It likely comes as no surprise to you that I’m shocked Twitter is still around. While I love it and spend a good amount of time on it, I have no idea how they’re surviving.

Yes, they were just valued at $9 billion. Yes, they have tons of funding. But a company that hasn’t made a cent in their entire six years? I don’t get it.

Did we not learn our lesson in the dot com bubble? Eyeballs don’t always equate profits.

But now there is speculation Apple could buy the social networking giant with some of their cash reserves (it’s also said they have so much money, they could buy Facebook and Research In Motion). 

But Apple is a computer company. One that has had laser focus since Steve Jobs retook the helm in the 90s. One that knows what they do and doesn’t try to be all things to all people.

So why would they try to be a social network, too?

This all started with Barry Ritholtz who said:

Apple does software and hardware really well; they do the integration between the two outstandingly. But they haven’t really done Social particularly well . . . Twitter automagically makes Apple a defactoplayer in social. Apple’s biggest competitors over the next decade are not HP or Dell or even Microsoft — they are more likely to be Google and Facebook.

I don’t agree. That’s like McDonald’s saying they need to open white tablecloth restaurants. Or Starbucks wanting to get into beer and wine (oh wait).

We’ve seen it time and time again. A company gets big and greedy so they start to go after similar industries, and lose focus on what they do really well. Then they begin to lose profits and, in some cases, cease to exist.

Apple does do hardware and software really well. Let them keep doing that. Let them keep changing our lives by bringing us iPods and iPhones and iPads and iTVs and whatever iOtherThings we haven’t even imagined yet.

Let them create a strategic alliance with Twitter, if it’s so important they go social, and also do the same with Facebook and Pinterest and, heck, even MySpace, if they want to. That way they don’t pigeon hole themselves into one social network, they can focus on what they do best, and they become a social company.

Or…they can invest in Spin Sucks Pro. You know. Just because.

As you are likely aware by now, Twitter rolled out a major redesign and announced brand pages simultaneously.

While the brand pages announcement is by far the most exciting part of this, we’ll have to wait to see their full implementation since they’re available only to mega-brands at the moment.

You may remember Twitter purchased TweetDeck earlier this year, and at the time there was much hand-wringing over what Twitter would do with its new toy. Theories ran the gamut from a complete shutdown to a shelving of the popular third-party service.

Then, the redesign happened and we have an answer to the question of what Twitter will do with TweetDeck.

The answer?

Harness that team’s ingenuity into making the Twitter site and mobile apps a real choice for power users. The designs are strikingly similar; from the “compose” button all the way down to the fonts, the TweetDeck team’s fingerprints are all over this.

For the longest time, many people (I among them) argued the worst part about Twitter was its own webpage and its mobile apps. When Twitter purchased TweetDeck in May for the low, low price of just $40 million, functionality was a big reason I thought they were making the move. After all, Twitter’s functionality was a reason many used services like TweetDeck; and many still do.

The gap is getting smaller though, and I’ll predict that within the next year, TweetDeck will simply be known as either Twitter web or desktop app. It’s all the same company now, so TweetDeck shouldn’t care about what it’s being called and Twitter SHOULD want to have its name all over power-users’ preferred app.

A few other things I’ve noticed:

1. Your Real Name Matters. Rather than your username, Twitter displays the name you’ve given them as the prominent identifying text. That’s bad news for spammers, because they just got even MORE obvious. It’s fantastic news for those whose name is their brand. Freelancers really benefit here.
2. Twitter Is Going After 3rd Party Apps. Seesmic, HootSuite, and other popular third-party apps have been put on notice by this redesign. What Twitter did isn’t all that different than what the Angels did in signing Albert Pujols. Twitter picked up the big free agent name to help them win, and that free agent just smacked a huge home run.
3. Twitter Is Morphing Into A News Aggregation Site. I’d love to say I thought of this, but the good folks at Poynter thought it first. I’ll paraphrase here, but I encourage you to click through and read that article. The new “discover” section is huge. It’s a personalized newswire and what you tweet is much more important now because each tweet is embedable. Tweet with care and compose those in a way that encourage people to use them on their blogs and elsewhere.

What about you? What do you think of the redesign? Love it? Like it? Hate it? Think I’m off  my rocker? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Matt LaCasse believes that finding the methods and channels customers and audiences use, and engaging with them in their comfort zone, is the key to effectively communicating with those groups on behalf of clients. He does social media management for KimberMedia and teaches at @bgckids. He is a husband and Iowa Hawkeyes and Chicago Cubs fan. He may, or may not, use humor as a defensive mechanism. He also blogs.

*This is a modified version of a post that originally ran on Matt’s blog. 

Today’s guest post is written by Brian Meeks.

Twitter introduces brand pages.

Some people say it will be a game changer. Those people are idiots. It won’t be a game changer, because NOBODY uses Twitter for tweeting…or at least they shouldn’t be.

So now I am filled with my trademarked “Howler Monkey Angst.”

It isn’t that they are making an effort to improve the Twitter site for its users that pisses me off; it’s that there are ANY users.

As I type this rant, I’m well aware of the unreasonableness of my dismay. Twitter provides a service I love. I would describe myself as a power Twitter user and have developed a lot of great friendships, but it has been almost two years since I’ve used Twitter for tweeting (giggles a little, knowing that the masses still wouldn’t understand what the hell I’m talking about…silly luddites…I digress).

I have three monitors, one of which is covered wall-to-wall with TweetDeck.

TweetDeck has six columns, with my main stream, mentions, my favorite list, direct messages, a search column (currently on #Buckeyes), and favorites. So why I am so upset that Twitter wants to get people to use their product?

It is because people who use Twitter for tweeting are making themselves partially unavailable.

Let me explain.

A tweet scrolls across my “All Friends Column:”

“My lap is full of napping cat. I’m hungry, but if I disturb Mr. Fluffy Pants, he won’t forget the transgression.”

I am powerless against only two things…tweets with bacon in them and kitty cuteness. Naturally, I’d want to replay with something along the lines of…

Order pizza for delivery, explain your dire situation, and have them bring it to your chair. #catnapfever

But then I look at the bottom of their tweet and my enthusiasm for replying plummets. I see the date, time, and then “via Web,” which is code for, “The bleeding idiot is STILL using Twitter on a browser, probably the horrific IE 9, and will be oblivious to your reply. Don’t even bother. They obviously have no self-respect, probably have criminal records, and think the “Oxford comma” is a pretentious bit of punctuation. In short, they are heathens. I blame their parents.”

So I move on.

Twitter is fantastic, but if one uses Twitter for tweeting, they are unable to watch more than one column at a time. Unless, of course, they are clicking back and forth on the tabs repeatedly, they won’t be able to carry on a conversation and catch the links to articles listing Top 10 Reasons Why Cheese Should Have its Own Food Pyramid. In short, they are missing out on half the Twitter fun and giving people the impression they don’t want to chat.

There are only three reasons to ever open a browser and use Twitter:

1. You are on some strange computer in a library, computer cafe, or at your friends house (The one who mocks your use of social media and prefers to do things “outdoors” with people).
2. You are popping in to see what changes they’ve made and you have no intent of staying more than 37 seconds.
3. You’ve recently suffered a massive head wound and don’t know any better.

I’m not a religious person, but I believe Leviticus 5:9 says, “Thou shalt not use Twitter to tweet, lest they spend all of eternity in hell, listening to Justin Bieber tracks, with a gaggle of pre-teen girls.” I think it comes right after the passage about, “Thou shall pick one avatar and stick to it, or your followers won’t know who you are and will think you’ve died in a horrible llama herding accident.”

My point is this, if you are reading this post, you are likely serious about social media. If you want to be taken seriously, start using serious tools, such as TweetDeck or Hootsuite. Seriously!

(Next time on “Howler Monkey Rant”…Why everyone should have three monitors.)

P.S. If you have a client who wants a Twitter brand page, then by all means, make one. Tell them it is essential, and charge them double. I’ll even visit it and give it a T+ or whatever it will be. Just don’t announce the stupid thing using your browser!

Brian Meeks has delusions of novelist, which he feeds by authoring Henry Wood Detective Agency. (Available on his blahg). When the economy went south, he turned to social media and does this to feed and clothe himself.  In his free time, he does… well… social media… and publishes the Extremely Average. He can be reached on Twitter or by carrier pigeon at the house with the big tree out front.\

Today’s guest post is written by Keredy Andrews.

The evolution of technology has moved the PR pitch away from hard copy press releases to the phone and email, but now reporters are busier than ever. Emails too easily get lost in the melee and when you catch them on the phone, they often don’t have time to listen to a pitch and ask you to send an email.

So how do you get their attention?

Over the past year or so I have been using Twitter to contact journalists. It’s not only an extremely useful platform to get their interest, but it also helps you to get to know their work, to create a rapport, and to spot media requests; all of which are integral to being a good public relations professional.

The worlds of the media and PR agencies are both fast paced so the immediacy of Twitter enables both parties to take advantage of reacting to trends and breaking news – stories can be imagined, written and published within an hour if it’s a hot topic.

One of the first rules of pitching a story is to ensure that it is actually relevant to the publication and the journalist or you will end up wasting your time and theirs. Research previous articles and their areas of interest and tell the reporter exactly why you think they will be interested in the story. It immediately demonstrates you mean business.

Following journalists on Twitter can give you additional insights even if they only tweet in a personal capacity because it gives you the opportunity to interact and build a relationship. Plus, as with any influencer on Twitter, retweeting can be a great way to let the person know you’re interested in their field and what they have to say.

To keep an eye on particular journalists through Twitter, I recommend putting them in lists so you can quickly view an edited stream and can easily see if the journalists relevant to your business are looking for a comment or are researching an article.

In my experience, if you can react quickly to a request, the coverage results can be excellent, and this, when compared to the effort of creating and pitching a press release, can be a much better use of precious time.

In the UK, #journorequest is a popular hashtag used by reporters to find interviewees, commenters, competition prizes, photo shoot locations, PR pros for particular companies, stats, and more.

Finally, here are three ways in which Twitter has helped me in media relations.

• Pitch. “Are you interested in?” and “When’s the best time to call you today?” Find out if they are attracted to your angle and arrange a call when they are happy to give you their full attention.
• Alert. “I’ve just sent you…” and “Did you see?” Use Twitter alongside email to draw attention to the materials you have sent via email.
• Thank. “Thanks for your time.” and “It’s a great article.” You should always thank journalists because it costs nothing to be polite and it goes a long way towards building on-going rapport.

To conclude, just one word of warning: Twitter PR is as public as you can get! Beware of using the platform to spam or to sell in to the masses as each journalist can see exactly who else you’re trying to pitch. This will turn journalists off from using your angle if they suspect the news will be everywhere anyway.

Do you already use Twitter for PR? We’d love to hear your experiences and advice.

Keredy Andrews is a senior account manager at PR, social media and SEO agency, Punch Communications. Punch is based in the UK and delivers integrated services for local and global, B2B and B2C clients.

Forget how many followers someone has, how many likes they have, and even their Klout score.

The first thing to look at when making a snap judgement about someone on Twitter is how many lists they are on.

Twitter introduced lists two years ago and their effective use separates amateurs from the pros.

The thing is, any former real state agent (<ducking> – some of my best friends are realtors) can amass tens of thousands of followers, but in general, a person who’s been listed 100 or more times has achieved significant credibility.

A ratio of one list to 10 followers is gold. Most spammer-type “social media experts” on Twitter don’t bother with lists, which are significantly more work to game than follower counts.

So, what are Twitter lists?

Twitter lets you create up to 20 lists. You can have up to 500 people on each list. You can then view tweets from people on the lists as filtered streams.

We’ll go back to how to analyze credibility using lists in a second.

First, more ways to use Twitter lists:

• Take Twitter relationships to the next level. A follow is like a nod in passing, a listing is a full “hello!”
• Find and categorize locals using LocaFollow and Twellow, add them to geographic lists.
• Recognize business partners and guests on your blogs, podcasts, and other media outlets (I list all guests of my Gov 2.0 Radio podcast).
• Publicly share affinities.
• Use topical lists to help quickly find related Twitter accounts and to help friends get started (I have lists such as “Progressives without borders,” “Global Gov 2.0” and “Good Twitter contacts” for these).
• Add informational tags to people (I have three lists full of folks I first connected with on Empire Avenue, and a couple “Handshakes” lists for folks I’ve met offline).

Back to credibility.

There are all kinds of tricks for juicing your follower counts and ratio of following to followers. These are used by everyone from spammers to big marketing names.

Getting on a lot of lists means people have taken the time to give you some public recognition. And while there are a few services that add people to random lists (to my great consternation), in general, listings are deeply meaningful.

Scrolling through the lists someone is on gives you rich semantic cues as to what others think about them and what they do.

I’m on a bunch of Gov 2.0, political, media and tech lists. Someone else might have a bunch of peers who’ve listed them as marketers, or salespeople, or PR pros. One of my lists acknowledges people I think are social media pros.

Lists also help you to find new people to follow from whom you can glean information. If you were a gov IT vendor, how much would you pay for a list of a bunch of gov CTOs, and access to their daily thoughts? You don’t need to – I have a public list of gov CIOs and CTOs.

If you’ve not been using lists, don’t despair. Heck, you can poach from mine. And sites such as Formulists help you to find great lists on any topic you can imagine.

If you already have thousands of people in your network, don’t spend days going through them – just come up with a simple strategy for using lists in your interactions. Set up a few, and begin adding people and new lists as you interact with folks and evaluate new followers.

Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Adriel Hamptonis chief organizer at NationBuilder, a software platform for organizing. He is also founder and producer of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast and a prolific tweeter.

Today’s guest post is written by Shonali Burke. 

When Gini and Lisa asked me to write about Twitter chats for Spin Sucks (ok, “tweetchats,” if you must, I’m going to stick with the former, I’m old-school, whatevs), I scratched my mane.

I’ve written so much about TCs in the past, I was worried about what I could share with you that wouldn’t be same old, same old.

But then, a friend who currently runs a popular Twitter chat DM’d me to tell me he might be shutting it down. The reason? Life has taken over, and he’s finding it tough to keep it going with the same level of verve and vigor as he did in the past.

My response? “Don’t do that. Ask <person who is well known for focusing on the discipline> if they can do it. It’s a good chat. It teaches people.” (Or words to that effect.)

Twitter chats have come a long way since Sarah Evans dreamed up #journchat. You can’t throw a stone in the Twittersphere without hitting a chat, or a hashtag, or several of them at one time.

But there’s a reason for this. Actually, there are several.

Twitter chats bring people together. They educate (a core function of public relations). They curate conversations around a particular topic on a regular basis. They build community.

Let me repeat that last one. They build community.

As a brand, this is one of the most important things for you to do. And if you use social media well, it is a great way for you to build community.

When you embark on Twitter chats, you slowly start seeding your interests, and thought leadership, in the Twitterverse. People begin to see that you care about a particular topic. People begin to talk to you about that particular topic. And after a while, people start to consider you the go-to handle (personal or professional) on that particular topic.

This doesn’t happen overnight. But when you take so much time to build your reputation in this area, are you really going to throw it away overnight?

So before you embark on creating your own Twitter chat, please consider:

Is this something you will be able to sustain over the long term?

When I started #measurePR, I knew instinctively that a weekly chat wouldn’t work for me. So I made it bi-weekly and, a couple of years down, we’re still going strong.

Have you already pre-seeded your community?

When I talk about pre-seeding (not “preceding,”) your community, I don’t mean simply using a hashtag you’ve decided on. Have you consistently been talking about the topic(s) in which you are trying to position yourself as a thought leader… and not just online, but offline?

Much is made of building thought leadership online, but from what I’ve seen, your offline work and activities have to back that up for people to really start to respect and rely on you. So are you doing that? Are you doing good work in your area that sows the seeds for what is to come?

Do you have a backup plan?

Life happens. I get it. We change clients, jobs, careers, as we must. And I will never knock anyone for doing that.

But pause awhile and give some thought to your community. You have taken so much time to build it, to communicate with them, to create a platform for sharing and learning. How is that going to reflect on your brand if you’re here today, gone tomorrow?

Just as you have a continuity plan in place for your business, what is your continuity plan for your chat? If you don’t have one, please make one. Today.

They’re just Twitter chats. But they’re not just Twitter chats. They are the door you can open – or close – between you and your community.

Whether you keep it open, or closed, is up to you.

Shonali Burke is the founder of the popular #measurePR Twitter chat and one of 25 women that rock social media. Her business turns your corporate codswallop into community cool. She also blogs, teaches, and cooks.

Today’s guest post is written by Andy Crestodina. 

Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others to reflect correct behavior for a given situation…The effects of social influence can be seen in the tendency of large groups to conform to choices which may be either correct or mistaken; a phenomenon sometimes referred to as herd behavior (source: Wikipedia).

We’re all affected by the actions of people around us, especially when we have little information to go on.

This is called “social proof” and Twitter is a great example of this kind of psychology at work.

When you see an account with a large following, it looks like a big third-party endorsement. There is not much other information but a tiny image and the 140-character tweets. So we quickly assume the person must be influential.

But are they? Not always…

Auto Follow, Follow Back, Auto Follow, Auto Unfollow…yawn

TweetAdder is a tool that can grow a following quickly. It finds people who meet certain criteria, then follows them by the hundreds or even thousands per day. Typically around 40 percent of these accounts follow back and thus, the following grows quickly.

Some people run these auto-follow tools at such high levels, following so many people so quickly, they actually exceed the maximum number of allowed calls to Twitter per hour, “maxing out the API.” And if hundreds of those accounts don’t follow back?  No worries. TweetAdder will automatically unfollow those in a few days or weeks. This keeps the following/follower ratio looking good and the “social proof” high.

This technique is often used to push followings to ridiculous heights, even to tens of thousands of “followers.” At this point, the numbers lose their meaning and social proof breaks down.

Loved! …by robots

These accounts are easy to spot. They have huge followings, close follower/following ratios, and either tens of thousands of tweets or sometimes very few. The followers are often phony or irrelevant accounts, some in foreign languages, some without bios or profile pictures. Just pick one of these social media “superstars” and scroll through their list of followers.  Do you see accounts like this?

Or this guy?

Or someone like this?

How could your neighborhood social media expert possibly have a connection with this Japanese student? They don’t. It’s just a robot talking to another robot. Nothing could be less interesting or less social.  It’s almost anti-social media. I get bored and sleepy just thinking about it.

If you’ve been on Twitter for long, you may have asked yourself: Why is this British accountant following me? Who is this German DJ and how did they find me?  They didn’t. It’s likely an automated tool like TweetAdder. Congratulations. A robot is now following you and can’t wait for your next tweet!

Social Proof or Social Spoof?

Before you develop an opinion, look at the followers. Lots of completely irrelevant crap? See if they are really talking to people.  No real conversation? Then don’t be too impressed. Social proof and large followings often really don’t mean as much as you’d think. Other indicators of influence are also easy to fake, such as a high Klout score or high “listed” numbers on Twitter.

On the other hand, if you’re a social media professional, it’s your job to help build up your clients’ networks. I believe that TweetAdder is a perfectly legitimate way to jump start things at the beginning and get the client up to a basic level of credibility quickly. Yes, this approach is artificial, but it’s a legitimate time saver. There is a fine line between automation and spamming.

What matters is real connections to real people who are really interested.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

This was the phrase from the end of the classic 1951 movie The Day The Earth Stood Still. I think it translates to “Klaatu calls of the robots” because when Gort, the killer robot, heard the phrase, he stopped destroying the planet. It would be nice to hear “Twitter barada nikto” but sadly, there is no sign of these auto-following twitterbots slowing down.

Andy Crestodina is the co-founder and CEO of Orbit Media Studios, a Chicago web design company.

Today’s guest post is written by Anne Weiskopf.

Apologizing is hard to do. As Elton John so memorably summed up; “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.”

But sorry can be the smartest word for your brand if it’s sincere, delivered in a timely fashion, and if concrete steps are outlined to right the wrong.

What makes one apology more successful than another is the subject of a growing body of research. A key finding is that it’s much easier to forgive a perceived mistake then an intentional act.

Let’s look at a few examples.

On July 12^th Netflix sent an email to their subscribers telling them, that in September, they would be splitting DVD and streaming into two separate businesses and costs would double for their current service levels.

There was no further communication to customers until September 18^th when CEO Reed Hastings issued an apology framed as an “explanation and some reflections.”

The apology not only fell flat, it actually enraged many in the Netflix community who viewed it as an attempt by the company to justify their upcoming changes. Reed’s apology was too late as Netflix had already lost one million customers and suffered a 50 percent drop in their valuation since July.

Last week, Netflix quietly retreated, announcing via email there would not be any changes to their current business model.

An effective apology, especially during a crisis, is one of the hardest but most important roles a CEO plays; it can determine a company’s ability to survive the incident. In the best case scenario, excellent crisis management can actually prove to be a positive for business. There is no better case study then the 1982 Johnson & Johnson Tylenol recall.

Last Thursday Mike Lazaridis, President of RIM took to YouTube to apologize for the company’s worldwide outage. The apology was four days into this major crisis and Lazaridis appeared wooden, and as if he were reading from a script. While Lazaridis did lay out the specific steps that RIM was putting in place to fix the problem, he missed an opportunity to tell customers they would not be charged for service during the period of Blackberry’s outage.

Given that lines were already forming at Apple for the iPhone 4S release the very next day, and with Apple’s iOS5 getting rave reviews, this should have been a no brainer. With RIM’s stock down 60 percent for the year, the stakes for Lazaridis were too high to have missed the mark.

Know when you owe someone an apology and give it.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock (or a meatball), you’re probably familiar with the kerfuffle surrounding Ragu Dads. Ragu recently launched a social media campaign targeting influential dads via Twitter. Among them was C.C Chapman, well-known blogger and author. Chapman was offended by the campaign and a lot of back and forth ensued. Whether C.C. was being a brand bully is up for debate; the fact that Ragu should have extended a direct and sincere apology isn’t.

Ragu eventually commented  on a blog post more favorable to their point of view, gave a non-specific apology, and then plugged their new campaign – “and if this week has confirmed anything, it’s that moms and dads (and grandmoms and grandads, too) want to have a word on dinner — and all are welcome to join in the conversation.”

Yes, apologizing is hard but a good apology is smart. It is also good for business. So how do you do it well?

Six keys to a great apology.

1. Address the issue quickly.
• “Silence is not an option in social media” – C.C. Chapman
2. Even if it is not directly your fault, apologize for it anyway.
• “No, you no longer control your brand and yes, you’re still 100% responsible for its success”  - Duane Primozich
3. Intent matters; people are more likely to forgive an honest mistake.
• Apologize, don’t justify.
4. Identify the steps that are being (or will be) taken to fix the problem.
5. Pick the right medium for you to be most effective. A well written apology trumps a badly delivered video message.
6. Continuously monitor all social and non-social channels so you can continue to address the issue further if needed.

What do you think? Would you add anything to this list?

Thanks to   _Noura for the image, Creative Commons.

Anne Weiskopf provides sales and business development services to agencies and companies who are in the social media and technology space. She blogs at Rip Off the Roof.

Are you joining our webinar this week?
Social Media and Media Relations Measurement
with Johna Burke of BurrellesLuce moderated by Gini Dietrich.
Thursday October 27 at 11:00 a.m. CT.
This webinar is $50 and you can register here.

Today’s guest is post is written by

Amidst all the froth about the new Facebook features and the general release of Google+, it’s easy for social media professionals not to spend much time considering the importance of simple tools.

We can get so focused on mastering the “next big thing” that we overlook applications that might seem basic to some.

But to others have the potential to fundamentally affect whether and how they can productively engage in social media.

For solo and small business owners who have the desire to participate in social media but believe they do not have the time to do so effectively, something as modest as an easier way to compose and schedule tweets can be transformational.

It’s in that sense the Buffer app is a “small wonder.”

While it’s generally thought of as just a tweet scheduling tool, my experience has been that it unlocks the promise of social media for businesses that have been sitting on the sidelines.

Unlike dashboard applications such as HootSuite and TweetDeck, which only allow tweets to be scheduled from within the client, Buffer enables users to compose tweets through a Chrome browser extension, then immediately post or add them to a queue without leaving the web page you’re reading.

Tweets placed in the Buffer queue are sent individually and sequentially based on the recurring schedule you’ve set for that day (as opposed to the Twitter clients mentioned above, which require scheduling to be done as each post is composed).

Schedule as many per day as you like (within reason and follower tolerance, of course).

You can essentially ignore Buffer at that point, but if you choose to, you can edit, reorder, delete, or immediately post your pending tweets from the dashboard.

OK, Buffer might be a one-trick pony right now — but what a trick!

I’m a voracious web surfer and RSS feed reader, and share a lot of content that I find interesting and actionable. But because I tend to do my surfing in the morning and late at night, before Buffer I had to manually copy/paste links and individually schedule a lot of my tweets to space them out.

As a result, I shared less content than I would have liked because scheduling was too cumbersome and time-consuming. Now I can tweet without breaking stride, and without inundating my followers with great clumps of tweets — “set it and forget it,” to borrow a Ron Popeil phrase.

That alone is well worth $10 a month.

So How Is that Transformational?

Buffer has been a very productive tool for me, but for some of my clients it has been almost revelatory.

I work primarily with professional firms and small service businesses, many of whom are wary of – or outright intimidated by – the perceived demands of social media. They understand they’re missing out on marketing and networking opportunities by not participating, but it’s difficult for them to envision an engagement strategy and tactics that would work for them.

For some, Buffer has broken through that reluctance and doubt because it meets them where they are in the adoption curve. It makes sense, it’s easy, it’s immediately useful, and it builds their confidence in – and appetite for — social media engagement.

Jay Pinkert is a principal with Shatterbox, an Austin-based marketing and communications consultancy that helps professional firms and small businesses generate leads and distinguish their brand through content-driven programs. You can find him on LinkedIn.

Twitter or Facebook? Most consumer brands use both now. But what is the difference if you are crafting your strategy related to increasing sales?

Twitter is selling and Facebook is marketing.

Twitter is selling

Selling is finding someone and persuading them to buy your product. On Twitter, I can search, contact, ask questions, overcome objections and close the sale.

I have a mobile gourmet food client in Los Angeles. When she is in a town, I can search for people who say they are there and let these strangers know the most delicious ice cream sandwiches in the world are available nearby. I can send direct messages to our Twitter followers and I can call our brand ambassadors out by name without them having to post or engage us first. I can’t do any of this with a Facebook Fan Page. Twitter is a sales-friendly platform.

Facebook is marketing

Facebook Brand Pages are one of the biggest marketing deceptions in history. You can have millions of fans but you can’t reach most of them. You can’t call people out. You can’t message them. You must wait for them to come to you. It’s much like a big billboard on the freeway; except imagine the billboard goes blank for 45 of 50 cars that drive by. Your challenge is to get them to come by. And you can only talk to them if they come to your page. It’s a lot like sitting in your store and hoping customers will walk in.

But Facebook has a dirty little secret: They want this failure. They never intended Pages to be a success for businesses. Brand Pages must fail! If they didn’t, they would be out of business. They wouldn’t be worth the dumb money being touted.

Why? Because of Facebook Ads!

Ads are their revenue driver. If I could reach all my fans easily why would I buy ads? As long as Brand Pages have less than one percent engagement rates, and as long as there are more than 700 million accounts, brands are going to buy ads. Facebook has no desire to change this. And thus Brand Pages for 99.9 percent of business will never be allowed to drive sales on Facebook (0.1 percent get lucky!). And isn’t advertising part of marketing?

How many of you go to Facebook because it has the brands you love? None of you. And thus brands have to buy ads. And if you want to reach people there, you need to buy ads.

If you disagree try telling me on Facebook and try telling me on Twitter.

Howie Goldfarb is president and CEO of Sky Pulse Media, an agency focused on helping clients achieve outsized results in measurable bottom-line-impacting ways. He had a 14-year career in direct B2B sales before deciding to lighten up his dreary work life and move into advertising.