Social Media Marketing: Twitter "follow suggestion" best thing yet!

I believe the only reason Twitter has not surpassed Facebook is due to its poor early user retention. (strictly my own personal opinion).

Well, another personal opinion too, in the long term, Twitter is by far more engaging than Facebook! So if Twitter will find a way to keep new users and keep them engaged so they come back more and more once they've signed up, then Twitter will be on its way to becoming bigger than Facebook.

The new suggestions for people to follow, which now twitter shows you has put the short messaging service on that road to becoming the next biggest web service, and guess what... If and when Twitter reaches the #1 status, its going to stay up there for long just for its nature and how engaging it can be to users in the long term.

So what's in it to gain for marketers and businesses as long as this new development is concerned?

Twitter is going to help Marketers engage consumers much more than Facebook. I believe the only reason users would leave Twitter is if they are not following the people they should follow. I mean the right people who reflect the users interest. Consumers will be engaged by twitters feature that allows users to quote, re-tweet and @replies. Brands that know what they are doing are already making great use of twitter.

By the new suggestion feature, if the site will be smart enough to suggest to users the right people to follow, then Twitter is going to grow more rapidly in the coming months. And as more of our friends from Facebook and in real life get on Twitter, we will begin to use the service more and stay longer.

Conclusively, Twitter is the future.. No seriously it is!

Search engine traffic, long-term users and startups.

How many startups rely on organic search engine traffic for the early push? The truth is, very few, if any.

Organic Search engine traffic does not come in quick, while new startups need to make many things happen as quickly as they can.

Majority of startups rely heavily on buzz from press releases, pitching industry bloggers and some social media promotion for the quick take-off traffic. These methods are good for getting quick traffic (they also cost money/time), but I don't believe they offer the best kind of traffic a startup should get.

Some people, especially startup founders may see the idea behind this post as a bit off the line. I am open and ready to hear your views on it right here on this blog. The new/normal belief or advice you get these days is about how/why you shouldn't worry about the search engines and that you can create a buzz or may be even success withous worrying about SEs.

PR can surely take a startup a long way, but that is as far as the startup gets. Beyond the buzz, a few percentage of the actual users the buzz attracted will still be using the startup's product.

With organic search traffic, users, the press and bloggers get to validate the idea and the product for you. The users didn't just discover you in an email or press release, they searched for what you are offering and found you, so as long as your service is good, they won't abandon you that easily. If any bloggers or press write about you without you actually pitching them or paying them (that is they found out about you through the SEs), means you have a great product and you are a great startup.

Traffic from organic search is free. Any buzz that this creates for you would be based on the actual value of your service, so with that in mind you can invest more in your idea (knowing it has value and potential for success).

PR is a great tool, however add organic SEO to your arsenal and may be try it first before spending money and time on PR.