1. Con: Twitter isn’t as popular as Facebook.
While 21% of consumers use Twitter, a staggering 64% use Facebook. What’s more, Twitter posts were found to produce a third of the number of conversation that Facebook produces. But again: every social media platform has its pros and cons. And Facebook is not without its cons.
2. Pro: Twitter Focuses on What People Say
By design, Facebook emphasizes groups, pages, and people. Twitter works the complete opposite way. Where Facebook emphasizes “entities”, Twitter focuses on what those entities are saying.
Let’s say you’re a big fan of the fictional game company, Pop Art Gamez. You’ve got Twitter and Facebook (their classic shoot-’em-up Run and Gun 4: Nitro Core is one of your absolute faves), so you decide to follow Pop Art on both platforms. When you search for them on Facebook, you’ll see their page at the top followed by a bunch of other pages that are either fan pages or have a similar name. But when you search for Pop Art on Twitter, you’ll see one or two accounts at the top (one of which will likely be theirs) followed by a slew of tweets about or from them. Plus, each tweet has a 140-character limit, so every post is short, sweet, and to-the-point. When posts are so short, they hold your audience’s attention a lot longer than a more lengthy post will.
3. Pro: Twitter Keeps it Simple, Stupid
Again, post length plays a huge role in Twitter’s success over Facebook here. While Facebook posts can go on and on and on and expand over a massive amount of space, Twitter posts are forces to take up much less space. Facebook posts that include videos or images can also take up an annoying amount of room, even on Mobile!
While Twitter doesn’t alter the dimensions of a photo or video, the mobile version compacts them into a smaller, preview image that users can click on to enlarge. Where Facebook posts can become big and lumbering, Twitter posts are small, quick, and get the point across, increasing the likelihood that they’ll be seen.
4. Pro: Twitter Advertising Offers Your Brand Variety
Another plus in the pro column goes to Twitter for the variety of social advertising it offers.
Different Twitter Ads Include:
- Sponsored tweets are paid tweets that appear in users’ newsfeeds;
- Promoted accounts are accounts that appear as suggested users to follow; and
- Promoted trends are trends (represented as hashtags) that appear in users’ trending feeds
The variety doesn’t stop there. Twitter is so rich in social advertising diversity that you can buy a mobile-only ad package.
5. Pro: Custom Audience Targeting
While Facebook tracks what its users like and comment on, and then tailors the ads in your newsfeed accordingly, Twitter uses a simpler approach. When a user signs up for Twitter, they’re asked questions about their interests: gaming, entertainment, art, sports…etc. The user is asked to check off as many of these interests as they like, before they’re taken to their new account page.
6. Pro: Real-Time, Customizable, Location-Based Trending Topics
Twitter allows users to set their trending topics feed to the city or area closest to them. Or to any city or country…!! It’s a pretty nifty way to see what’s going on in the world. It’s an even niftier way for businesses to show-off their branded hashtags.
Conclusion
In the end, whether or not you should focus on Twitter when planning your social advertising media mix really depends on what you want to accomplish and who it is you’re trying to reach. Tandm Digital Agency designs integrated social media advertising campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. Contact us, if you need help choosing the right social media mix for your business.
