Why Florists Need to Respect the Differences Between Facebook and Twitter

Far from a perfect analogy, it does pretty good job at illustrating how different the 2 social networks really are. There are lots of 3rd party applications available now to consolidate the 2 social networks, making it “quicker” and “easier” to regularly post information to each social network at once.  So why should you, as a retail florist care? Well firstly because your shop needs an effective presence on both, and secondly because consolidating your efforts between the 2 might not be the best idea.

Twitter is from Mars

Twitter by it’s nature, is right to the point. Sharing information, links, specials and bantering about with your client base all takes place in under 140 characters. Your followers on Twitter expect short, succinct and frequent updates. Twitter doesn’t care who your friends are; the nature of this beast is basic level interaction and providing targeted & valuable tweets. You certainly can’t sit there and talk to yourself, so unless you are CNN, engage others frequently. It’s easy to gain followers on Twitter, especially now that most people filter tweets with 3rd party applications (such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite), bypassing your tweets altogether if they want to. This makes engaging (replying, re-tweeting etc.) all the more important. Expect to be ignored from time to time, but posting pictures of your flowers, designs, your shop, tweeting about specials, interesting facts and helpful tips is considered good practice for a retail Florist.

If you haven’t already, check out an earlier post of mine Twitter for Florists.

Facebook is from Venus

Ahhh Venus; personable, intimate and maybe even a little uptight. If you’re a Facebook user (as most of us are) you know how it goes, it’s much more personal experience isn’t it?  Facebook is a meeting place, a comfort zone you’ve established to keep in touch and reconnect with people you know in the “real world”. This is a place for baby pictures and old high school buddies, not for back and forth banter about your latest products. Frequency of postings about your business should be fewer and father between than on Twitter. If your Florist in on Facebook, I sincerely hope you’ve set up a fan page; not a group or worse yet, a personal profile. It is important on Facebook to know your role. Facebook users are much pickier than those on Twitter. Posting too frequently is sure to get you “unfanned”, that is, if you were lucky enough to get some fans in the first place. Most Facebook users will only become a fan of a business they know, a brand they respect or an individual they highly respect. If you haven’t already, you should definitely read this great article.

Both social media should be treated as a hand extended leading people to your florist website or blog, just remember, Venus and Mars may not always need the same type of push in that direction.

photo courtesy of Datamation