The Differences Between Facebook and Twitter

Social media marketing newbies and veterans alike tend to make the same mistake:

They post the same content to all of their social networks.

There’s a reason for this:

Managing multiple social media accounts is time consuming and labor intensive, especially when you consider all the other work you need to do to keep your business operating.

To save time and energy, it’s a common practice to link Facebook and Twitter accounts so that a post on one automatically appears on the other.

Don’t do it!

It’s tempting.

It’s easy.

It’s also a bad marketing move.

Facebook and Twitter Are Not The Same Thing

Here’s a secret that good social media marketers know:

Even if the same people follow your Twitter handle and like your Facebook page, they aren’t in the same mindset on both networks.

The format might be the most pronounced difference between the two platforms – Twitter’s character limit forces brevity – but it’s far from the only difference.

Behavior is drastically different, too.

A person might pull up Facebook and spend 20 minutes browsing, reading conversations, and commenting on friends’ posts.

That same person might then open their Twitter app and skim the top 10 tweets, then click a link to an interesting article and spend 15 minutes on that website.

The simple act of switching apps actually changes the user’s mindset.

Here’s what that means for you as a business:

Content that gets great traction on Twitter isn’t necessarily going to perform well on Facebook, and vice versa.

Posting native, tailored content to each platform magnifies your result.

Twitter for Business Basics

Before we start talking strategy, keep in mind that while this is an informative blog post, every business is different and you should never build an entire marketing strategy around one thing you read on the internet.

Building successful social strategies involves a lot of trial and error, tracking, and adjustment.

But we can at least give you some best practices:

Twitter’s character limit means that long-form content isn’t a practical strategy.

Sharing links works pretty well, but not if every tweet is just a link to a blog post.

Twitter users tend to respond to clever, pithy remarks, especially if they’re funny, and users are more likely to respond to a business’s tweets than they might be to comment on a Facebook post.

The biggest strength on Twitter is the community atmosphere – everyone is just about equally accessible, so “regular” people have a chance to communicate directly with celebrities, and companies can talk openly with their customers.

On the other hand…

Facebook for Business Basics

Since Facebook limits the organic (free) reach of business pages, posts don’t see as much interaction.

By the way, it’s a wonderful thing that Facebook limits that reach – if they didn’t you’d log in and see nothing but ad after ad after ad…kind of like a magazine site.

People stay on Facebook longer, and if your content is interesting and attention grabbing, consumers will spend time with it and interact.

It’s smart to post less frequently on Facebook, because where your Tweets get lost in the sea, Facebook’s algorithms will serve up good content where people see it more than once, and too many posts get irritating.

The greatest strength for Facebook is its ad product.

Because of the sheer volume of marketers on Facebook, if you’re not one of the elite few with mad social media skills, you’re probably going to have to put a few bucks into getting your posts seen.

Do it.

It’s one of the least expensive and most rewarding marketing channels out there, and as long as you’re basically competent with your ads, you’ll see traffic as a result.