Holy Kaw! All the topics that interest us

Facebook or Twitter: Which is better for your business?

Media_httpdldropboxco_sqfeh

If you run a business of any size, the question is no longer, “should I be online?” It’s proven that having an online presence can give even the tiniest mom and pop shop a big boost. The question you should be asking is “what platform is right for my goals?” Marketing Vox aims to help you answer that question for yourself with its dissection of Facebook and Twitter. They’ve outlined—in two parts—what each site is used for and why they work well in some cases and not in others. This is a must-read for businesses looking to dive into social media but aren’t sure where to start and where to place their focus.

Check out some highlights from their Twitter breakdown below:

  • Twitter makes it easier to connect with people during the day because most users use it while at work.
  • Twitter is good for SEO, thanks to Google’s incorporation of the platform.
  • Things go viral faster on Twitter than they do on Facebook.

Full story at Marketing Vox.

Total Facebook and Twitter coverage.

Photo credit: Fotolia


Comments (8)

Jul 04, 2010
Bob Wan-Qi Kim said...
Hi Catherine,

I absolutely disagree with Marketing Vox.

1. They mention SEO. Meh. Everything in Twitter is NOFOLLOW. So tweeting a link is useless.

2. Most links have to be Bit.ly short urls. DOUBLE useless.

3. Sure you get more RTs in Twitter than shares in Facebook. Thats ONLY because Twitter has an RT culture. All you have to do to reverse this in facebook is add "guys, please click "Share" below" and your friends will click share.

4. Noise: a typical Twitter user will NOT see your tweet unless they login within 1 hour of your Tweet. In facebook, they will see your status update within 6 hours. THIS is why Guy Tweets the same thing every few hours.

5. I did a scientific CTR comparison between Facebook and Twitter... Turns out my 1,400 facebook friends are worth about 80,000 twitter friends. See:

http://bit.ly/6ECuoM

Jul 05, 2010
Hazel Zainal said...
I linked my Facebook account to my Twitter, it do the tricks for no. 4 & 5.
Jul 05, 2010
seema said...
I feel it's quite challenging to keep up Twitter. An hour gone, and you can miss a lot many comments which could have been useful for you otherwise. Moreover, there is a seldom chance you'll get to see those comments again without putting in a lot of effort into it. Whereas, Facebook doesn't require you to be continuously logged in.

Secondly, at times the timeline can be pretty disturbing for you, people typing in array of comments. Many of them may not even be your niche but there is not way you can get rid of it.

Jul 05, 2010
Dorothy said...
You don't have to get lost with Twitter. You can do a search on a particular topic. Or you can include a group of Tweeters carrying on a conversation in a list.
Jul 05, 2010
seema said...
Well, you can search yes, but don't you think it requires a lot of patience to completely keep checking on your timeline. And when it comes to following the list, you may lose out on your main timeline! And how do you balance that.

I feel the best and worst part about Twitter is, you have to be continuously online and active on the network to get a hold of the latest conversations, whether on list or not.

Jul 05, 2010
mayra mejia said...
The question isn't which is better but which provides the best bang for your advertising dollars. A business is not about "friends" but about finding potential buyers who need your products and services. You can't make a generalization to the business world based on friends on your Facebook account. Just because you know people does not mean you have the perfect market segmentation. Marketing is a lot more complicated than that. If you want to engage people and develop loyalty from your customers Twitter is the way to go.
Jul 05, 2010
Juan said...
I think both are wrong for your business... And this is my personal view of course. I'd still recommend the use of "both" when clients think they don't have anymore options. These days clients think it's those two or die.

I've been told that I'm wrong (and crazy!) when I say to "monitor Twitter, but don't interact on it", monitor for changes to your business, services, and product. When your product comes at a level to get more positive feedback than good, Twitter users are going to take care of letting other people know. Advertsing for a business should always have a tradicional feel to it mixing just a few online features. Example: Blogs depend more now on "tradicional" media, and sponsored unveiling events more than with online media, if they depend on online media, that means they're not the first ones with the news.

I'm a firm believer that loyalty to a particular brand doesn't happen as you pick up followers at Twitter or fans at Facebook, first of all they don't open an account just for your product alone, the same with Facebook.

Nor Twitter or Facebook have a business model for third party unless you spend some $$ on advertising yourself, so when you come to think about it, it's pretty lame that a Marketing firm, or within a company lose complete control of their advertising revenue to Social Networks. It's like giving money away, when you can create your own.

I hope the Twitter/Facebook fiasco bubble burst in a couple of years.

Jul 05, 2010
seema said...
I completely agree to juan... actually, when it comes to business, I would rather not trust these networking sites. I would also like to know the percentage of buyers who really trust these businesses active on Twitter. I would not!

Leave a comment...