Now this is as tough question.  Facebook vs. Twitter…which one is best to use as a social media promotional tool for your organization’s website (if you could only choose one)?

Let’s preface the rest of this post quickly now by saying that there are, of course, major differences in using social networking as a way to keep up to date with your family and friends and using social media as an online marketing tool to promote your business or website.  So, depending on how you’ll actually use social media, one option might be significantly better for you in general personal use, and the other might be best to use for more focused marketing.

But this still doesn’t exactly answer our question—if you had to choose either Facebook or Twitter, which would it be?

The Benefits Of Facebook

• Facebook has a huge user base. By far the most popular social media option around the entire world right now, the chances are pretty good that even grandma uses Facebook.

• This popular social networking platform attracts a huge spectrum of users. Again, these days it’s not at all uncommon for everyone from grade-schoolers all the way up to their great grandparents to have a Facebook account.

• Facebook has lots of media options. Beyond text-only blurbs, using Facebook makes it a breeze to share multimedia like photos and videos.

The Benefits Of Twitter

• Twitter’s user base seems to be more professionally-oriented. This is most likely due to the age group of its users—which happens to be mostly the post-college crowd.

• There are fewer privacy concerns. The Twitter crowd seems to clearly grasp that their “tweets” are intended to be public by default.  It’s a more open public platform because of this.

• Twitter seems to be a social environment that’s open to the little guy. In other words, when implemented with some creativity and ingenuity, even a micro-business owner can attract the same global attention from their tweets as major world-wide corporations can.

There Are A Few Drawbacks To Each Service As Well

With Facebook, there are ever-increasing privacy concerns that have been causing a little bit of a backlash among once-loyal users.  Also, some people find it kind of amateurish when businesses and organizations use Facebook (this is an unfair stereotype that probably derives from the fact that Facebook began as a way to stay in touch with friends).  And at the same time, people who use Facebook strictly as a tool to keep up with family and friends sometimes resent and turn away from any other derived use of the service—including marketing & promotional uses.

The drawbacks to Twitter are kind of similar in some ways, but totally different in others.  First things first, it’s important to realize that Twitter’s base of users isn’t anywhere near that of Facebook.  And those who do use Twitter regularly tend to be a little bit more technically or professionally inclined (which can also be a positive if this is your demographic target).  The other important thing to know about Twitter that could potentially cause issues is the fact that no one is exactly certain as to what direction the social networking service is going to grow—it could be drastically different in just a year or two from now.

So, if you’re going to focus your time and energy on just one social platform, which one will you choose and why?

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is drawing to a close already.  Time flys, and so do plans to grow and improve websites and online marketing plans.  The good news is that with the fresh start of a new year, you can start anew with making improvements to your websites at the same time and not have to feel overwhelmed.  Keeping this in mind, here are just a few small—but effective—ways to improve your website in 2010.

Upgrade to more professional web hosting. Few realize it before making the upgrade, but the bargain-rate shared hosting services that many sites utilize can really adversely effect site performance and search engine performance.  Moving your site to a better web hosting package can be just the performance boost you’ve been seeking—and the price could possibly even be less than you’re paying now.

Continue to expand your social networking efforts. If 2009 was the year of Facebook and Twitter really going mainstream, then just imagine what 2010 will bring for social networking!  The benefits of using social networking to drive traffic to your website are undeniable.  If you’ve already begun, then by all means—keep it up!  And if not, don’t worry…it’s not too late to get started now.  Just try not to put it off until the next new year rolls around.

Integrate CMS into your website. Have a great website already, but beginning to get tired of having to pay the pros every time there’s a small content update to make to the site?  If this sounds all-too-familiar, adding a CMS (content management system) will be the improvement of the year for you.  It’s simply a system that enables you to log in and make content edits and additions with a few simple clicks.  Cost savings and time savings from CMS really add up quickly!

Improve your existing website copy. Speaking of adding and editing your website’s copy, have you given this much thought since first developing your website?  It’s important to keep your website’s written content fresh, accurate, and up-to-date.  After all, visitors and search engines alike practically demand it.

Beef up your site’s security. With a seemingly ever-growing onslaught of security exploits to worry about, web users these days are becoming more and more conscious and wary about what sites they visit and how they transmit information on the web.  Regardless of if your website is e-Commerce enabled or not, you still need to do frequent security audits on your site to make sure your visitors are receiving a safe experience.  Making sure your security certificates are all up to date is just one such example in this department.

Develop an organic SEO development plan. Ready to start improving your website’s organic SEO so you don’t have to spend so much on PPC and other costly paid online marketing promotions in 2010?  Well, the good news here is that it’s simpler than ever to improve your site with quality organic search optimization.  Here are a few SEO pointers to help you get started.  And by laying out a solid plan at the beginning of the year, and working diligently to implement it accordingly, you might even be surprised at how simple, affordable, and downright effective it can be!

Let 2010 be the year that you take your website and your business to the next level (and know that we’re here to help you when you need it).  Wishing you all of the best in the New Year!

These days, finding new sources and methods of driving targeted traffic to your website is more important than ever—and especially when that traffic is free!  While traffic development has always been a challenging task, the good news is that the huge growth spurt of social media is making things a bit easier on us all.

Here are 5 undeniable benefits of using social networking to drive more traffic to your website:

One:  Social Networking Is Free

Implementing a do-it-yourself social media campaign to promote your website is not only effective…it’s free!  That’s right, no subscription costs, development fees, or other monetary expenses have to enter into the picture.  Besides the investment of time, social networking is probably the lowest barrier of entry web technology that’s gone mainstream so far since the inception of the internet.

Two:  Traffic From Social Networks Is Notoriously Web Savvy

Because the fans of social networking are keenly aware of the web and how it’s effectively used, the visitors driven to your site from your social networking promotions will naturally be a web savvy crowd.  Depending on your website’s theme, it can certainly help to have more visitors that are wise to the ways of the web.  And even if your theme is very novice-friendly, driving more visitors site-ward certainly can’t hurt things any.

Three:  Networking Has A Multi-Fold Effect

Not just promoting your website in search engines, but also yourself through social networking.  Basically, you achieve double the results for your time and effort invested.  Plus, the visibility earned through proficient social networking will hold its own and have a certain degree of permanence in the future.

Four:  Results Can Literally Begin To Happen Overnight

In the world of web development and web optimization, it’s almost impossible to find a traffic-building strategy that is able to produce results immediately.  In fact, the traditional motto goes something like “patience is a virtue” or “patience pays in dividends.”  Good news:  With effective social networking, you can indeed send visitors to your site as soon as you begin to promote it across the networks.

Five:  Social Networking Is Gaining On The Search Engines

While Googling a search term is still by far the dominate way to conduct a web search, more and more folks are finding that they can better sift through all of the clutter out there if they search through Twitter or other networks.  Or better yet, they can often post a query and receive numerous personalized responses in just minutes—something that’s just not possible yet with traditional search.  Social networking is starting to change how we see web search.

So as you can easily see, the immediate benefits of using social networking to drive more traffic to your website are quite evident.  And as the trend continues to develop, being ahead of this curve will only become more and more essential to the successful website’s overall traffic strategy.  As the old saying goes, take advantage now and get in on the ground floor!