Technological innovations and strides have granted anybody and everybody the ability to access any piece of information in the blink of an eye.

The world has revolved around this concept, and society has changed completely over the course of the last decade because of it.

Consumers are not only more intuitive but expect nothing less than knowing everything surrounding the product that they are about to consume.

Producers recognize this and deliver by utilizing the newest technologies to their fullest extents.

As a result, advertising has to be more intuitive and effective as well.

Utilizing the boundless capabilities of the Digital World as its consumers do and keeping up with this technology is the only way that the advertising/marketing industry will thrive and survive.

According to Time: Techland

Online adveritsing has generated a total of $26 billion in 2010, a 15% raise in revenue from 2009 (1).

This is a remarkable statistic for an aspiring digital marketer/advertiser like myself, but even more of a remarkable statistic for those who have or will invest anything into the Digital World.

An important question to address in this scenario is why, and how did this become?

As stated in the article, IAB Chief Executive Randall Rothenberg said that “helping to boost online sales is most likely the growing amount of time people are spending on heavily trafficked sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Netflix.

Thus, digital ads and marketing are one of the most effective tools that businesses can have to draw and keep customers.”

This is true, as placing digital advertisements in these social environments are proving to be more and more effective each and every day because of society’s new expectations.

As mentioned before, the society of the Information Age now demands that all information can be received at the most rapid of paces.

Those who provide this information in the fastest, most innovative and most creative ways will triumph.

However, those who effectively allocate all of this information into one source where others can share it will triumph over all.

The ability for information to spread itself is key and is why social networks are so lucrative.

That is exactly what Facebook and Twitter have done in the age of information, and why they dominate.

So Who Does it Better?

The answer is not too obvious, and certainly was not obvious to me at all.

However, after careful deliberation,  this writer believes that Twitter has done it better since its inception, and will always be dominate is this field over Facebook.

The reason that this is so is because of how each website’s life force is structured and designed to function.

Sean Parker could not have explained it any better via this quote from The Social Network. “We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on the internet!” (2)

This quote, speaking about the effect of Facebook, is incredibly valid.

Facebook is not only a social experience but has expanded into a way of life. We live and breathe through our Facebooks, as people’s interpretations of our social profiles are congruent to their interpretations of our selves outside of the computer.

Digital Advertising cannot be as effective on Facebook as it is on Twitter because advertising on Facebook would be a direct interference into our online lives.

This is exactly why users do not see posts of advertisers newest products on their own Facebook News Feeds.

This scenario of post bombardment would be exactly the same as a representative from the Gap walking right to us in the middle of the sidewalk telling us about their newest deals four different times.

While the information may benefit us, hearing it more than once turns into annoyance, interferes with where we are going, and is thus not welcome.

Is Facebook Advertising Effective?

It very much IS effective for digital advertising.

It is one of the more effective strategies and the more efficient ways of reaching a large audience with minimal cost and effort.

However, what I explained before serves as the principle difference between Facebook and Twitter.

In the Facebook world, those who seek information can access it by searching within Facebook’s database to find it.

In the Twitter world, information is directly delivered to the consumer, by choice of the consumer.

The true distinction is that the Twitter user always purposefully seeks this information, as opposed to the Facebook user.

With Twitter, any user can follow a corporation or business, who can post specials at their own disclosure. These corporations are encouraged to post as many times as possible, and those who are hungry are one click away to all of the content in one place.

Twitter is the greatest form of window shopping of the internet has ever created and has to offer. It is also the embodiment of the success of simple ideas expanding beyond the wildest realms.

Social Networking: Not The Only Reason for Digital Advertising Success

The entire scope of digital advertising is one of the main reasons it is so lucrative.

New concepts of integration for advertising have been implemented, and are effectively drawing users into the content.

The advertising experience is more than just the advertisements now.

For instance, a digital ad for a movie no longer encompasses a poster, but a trailer, a link to the Facebook, Twitter and Youtube profiles for the movie, a behind the scenes look at the movie, and a direct link to the movie’s website with even more features.

You could even customize characters and share them on your Facebook or Twitters, or spread the word of the coolest advertising experiences you ever had by encouraging users to spread this information.

If you were to watch an advertisement on television, you could not access this information all at once. 

Digital advertising itself is an incredibly interesting field to work in and experience.

Newer “Rich Media” technologies are providing more intuitive ways to advertise.

For instance, be on the lookout for strides in Location Based Service Advertising and Integrative Advertising within Video Games to be the next biggest thing.

For now, if there was anything to take from this piece, it is that Digital Advertising/Marketing is evolving, and has massive potential for success.

Stay ahead of the game and you will dominate the game.

We at Downright Media love Social Media. As a business owner, Twitter gives you the opportunity to interact with your industry and customers in a way that has never existed before in history. However, It can have a downside. Especially if you are the type of person that can get distracted easily. So we’ve gone ahead and created this executable action plan for you.

Get Clicky

Go to GetClicky.com and create an account for your site. Get Clicky will let you monitor and analyze your web traffic. You can also use Google Analytics if you like. The important thing is have this website traffic data. Without it, you are wasting your time and effort. 

Growing Your Twitter Following 

Twitter usage has been exploding over the last year years. In fact Google and other search engines think so highly of Twitter that they have started to include realtime tweets into search results. The problem is that Twitter can seem like a huge conversation about nothing. This is why most people don’t understand nor get Twitter. They say things like “Why do I care about what so and so had for lunch?” and that’s true. 

The opportunity with Twitter is knowing how to read the signal from the noise. Meaning, you should be able to find the conversations that matter to you. So if you love Indie Rock Bands from Brooklyn, you should find that conversation, listen in or contribute to it. It’s that simple. Twitter is brilliant finding real-time conversations on whatever matters to you. 

Okay so let’s move into growing your Twitter Following. 

• Use the “Advanced Search” on Search.Twitter.com for Your Research
• Follow Influencers in Your Chosen Field
• Add friends ( find like minded people)
• Remove Friends ( 36 hours if they haven’t friended you)
• Interact & Engage 
• Rinse & Repeat

Follow all the influencers in your field. Start adding people that follow these Twitter influencers and are like minded, remember Twitter has many automated account or Twitter Bots that just ReTweet things and don’t add anything to the conversation. Stay away from these guys, you only want real people.

Don’t go crazy and add too many, Twitter will ban your account. Remove friends that haven’t followed you back, give them about a 36 hour window. Again don’t go crazy here, Twitter will ban you if you unfollow too fast. Interact and engage this new audience, you have to be genuine. Whatever topic you pick should be your passion, so this should be easy for you. Lastly Rinse & Repeat. 

Following this game-plan will increase your Twitter following and with time will make you an influencer. The best thing about become an influencer is that your Twitter following will start to grow organically. People will start to follow you automatically, which makes you even more of an influencer in the eyes of others.

Now make sure that your Twitter page leads to your site. You basically want your Twitter traffic to generate leads into your sales funnel. It’s okay if you don’t have a product or service to sell. Just have the ability to send your Twitter followers to something. It could be your blog, your resume or anything else that you want to promote and use to solidify your influencer status. 

By continually working on this action plan, you will increase your Twitter friends, followers, fans, influencer status and your bottom-line. 

Let us know what you think? Continue the conversation in our comments section.

So we know that we have many social networks that you can sign up your small business for. This phenomenon of Social Marketing is here to stay, and if used right you have a huge opportunity to really grow your business. Let’s look at the two networks that everyone needs to use right now. The current heavy weight king of social networks is Facebook. This is the biggest, that baddest, and most established website in the social scene. You can pretty much do everything that you need to do on Facebook to grow your business, without any cost to you. 

The key with Social Marketing is engagement, and it’s no different with Facebook. If you want your fans to keep coming back to your fan page, you need to have an open line of communication with them.  

 You can easily do this by:

• Asking Questions
• Answer Questions
• Posting Photos, Videos
• Individually Thanking Your Fans
• Offering Facebook Only Specials

You also don’t want to overwhelm your fans. If your Facebook fans don’t think that your status updates are useful, they can just as easily un-fan your page. So be sure to keep this in mind before blindly posting every few minutes. Ask yourself this question before updating your status, “Does this information benefit my customers?” If it doesn’t, don’t post it.

The next big player in the social network landscape that all small business owners should use, is Twitter. I really like Twitter for the small business. Mainly because they train you to be brief and concise. Since you only have 140 characters to use, you better use them wisely. This allows you to think like a Newspaper Editor. Think about this for a moment. If you read news paper and magazine headlines, you pretty much have an idea of what the article is about. But if you need more information, or you find the headline interesting you’ll read the entire article.

You should use your Twitter status exactly like this. Give a short, very to the point headline, with a link back to a page on your site with all the information that they need to know. Twitter is very powerful to the small business owner. You can search for people that have questions and problems in your field, and help them just by answering a question. How amazing is that? 

The benefits of social marketing are many, however you shouldn’t see this activity as a task. You should see this as a genuine way to interactive with your audience. As we all know, people like doing business with people that they like.