I'm pretty sure that many businesses will be taking the leap onto Twitter and Facebook in 2010 as part of a new push to be more social. More often than not when people describe their business relationship with a social network they like to say they're "on" it. "Hey' we're on Twitter!. Follow us." Here's a good question for those businesses. Why should I follow you on any website? What's going on over on Twitter or Facebook that I can't get from your main website? Because if something special is going on over there we'd all like to know about it. If you haven't thought about this then perhaps you really don't have a strategy. If that's the case then I recommend reading my previous post about the importance of a primary business website. In brief, before you give your main web presence over to Twitter and Facebook you should consider the implications surrounding that choice.

What are your goals on Twitter and Facebook? Gaining followers perhaps? Then what? For a company like Dell that sells a physical product its pretty obvious what their goals are on their Dell Outlet Twitter account. They're promoting items from the Dell Outlet store. So they can measure the success of their strategy in terms of the revenue generated from the promotions (tracked via the coupon codes I assume) that they post on Twitter. But what's the real cost of employing such a strategy? After all, while the Twitter followers get their hands on juicy coupon codes, the other Dell customers (the ones who go directly to the Dell outlet websites) are on the outs. It's almost like Dell is saying, "Sorry folks, you're not tech or social network savvy enough to get the good discounts." That's some way to treat your customers. Heck, if you go to the Dell Factory Outlet web page they don't even have a link to their Twitter account. Is this a smart strategy? The Dell Outlet is obviously "on" Twitter, and well known their with 1.5 million followers, but why are the discounts invisible to the people who arrive directly on the site? And why no link back to the Twitter site? It's either part of a grande plan or a serious disconnect.

In any case the Dell story illustrates an important point. Presence on social networks can exist in a vacuum. I don't think they should though. The social network presence should be tightly integrated with the strategy that you are executing on your primary point of presence which should be a website on your own domain. After all you're offerings on Twitter and Facebook will be limited to the features they offer you. You can't post images on Twitter. You can't post video on Twitter. Sure people can click through by why make them jump through hoops to get to what's important? Facebook does offer both images and video so you have more options there. But Facebook still has many limits and pitfalls that you're primary presence doesn't need to have.

The main point is this. Think it through. Don't just be "on" Facebook. Know why you're there. Know how your presence there connects to your larger strategy. Don't be there merely to collect followers. Make a call to action and base your success on the level of action created by your calls on the social network. Even if you're goal is to merely disseminate knowledge in order to build awareness I think you should create a trackable metric that indicates you're building not just general awareness but true interest in your products and services. That's the part that takes work. Because even as your follower count grows the number of people who friend then forget is increasing as well.