The Top Three Reasons That Twitter is Not Facebook

When you first begin a marketing campaign, Twitter and Facebook accounts seem to be right near the top of your list of things to get done. While they both are certainly vital to those that know how to use them, they are not really all that similar at all. They have some things in common of course. They both require regular postings. They both are excellent tools to help a product or service go viral. They both are incredibly addictive.

Despite these similarities, Twitter and Facebook are much more different than they are alike. Here are three major differences:

Twitter allows you to be somewhat unknown

In a business where you want everyone to know what you are selling or offering, this comment sounds crazy. The truth is, however, that being anonymous in business can be a good thing. You want people to associate more with your brand than your name. (Of course, some brands are your names.) Most people on Facebook, however, end up with a ton of “friends” that fall into the non-consumer category. You know…friends, family and high school buddies. These folks will generally not be whom you are aiming for in business. Twitter makes it easier to be “your business” rather than you.

Twitter can be razor sharp focus-wise

With Facebook, the odds are pretty good that someone is going to get off track right in the middle of your marketing campaign. You might start by posting about a pre-sale for your upcoming book and suddenly find your post being hijacked by a conversation about goat cheese. Unless your book is about goat cheese, that is going to annoy you. Twitter for business allows you to narrow the focus on something coming up fairly easily and naturally keeps people on point.

Not everyone can Tweet effectively

Facebook is pretty straightforward and most people can get the gist pretty quickly. Anyone with a business can make a Facebook page in a single evening that will draw some attention with the right product or service. Twitter, however, takes a bit of skill. You have to learn about hashtags and retweets and all kinds of little details to truly get yourself out there so you can get more Twitter followers. It takes time to build a Twitter following and it seems to be of better quality once you have it in place. Not everyone will agree with this, but I find Twitter to be much more capable of sending my information viral on a more consistent basis than Facebook. Facebook is very hit or miss for most marketing campaigns.

All of these differences does not make Twitter better than Facebook for everyone. Some people will prefer one to the other and both have a solid place in most online marketer’s toolboxes. I can’t imagine an online campaign that would not involve them both in some way shape or form. Still, it is important to know what each of these social media giants are great at. Then you will implement them smartly and maximize your efforts every single time.