Are you thinking of adding Social Media to your marketing mix but worry that it will take up too much time? You aren’t alone. Local business owners used to object that Social Media wasn’t relevant or that it wouldn’t work. Today, many more business owners are interested in Social Media but they are concerned about the time commitment required. Some business owners have talked about investing in just one social media channel. For them, the question is, which one?

The consensus choice seems to be Facebook, and it’s easy to see why. This post will discuss some of Facebook’s advantages for business. Next week we will talk about how businesses that use Facebook can add Twitter to the mix without a major incremental time commitment.

Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner provides three big reasons for committing to Facebook: Facebook is communal in ways other Social Media are not; Facebook pulls people to its site often – Stelzner says it’s getting to be as frequent as checking email; and Facebook has tools that reveal “social proof”. Each of this points deserves some explanation.

• Group discussions. Stelzner says that Twitter doesn’t lend itself to group discussions – it’s mostly a one-to-many medium. He’s right that Facebook has more sophisticated tools for leveraging groups, but Twitter users have figured out how to manage group discussions. These discussions happen in real time, so they can be very fast, lively and loose. I have participated in a weekly discussion relating to bargains and discounts called “#dealchat” that has been a useful branding opportunity for Zavee and a lot of fun for me. Facebook is communal in a different way: communities are stickier, while they tend to be more ad hoc on Twitter.
• Frequency. Facebook keeps coming up with new features that keep users coming back. And with both instant message (chat) and direct message (mail) features, users don’t even need email to connect with other Facebook users. However, some Twitter users post very frequently, and if your followers include these very active users Facebook’s frequency advantage isn’t quite as overwhelming.
• Social proof. Social proof is a term coined by the psychologist Robert Cialdini to describe the tendency of people to conform their behavior to the behavior of others. Facebook’s concept of “liking” leverages this principle to enable businesses to influence current and prospective customers. If you “like” Zavee (and I hope you do) your Facebook friends will see that and will tend to follow your lead. When we decided to push for more fans on Facebook this principle helped us grow from fewer than 100 fans to more than 600 in about a month. On Twitter social proof is structured very differently. Influence is determined in part by the number of followers a user has and by the number of tweets. Facebook is more egalitarian.

There is no question that Facebook requires time, both initially and ongoing. Consultants can help you establish your Facebook presence and can guide you in maintaining and growing it – this is a good one based in Delray Beach – but Social Media is never “fire and forget”.  If you want to use Facebook as a sales channel it’s vital to grow your fan base. This means updating frequently with new content and responding to fan posts promptly. There are also some more technical aspects of Facebook that are worth learning about – reading the All Facebook blog is a good way to do that. Poke around Facebook to see what other companies are doing. But the first step, of course, is to make the commitment.

The Zavee takeaway:

• You don’t really have to choose – see next week’s post – but if you want to choose choose Facebook.
• Some of Facebook’s features, such as “liking”, are ideal for businesses. Twitter is very different but also is great for business.
• Social Media only works if you make the commitment and invest the time and effort.