E.B. Writers of Dallas

Web Hosting Providers Moving Toward Twittering

Wayne Epperson, correspondent | Web Host Industry Review March 2009

This article will take a broad look at online social networking and the relevance the phenomenon can have on a hosting provider’s marketing.

That sentence is exactly 140 characters in length, the limit that can be used in a single message (tweet) on Twitter, one of the more popular social networking and micro-blogging sites on the web.

It, along with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Flickr, Digg, Google, del.icio.us and a slew of others, has captured the imagination of the Internet generation, a term that has been stretched
to both numerical extremes.

Online social networking keeps people connected with their friends and business associates, and it plays an increasingly important role in how business is conducted.

The magnitude of its significance is underscored
by an initiative on the part of Facebook, the giant of online social networks with 175 million users. The Facebook Ads Credits Program was launched so web hosting partners can pass along to their customers discounts for use when they, in turn advertise, on Facebook.

“The Ads Credits was rolled out to see if
this could be an interesting way for us to attract new advertisers to the online advertising channel,” says Net Jacobsson, director of business development at Facebook. “And it helps web hosting companies create meaningful goodwill for their small and medium
businesses.”

Netfirms and Go Daddy were the first hosts to sign up for the advertising program, where $25 to $100 credits are passed along to customers based upon the hosting package they buy.

Advertising on Facebook focuses on demand generation and enables marketers to be part of the ongoing conversation among people and deliver relevant ad messages based on people’s real interests and connections, Jacobsson says.

Advertisers on Facebook can reach users by targeting keywords in their profiles or status updates.
“With the economic turmoil we are going through today SMBs are increasingly looking for ways to promote their businesses online and Facebook is exactly the type of channel where we can tap into users’ conversations and engage with them,” Jacobsson says.

Netfirms of Markham, Ontario, decided to extend the ad credits to all of its hosting customers, including those who have been with the company throughout its 10-year history. That means more than 1.2 million websites can benefi t from the program.

“We were approached by Facebook to see if we were interested and we thought it should be quite useful for customers because you can target very specifically based on the demographics of the customer and get a very good return,” says Dan Kershaw, general manager.

Netfirms has been successful doing its own advertising on Facebook, and is currently weighing its options to engage on Twitter, Flickr, and others.

“Given the times we are in today, the one thing the whole marketplace has lost is a lot of trust. Netfirms is using these social networks as a low-cost way of getting the word out to our primary demographic, which is young entrepreneurs starting up their businesses.
It allows us to reach them right at their cell phone or at their PC,” Kersaw says.

Scott Beale, founder of Laughing Squid in San Francisco, is something of a pied piper of online social networking, especially Twitter.

He bills his company as an online resource for art, culture and technology from San Francisco and beyond. Oh, and by the way, LaughingSquid.com provides Web hosting services to artists, individuals, bloggers, nonprofits and small organizations.

Ask Beale about whether a company should have a Twitter account and you get a very direct answer: “All companies should use Twitter. There is absolutely no reason not to. And a company is stupid for not using Twitter, because it is free.”

And he can explain why a social networking site that limits tweets to 140 characters is a must have for hosts, as well as other businesses.

He is such a believer in Twitter that he has three accounts, including one for himself on which he rarely mentions web hosting. More than 32,000 people follow his posts on that account.

Then there is the LS_hosting account where Laughing Squid monitors any reference people make about their hosting. If it’s complimentary, they are thanked; if it’s a question, they are referred to the company’s
FAQ; or a customer may be asked to contact the help desk.

Beale has a list of Twitter sourcing – ways a host can employ Twitter in its business, including its personal tech support. Having a problem with a driver on a computer? Tweet it, and with a substantial following, you’ll have your answer quickly.

He has used Twitter to solve his own hosting problems. A couple of years ago his ISP erroneously blocked the company’s email. Instead of calling the first-tier support, he asked on Twitter if anyone knew someone who
worked at the ISP. He got a direct reply and contacted the person. Email was unblocked by the end of the day.

As a test, a search for users with “hosting” in their names yielded 113 results in .001 seconds. Each listing carried a short message about the user and the number of followers.

Twitter, says Beale, is the most effective of the social networking sites for business issues because of its immediacy.

“For hosting, downtime is the biggest thing,” he says. “So if something is down, or is perceived to be down, you can most quickly mediate the situation with Twitter. Obviously you still want to put a status post up.”

LaughingSquid.com, the part of the organization that’s not the hosting company, uses Twitter not as a promotional tool but as a way to engage with customers. Because of its popularity in general, more people have become aware that the company offers hosting.

For a hosting provider new to Twitter, Beale suggests assigning an employee to communicate for the company, to run the Twitter account, post tweets and respond to people.

“You can take your RSS feed and have it automatically post to Twitter. A combination of everything you post on your blog goes to Twitter, but also a human being goes on there and does updates as well.

Mobile use is a big part of Twitter, but users can choose to view it only on their desktop. And they don’t have to use SMS. Beale thinks streaming video from cell phones will be the next big use of Twitter.

Netfirms’ Kershaw believes social networking has a long-term place in a marketer’s toolkit.

“I don’t think it is going to replace traditional
marketing. Just as the Internet, at one time, was thought to be an extension of traditional mediums, I believe social networking marketing is going to be an extension of traditional Internet marketing,” he says. 􀁑