When people think of social media their first thoughts are usually Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is an ideal place to market within the UK because nearly 30 million people are on the site. While many of its users are below 25 years old, 28.5% of the UK audience are actually between 35 and 54. Marketers advertise where their customers are and Facebook is definitely home to millions of potential buyers. But why is Twitter now mentioned in the same breath as Facebook? Is Twitter really the other great place to market on the social web?
Twitters Background
Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey as a way to communicate with a group of friends through SMS. While the network first promoted itself as a way to inform friends of your day-to-day life it quickly progressed. The website is now used by 106 million people worldwide with over 10.9% of the UK’s online population on the site. Twitter continues to grow in UK popularity accounting for 1 in every 184 UK internet visits on May 21st 2011. People have changed how they use the network, sharing information and having conversations with each other. According to a recent poll more people heard about Osama Bin Laden’s death through Twitter than through TV or Facebook. That shows that Twitter is a great way to spread information whether you are informing people of news or a product.
What does this mean for Businesses?
As previously mentioned, social media has become a great way for businesses to gain sales and increase website traffic. Currently 51% of active Twitter users follow a company or product through Twitter. Dell reported that they sold $6.5 million worth of products through their Twitter accounts & Pizza chain “Naked Pizza” brought in 15% of its business from a twitter promotion.
Twitter has also become a great place for B2B sales online, with 38% of companies questioned saying that they have gained customers through Twitter. The sites potential for B2B sales has made it more popular than Facebook to many businesses.
What’s next?
Last week Apple announced that it was adding deep Twitter integration into the iPhone, making the website it’s social network of choice. That deal alone should have business owners considering Twitter as a way to market their product or service. The iPhone currently has 9% of the UK Smartphone market and the amount of users with the handset is likely to increase further over the coming months.
If your business is considering marketing through Twitter, Facebook and many of the other social networks visit our Social Media Marketing page for more information. You can also read about the latest digital marketing news and our views on the Social Media Ltd Twitter account.
5 Responses
Thanks for the great article, looking forward to reading more from you.
Agree that social media marketing is one of the powerful methods for increasing a site’s traffic.
Some interesting thoughts, the fact that Apple is teaming up with the company makes the decision to use Twitter a little easier.
I completely agree that Twitter is bigger than Facebook when it comes to promoting B2B. The organisation I work for uses Twitter daily and has a Facebook page, but it isn’t nearly as active as our Twitter one. It’s really great to connect with other businesses and let them know about what you offer and any news you have, to keep a relationship going.
There are a couple of blog articles written from someone within the company I work for on how to make the most out of social media and goes into a lot of depth in Twitter.
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful article. Social media is a great place to market their product or service. It is the place where you can build trust and good relationship with customers. I too agree with you that Twitter is the best social networking site when comes to B2B process.