Facebook and Twitter are the two hottest social media and social networking services right now. Facebook is at 250,,000,000+ users and Twitter is at 10,000,000+. Both are constantly growing, attracting thousands of new users everyday. With the social media philosophy of going where the people are, celebrities on Facebook are going where their fans are and marketers are going where their consumers are. While the two networks both allow people to connect and communicate with their friends and meet new people, the similarities stop soon after that. And so do the ways that marketers use them.

Here are some of the key differences between Facebook marketing and Twitter marketing:

1. Paid Advertisements
Both services have tried different formats that allowed companies or marketers to purchase ad space.

Twitter Marketing: Paid advertising hasn’t been well received in the past- Magpie put ad tweets into personal streams and started a wave of unfollows. The IZEA network is looking to change that perception, using their extensive knowledge of how social media works to craft a new sponsored tweet program that respects the established etiquette of Twitter within its sponsorship options.

Facebook Marketing through paid advertisements is by now an entrenched part of the Facebook experience and generally well-accepted. Paid ads are on the side of the page and available on a Pay Per Click basis to anyone who is willing to pay. And they are generally regarded as a good way to gain fans on a Facebook Fan Page.

2. Groups

Twitter Marketing: There are no official groups on Twitter, but there are ways that groups and causes congregate- there are Twibes, or groups of like-minded twitterers, and there are #hashtags, which allow tweets from everyone to feed into the same stream on a Twitter search. Marketers do try to take advantage of the #hashtags by watching what gets popular and putting out unrelated tweets with their product or service link and the #hashtag, but again, this is considered a breach of twitter etiquette.

Facebook Marketing: Groups and Fan Pages are commonplace and count millions of members. Straight marketing or selling isn’t all that accepted unless it is the stated purpose of the group. Facebook Fan Pages for products are implicit marketing, though, and go a long way toward social media branding for better or worse for the brands and their products.

3. Messages

Twitter Marketing: This is the most prevalent way that tweeple are using to get their message out there- in twitter the message (tweet) can contain the marketing, or the marketing organically grow out of WHO ReTweets a message, depending on their Follower #s, or HOW MANY RT’s a message gets.

Facebook Marketing: Wall updates can serve as marketing messages, especially on Fan Pages that represent companies or products. Facebook also enables widgets, photos and videos, which can make any kind of marketing or promotion dynamic and even more effective, keeping people within the Page.
As each of the social networks evolve, so to will the marketing tactics, as well as what is acceptable. It will be interesting to see how much or what kind of marketing becomes acceptable in the future.

Facebook Marketing, Facebook Marketing vs. Twitter Marketing

Scott