Twitter vs. Facebook for Businesses

There is no avoiding social media, in specific, the two largest players, Facebook and Twitter, in this day and age. Ensuring your business is accessible, active, and engaging is a key strategy to your social media strategy and both of these platforms work extremely well for driving traffic and interest to your business and your website. Where do they differ? It comes down to the specific way in which each one can serve you.

Facebook Vs. Twitter Functionality

Facebook allows a private person or business to build connections with friends and family. Personal information, photos, and videos can all be shared on this platform, and certain posts can be made only viewable by specific people (which you have control over). There is greater flexibility in the media that can be uploaded, the characters you can use, and the length of posts.

Twitter, however, is a platform for sharing ideas and news sources to a large, broad audience which may not necessarily be friends and family. There are limits to the information that can be put out on a “tweet,” however, since this platform allows for up to a maximum of 140 characters for any post.

User Demographics

Twitter use isn’t popular among adults, coming in at around 24%. Compare that to their activity on Facebook, which has more accessibility and interactive content. There are approximately 70% of adults throughout the country that are active on Facebook. For older adults, those who exceed the age of 50, an astounding 65% are using the platform. Adults across the board are engaged with Facebook; even for the younger group, more than 80% of 18-to-29-year-olds use it.

Twitter, on the other hand, attracts primarily a younger crowd: individuals aged 18-29. They make up 40% of all the users that engage on the platform, while older adults, those who exceed the age of 50, barely make up 20%.  

What can be concluded from these demographics? Facebook is the leader in terms of reaching adult users and has much broader appeal, while Twitter is more popular among young adults and teens, who use it to connect with niche communities and individuals.

Engagement

The amount of time an individual will spend on each platform is important. When it comes to Twitter, a solid amount of users, approximately 46%, will access the platform on a daily basis. The majority of millennials who use it, 81%, go on a minimum of once each day.

Because Twitter is an excellent tool for engagement and idea sharing as well as staying relevant in today’s fast-paced society, many politicians and celebrities are on it. The ability to spread trending news fast is important to journalists, who also are heavy users of Twitter. 74% of people who use it say that is their preferred method of obtaining news.

What this shows you is that if your business has quick tips, changing updates, or relevant articles, Twitter could be a strong ally for your social media strategy. The key would be having compelling content that can rapidly grab your audience’s attention because you will be competing with other fast-paced posts, which means you only have a finite amount of time to use this platform and gain traction before your post becomes lost in the mix.

If the fast-moving, quick grip statements aren’t the best for your business, Facebook offers the ability to slow things down and develop a longer-term strategy for engagement of your audience. One post can stay relevant as long as people are viewing it, and these individuals may share it, allowing it to spread and gain traction organically. All of this extra time for exposure will increase the “likes” it has the potential to receive and, thus, the popularity.

Another important note about Facebook is that users will spend long amounts of time scanning and reading it, while also checking it much more often than Twitter. Users check in on the platform at least eight times each day.

Usage

The small amount of information that can be posted on Twitter and its very fast pace can feel overwhelming for some, but in reality, people in today’s modern times are inundated with information. Their attention spans aren’t super long. Twitter gives you a chance to try a quick hit and see if you can obtain some attention. If it doesn’t get it the first time, you can just keep trying until something sticks.

If you need a bit more time to get into the details and nitty-gritty of your business and want to engage through more traditional methods like coupons and discounts, Facebook is where you need to be. The extra amount of media you can add to your Facebook page, along with offers, brings substance to your page and can make it a very useable and practical source for your audience to want to frequent.

Advertising

Facebook is designed for ads and, with that, comes a very easy to use the platform to do so. There are plenty of useful tools to help you target your preferred audience and the overall cost can be based on any businesses individual budgetary needs. Even the most conservative means can still be used to target a wide audience through advertising with Facebook.

While Twitter can also have an expansive reach and does offer helpful tools, it does come at a higher cost than Facebook. So you may think, “Why even bother with Twitter for ads?” Well, you still may want to explore using it because it has been shown that ads on Twitter yield significantly higher engagement, between 1-3%, versus Facebook’s 0.12%.

Social Media Management in Los Angeles, California

To really get a feel for which works better for your target audience, trying both out is the best advice we can offer because both platforms have strengths which can be valuable for your social media strategy. You don’t have to necessarily invest any money in them upfront either because both are free to use, so you can develop your profile and voice on each, and then, if you want to run ads, for instance, you can see how each pan out. Over time, you will have enough data to support either the benefit of using both or one versus the other. If you take a look at what others in your industry are doing and seeing whose campaigns and strategies seem to be the most successful, you may be able to develop a similar approach and hone in on your market more efficiently.

The ability to develop strong relationships between your business identity and your target audience is important to building your company’s success. Digital marketing can be complex if you haven’t worked with it before, so by obtaining the help of a knowledgeable partner, like our team at Performance First Marketing, you can have peace of mind knowing your Los Angeles social media strategy will be well-managed and implemented. Give us a call and speak with one of our marketing experts to learn more about how we can help you elevate your current strategy or develop one for you. Our number is (818) 949-2678. You can also check out our social media management services online.