In the last five days I posted responses to an article titled 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your Business. Here’s the conclusion to those posts:

While both services off ways to expand your network and become more visible in the social sphere online, I don’t believe it is wise to focus on just one over the other.

I use Facebook mostly for personal connections with friends and family, for sharing photos and for having fun. The entertainment value on Facebook is big, but for me, it’s not really a place to be thinking about business. That’s not to say businesses shouldn’t be there, but if you are, you need to engage your fans and group members to keep them interested in what you are doing.

Is having a Facebook page a way to keep in touch with your customers and reach out to potential customers? YES, but only if you actively monitor it and keep adding interest to it.

Does Facebook have something to offer advertisers? YES, especially if your customers are active on Facebook.

Can Twitter help you understand your customers and build your brand? YES, but you also need to listen to what people are saying on Twitter and engage in conversation with them around your brand and related industry topics.

Does Twitter itself offer value for advertisers? No, but third-party sites can help you reach out to Twitter users who may be interested in publishing your ads.

Finally, I don’t believe it is an either/or question. Participating in any marketing medium means you have to do the research to understand what the medium has to offer and whether it is the right medium for you. For some businesses a presence on Facebook will perform better than a Twitter presence, and for other businesses vice versa. Comparing Facebook to Twitter is like comparing apples to oranges. Yes they are both fruits, but they have different textures and flavors and require different preparation and treatment for consumption.

It’s interesting that Facebook is ranked number 4 and Twitter is ranked number 25 on Quantcast and also that both sites skew more towards women than men.

Also according to Quantcast, Facebook “attracts a more affluent, teen and young adult, very slightly female biased following.The typical visitor reads USA Today and subscribes to People,” and Twitter “attracts a slightly more female than male group.The typical visitor reads Perez Hilton, subscribes to Entertainment Weekly, and visits tennayalayouts.com.”

What does that say about Facebook and Twitter? Could it mean that Facebook is old and Twitter is new?

The conclusion: It all depends on who you are talking with.

A recent post called 5 Reasons why Facebook is better than Twitter for your business, William Smith of the Internet Marketing Examiner describes why he believes Facebook is better for small to medium sized businesses.  In the next five posts I will provide my thoughts on this.

1.  Community/Size
Smith argues that Facebook’s community (122 million) is much larger than Twitter’s (22 million), implying therefore that as a business owner you have a bigger reach on Facebook.  Yes, most Facebook user’s have about 200 friends, but what are they talking about and what are they interested in?  IMHO most of the activity on Facebook is social.  People are there to relax and have fun.  It’s like a birthday party where you know all the people you invited and you feel comfortable talking about random thing with them.  They are not there to do business or be thinking about their favorite brand.  They are there, yes, but if they are not talking with your company or on your company’s fan page, are they really beneficial to your business.

If you are advertising, then you can certainly target Facebook users well, but FB’ers are still resistant to ads and click through rates are low.  Social media is about being social, not about messaging and targeting.

On Twitter on the other hand, it is easy to find the people who are talking about your brand and start conversations with them.  Conversations start relationships and on Twitter it’s not just conversations between friends (as it is on Facebook), it’s conversations that are happening in public about your brand.  It is easy to listen to the conversation and start participating by just following any mentions of your brand.  Just enter your company name or any brand or topic into Twitter’s Search Tool and you’ll see what people are saying about it on Twitter.  It’s like Google, but for a view at what the twitterverse is saying about your brand.

Going back to the party analogy, Twitter is more like a business cocktail party than a birthday party, because you are there to meet people, share a little information and chat with people who seem interesting to you.  It’s about networking for business, not just reconnecting as friends.

Yes Compete shows more unique visitors to Facebook than Twitter, but look at the Compete Ranking growth of Twitter.  Because it is a little more technical, a little more intelligent, a little less fun maybe, and more business oriented, it is slower to take off, but growing rapidly and the uses for business are inherent instead of add-ons as they are on Facebook.

As for Facebook not making mainstream news as much as Twitter, the reason is because Facebook is a closed network and twitter is a public timeline.  How many times recently have you heard about breaking news that was first reported on Twitter?  Why?  What do you have with you at all times?  That’s right, your cell phone, and posting a quick news update to your favorite mobile twitter service is quick, easy and has the potential to reach a lot more people more quickly than on Facebook, because people build followings of not just friends who may be interested in a number of different things, but followers who are in the same niche market as the tweeter.

Twitter is still an infant and Facebook is a teenager.  I think we’ll see steady growth in the number of Twitter users and Facebook is already starting to plateau.

Tomorrow we’ll look at Analytics on Facebook versus Twitter.