originally founded in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates, The Facebook (as it was once known) was intended to be a portal through which Ivy League students could connect with one another.  The base of the site has always been the individual profiles users are able to set up, which share things like education, marital status, interests and activities.

But beyond the simple ability to share information about yourself, Facebook enables users to connect with each other and share updates in real time.  Once a new user establishes a profile, he or she can “friend” acquaintances (allowing access to the acquaintance’s private information), share current status updates, send private messages to friends and friends and, more recently, chat with friends through the Facebook chat tool.

In fact, for this reason, Facebook is best thought of as an evolved dating site – although the goal of Facebook users isn’t necessarily to find a new flame, but to create ongoing connections with friends and family members.

Of course, since the site’s launch in 2004, significant changes have been made, including the launch of “pages” that can be set up for businesses, websites, public figures and other non-personal institutions.  If you own a web business or website, setting up one of these pages to represent your company is a great way to interact with your customers in real-time (compared with standard websites, which require communication through phone or email).

If you haven’t yet started using Facebook for business, you’ll want to take the following steps to get up-and-running:

1. Set up a profile for yourself (use a pseudonym when setting up the account if you use a different name in your business – Facebook’s TOS only allow for one account per person).  Populate this profile with information about yourself, set your privacy settings, and begin connecting with friends and family members using the “Add as Friend” buttons near their names.
2. Once your profile is established, set up a page for your website by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.  Choose the type of page that’s most applicable to your business (most people will choose “Local Business or Place”, “Company, Organization or Institution” or “Brand or Product”).
3. Add content to your business page and encourage your website visitors to “Like” the page.   The number of “Likes” you have may factor into your site’s ranking in the search engines, making it even more important to get started with Facebook ASAP.

 

For more details on how to set up and optimize your Facebook business pages, check out Facebook’s new “Facebook for Businesses” guide.

Following the launch of Facebook in 2004, the next major social networking site to gain prominence and widespread adoption was Twitter (launched in 2006), although the roots of this new media engine go back to the mid-1990s.  To understand what Twitter is and how it’s used, we first need to understand what it grew out of – blogs and blogging.

The word “blog” is a combination of the words “web log”, and it refers to a type of website that is frequently updated with new content, typically by one author.  Think of blogs as a type of web journal or diary, where the author is able to share timely information in a sequential manner.  Blogs can be written on a particular topic (such as finance, business or lifestyle/personal interest stories), or they can be a general sharing of one person’s thoughts.

Twitter is what’s known as a “micro-blogging” platform, meaning that its users share the same type of information that they would on their blogs through their Twitter profiles, but with one key restriction – Twitter’s 140-character post limit.  Because of this inherent need for brevity, Twitter updates take on more of a conversational feel, although it may take new users some time to warm up to the rapid-fire sharing of thoughts and information that occurs on the site.

If you fall into this category, don’t worry.  According to Mashable:

“Twitter is just communication in a new shape, but it’s also a platform for listening to the communication of others in new ways.”

From a business perspective, Twitter offers a number of unique advantages not present on traditional, static websites.  For example, business owners can search Twitter feeds for questions related to their business, their products or their industry.  By answering these questions directly, in real time, business owners can demonstrate their knowledge and authority, while generating traffic to their homepages.

Here’s how to get started with Twitter:

1. Sign up for an account at Twitter.com.  Keep in mind that your username will be displayed on all of your Tweets and your conversations with other Twitter users, so you’ll need to decide up front whether it makes more sense to use your personal name, your business name or some combination of the two.  Fill out the rest of your profile, being sure to include a bio and a picture (users tend to engage more with people who have these two items completed).
2. Start Tweeting!  “Follow” people in your industry, and then start sharing helpful information via tweets.  If you aren’t able to spend time on the site regularly, enlist the help of tools like the free Buffer app to schedule Tweets ahead of time.
3. Schedule regular searches of Twitter for keyword related to your business (generally, it’s best to do this at least once a week, or more often if you’re able to).   Whenever you see people asking questions about your industry, reach out and provide helpful information that answers their questions.

Once you have your basic profiles up and feel more comfortable with these two new media sites, you’ll want to take your promotional strategies to the next level.  When you’re ready to move on and take full advantage of these services, be sure to check out Search Engine Watch’s guide, “Social SEO – Facebook & Twitter Best Practices”.

Image: daniel_iversen