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7/10/2012

Why Twitter Is the Best Social Network for Business

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Twitter Rocks, and Rolls over the Competition


There’s no such thing as a perfect social network, but as things stand today, Twitter is as close as it gets. Here’s why I love Twitter:

10 Big Benefits of Twitter

  1. Twitter doesn’t change it’s site design and functionality every other day.
  2. Even if Twitter did change it up every other day, it wouldn’t matter, because there are several excellent Twitter dashboards available that allow you to bypass the platform altogether.
  3. Privacy concerns and abuses are a relatively minor issue.
  4. For content sharing, there’s no better or faster way to get authoritative recommendations.
  5. Organized Twitter chats are an excellent, easy to use forum for information sharing.
  6. Connecting with new users is easy.
  7. Identifying relevant users is easy.
  8. Twitter has a solid, broad based community of users.
  9. Twitter is simple.
  10. Twitter is unique.

Simple + Unique = Staying Power

Let’s talk more about simple and unique. In terms of social media marketing, these are huge considerations.

Simple. Compared to Facebook and Google+, connecting and interacting is fast and easy on Twitter, probably because the connections aren’t as “deep.” If a business disappears from Twitter for a period of days, weeks or even months, jumping back in is fairly easy. In contrast, maintaining one’s standing on Facebook and Google+ takes a strong and consistent presence. In short, Twitter’s time commitment is relatively small, and can be ratcheted up or down at a moment’s notice. From a budgetary and staffing perspective, this makes Twitter an attractive business platform.

Unique. The other big social platforms — Facebook and Google+ — have a lot of similarities in terms of purpose and design. With so much overlap, it’s hard to imagine both networks being able to share the universe of business users, long-term. Most firms will settle into one platform or the other, depending on where they see themselves getting the biggest bang for their buck. But because Twitter has a unique style of engagement, it won’t get caught up in the Facebook vs. Google competition. Twitter’s user base has a better chance of staying intact, giving it a better chance for long-term survival.

… And Then, There’s LinkedIn

In my view, LinkedIn is primarily a recruiting platform, and secondarily a tool for making high-level business connections. While these are both worthy purposes, I don’t think there’s any chance of LinkedIn competing with the big three social networks for multi-purpose social marketing users; at best, LinkedIn might become a popular hangout for B2Bs, but only if Facebook and Google+ turn out to be worthless for them.

Can B2Bs make use of Twitter? Definitely. As a vehicle for knowledge sharing, Twitter has strong appeal for B2Bs because of its simplicity, which was covered earlier. In addition, though hashtags and keyword filters, finding relevant conversations on Twitter is extremely easy, which is imperative for B2Bs, since everybody in the world isn’t talking about their products and industries.

Over to You

What’s your favorite social network for business … and why?

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One Response to Why Twitter Is the Best Social Network for Business

  1. Anton Koekemoer

    Yes – I do agree. The amount of traffic that can be generated from twitter is great if you market / tweet your content effectively.

    Glad that you’ve mentioned LinkedIn – This network I believe works the best when used in connection with linked in. With the ability to post directly to twitter this offers great value for increasing the exposure in a professional network.

    Reply

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