It’s easy to look in from the outside and think “Twitter and Facebook are the same”. The truth is, they are very different communities, and managing promotions on each requires a different strategy. Here are a few ways that Twitter and Facebook are different:
- Tweets move faster! Facebook evaluates posts, and some posts last longer in your friend’s feeds than others. Twitter does not, thus your posts will be lost downstream quickly. If you have a message that MUST be seen on Twitter, consider sending it (in slightly different formats) several different ways over a period of time.
- Friends vs. Followers. On Facebook, you have ‘friends’. Friends implies a deep, personal connection. Twitter, on the other hand, designates your connections ‘followers’. A followers is simply someone who has elected to view your data stream. If you have a large quantity of Twitter followers, you know that Twitter is more like a people shouting in a loud room, and less like the dialog that comes from Facebook.
- Facebook is more visual than Twitter. Facebook streams images inline with your content, while Twitter displays links to images. As such, to deliver good content on Twitter requires you to write better copy, while good content on Facebook is often visual.
- Facebook is a closed network, while Twitter is public. This is very important to remember… on Facebook, you can control who views your feed, while on Twitter everything you write is public, forever.
- Facebook has a rich application ecology, Twitter does not. We advocate using apps for Facebook pages to encourage people to become fans, and to manage your promotions. On Twitter, you’re pretty much limited to Twitter’s 160 character stream. As such, your message must be simpler.
Are there more? What do you see as the differences between Facebook and Twitter?
Want to learn more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how we can set up your promotional social marketing campaign.
