On the other hand, Twitter caters to the tech savvy not your casual (or older) computer user – which FB is going after. This will need to change if they want to compete with Facebook in attracting marketing spend.

Here are some points to consider about the two mediums:

• Twitter is more of a communication platform, while Facebook is more of an online destination/community.
• Facebook is also more personal, Twitter is somewhat impersonal.
• On Twitter, anyone can follow you.
• Women love Facebook
• Older men tend to avoid it until they finally cave in
• Many people still look at Twitter and say, ‘I don’t want to hear about when someone brushes their teeth, I just don’t get it’.
• On Facebook, by default, they cannot be your friend, unless you give them permission to.
• For a Facebook Fan Page though, anyone can become a fan (or ‘like’ a page as it is now called).

There is certainly cross-over & similarities between the two, but for businesses this realm does represent significant potential. Only in the last 6 months have I really felt this as Facebook has opened the door wider to businesses.

On the web & technology front, Twitter tends to attract the tech savvy type and therefore can easily continue its momentum in this regard. Something tells me that Twitter will eventually be purchase – but by whom (don’t say Google) ? And how would they integrate it (would Google nix Buz if they did purchase it)

But I also think it boils down to the ‘type’ of business. For example, here is a very random sample of business/brand entities and what they might see with these mediums.

• Clothing company:
  Facebook is completely relevant, Twitter is less effective based on what we are seeing.
• Coffee shop (ie. Starbucks)
  Twitter is very relevant as customers tend to be tech savvy and ‘on the go’ but Starbucks has nearly 7 million fans on FB compared to under 800k followers on Twitter. Wow!
• Golf Course:
  Facebook is more relevant, Twitter is not very effective from what we are seeing.
• Marketing company:
  Twitter more relevant, Facebook not as relevant (yet)
• Company/Retail:
  Facebook will become increasingly a better medium for all retail business now that Facebook is integrating e-commerce.
• Food Chain:
  Facebook becoming more relevant than Twitter
• Celebrity or Athlete:
  Twitter is an amazing platform for these folks (who are already popular) to enlarge their following. A perfect medium for stars and athletes on Twitter. It keeps people (followers) at a distance, and allows them more 1 way communication without too much interaction if they don’t want it.
• Renewable Energy Company:
  They could rock both spheres but I think FB could generate a lot of momentum for these types of companies.
• Gym (Fitness)
  No brainer. Facebook. They can create a sense of community online and get their members to talk to each other outside the gym *Creating an Online Community* – which is the highest achievement of any web presence.

The way I see it, Facebook may not seem very inviting right now to many businesses, I think that is changing very quickly. They will be a juggernaut for businesses looking to tap into Social Media.

What about your business?

Years later, now older, wiser…better looking, many now come to me and ask for my team to provide the very services that I explained ad-nauseam for 10+ years on my soap box.

Make no mistake.  I bask in this warm glory.

The evolution of communication, websites, applications and online marketing is staggering, and the pace of this evolution has been unbelievably fast—the understanding of these changes on the other hand has not. Many businesses in the mid- to late 90′s paid mind-boggling amounts of money to have their websites built to good salesmen at web companies mass producing websites.  Those days, like the idea of a brochure-ware website, are finally being laid to rest.

Despite being able to say things today like, “I told you so,” events like these are nothing more than ego-boosters, small victories that simply become personal mementos of countless hours of work. And while everything that I thought would happen (hoped for) has come true – there is something that is nagging me – something that begs my attention.

• What is the future of the corporate website?
• Will it die?
• Will it morph into something else now that businesses are finally on board?

Let me first state that this is not a new topic. Others have written about this and I’m starting to climb aboard this thought process. A website, for many businesses, is still quite critical right now and will continue to be for some time. In fact, most good online marketing strategies still benefit from having the website site at the center of all their marketing efforts.  The landscape that supports this idea however is shifting as I write this.

For the time being, websites will remain incredibly important for businesses, campaigns and selling products and services. What I question is how long this will last.  Here are some factors that may start digging the hole for corporate websites as we know them:

• Facebook (slowly but surely, FB is becoming a juggernaut – and me thinks they will try to replace the Corporate website for small biz)
• Social media (new sites will creep up & some current ones will grow bigger)
• Mobile devices make it easier to get  info while away from the desktop
• Lack of consumer trust in anything ‘corporate’
• Consumer’s increasing reliance on alternate channels (ie. social media)
• Less of a need to sell products from the ‘corporate’ site and more of a need to sell easily via different channels via their social business accounts
• Google Local Business
• Automated or Super-simple website building (ala WordPress or Business Catalyst)
• Did I say Mobile phones or computers?
• Less centralized marketing efforts & the decentralizing nature of the web
• Future entity (FB, Google, other) that reduce reliance on traditional sources of information
• Virtual environments – some  kind of virtual world will catch on in a game-changing way, or has it already?
• Smaller processing and ability to project a screen anywhere, e-paper..etc

One of the bigger forces that stands out to me is the decentralization that is taking place with the Internet.  For the last seven years, the core of a businesses’ online marketing program consisted of the following three pieces:

• a website
• the customer database
• an email marketing program.

This still remains the de-facto plan for many businesses. Yet, this plan is not only waning in the shadow of newer forms of communication, it is quickly becoming an antiquated model of thinking. Why though? Because it still is one-way communication. Businesses that aren’t able to create ‘conversations’ via the Internet will be at a major disadvantage.

Spewing forth mindless marketing and sales babble is just not enough any more.

In the end, a change is taking place and the old model of placing a ton of useless data on a website is coming to an end. The factors that surround this topic is enormous and this blog post is already too long, but an online marketing strategy has become much more important that designing a website. The traditional corporate website is dying – or perhaps in some kind of cocoon that will materialize as something else in just a few short years.

Don’t blink.