Facebook vs. Twitter – which should you choose to promote your business?

In Friday’s News at Noon podcast, we reported on a report eMarketer. The report stated that “daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely as daily Facebook users who ‘liked’ a brand to say they were more likely to purchase from the brand after becoming a social media follower.”

News at Noon further reported that ‘a February 2010 survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey also found that Twitter followers were more likely than Facebook fans to say they had an increased chance of buying or recommending the brands they connected with in social media.’

While awaiting the inevitable breathless “Death of Facebook” report from some well-known blogger with an out-sized imagination and well-developed ability to channel P.T. Barnum, it came to me that I had heard the Facebook vs. Twitter question before on forums, blogs and even from the lips of more than one of my own clients.

I’ve heard it more than once… “I’d like to get my company more involved in social marketing. Which should I use: Facebook or Twitter?” For me, that is a very easy question to answer and the answer is the obvious, if not always stated one. Use both. They appeals to different audiences and different levels of engagement.

In fact, use all of the social networking tools that you can. The days of advertising – usually expensively – in a geographic silo are long over. We are in Central Kentucky. In recent years we have sold homes to many buyers – almost half of them to buyers moving to the Bluegrass from out-of-state.

Whether they are natives returning home after careers took them elsewhere, retirees looking for lower cost of living, snowbirds the North Country looking for a more temperate winter or any number of other reasons, ignoring the “out-of-town” market is at your own peril.

And social networking is part of your overall marketing strategy whether local, national or global. Yes, even housing is a global market as people move between countries seeking new opportunities or adventure.

A good social networking strategy will include a presence on these networks at the very least:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • YouTube
  • Flickr

So it isn’t a question of one social network over another – it’s a question of how effectively you use all of the tools you have at your disposal.

Start today to put these services to work for you and you’ll notice a difference before too long.