Twitter followers vs. Facebook fans
by Amy LaniganFriday, October 29th, 2010
In a head-to-head match between Twitter followers and Facebook fans, Forrester puts their money on Twitter followers. What’s at stake? The winner is deemed to hold the most value for brands.
The score according to the study? Twitter followers are more likely to recommend the brands they follow to friends (33% vs. 21%) and to buy from them (37% vs. 21%).
My interpretation: This is misapplied competitiveness. I’m the first to egg on arm wrestling, cage matches and ego over ability efforts but these channels serve different purposes. Consumer expectations and interactions vary accordingly. The channels can amplify and augment each other. I will be using this data to make the case for each channel independently.
That said, I’m going to cheer on Forrester’s winner with three of my favorite Twitter examples. Share these with your creative team to spark ideas. After all, both mediums need ideas to survive.
Uniqlo’s Lucky Counter: Every tweet means the price gets cheaper. For a set time in September Uniqlo posted a collection of clothing with the simple call to action – more tweets, lower prices. Flash sales meet GroupOn with a twist of simplicity.
World Cup Cheering: Yay open API. The Guardian in the UK created an interface to visually watch the tweets affiliated with each World Cup game. It brings new excitement to goals. Ghana vs. U.S. is my personal favorite.
Diane von Furstenberg’s Fall Collection: In a convergence of social and shopping Diane von Furstenberg integrated iconic lip rollovers on their imagery to let users Tweet or Like in context. (Click on “Shop the Catalog”)
Reminder: I’ve also posted this entry at ad:techNY. Let me know if you’ll be in town for the event next week!
January 5th, 2011 at 4:10 pm
I think Facebook fans are more valuable. Each Facebook Fan is a real person, Twitter accounts not necessarily so. Lots of Twitter accounts are automated. Lots of Twitter accounts are abandoned. Lots of Twitter accounts are just part of some spam or online marketing system.
Facebook fans are much more likely to be real people. Real people buy products not automated twitter bots.
If this was a fair comparison of say Facebook Fans with 100 Friends Versus Twitter Followers with 100 Followers of their own. Then it would be a tougher decision to make.
Twitter traffic is really heavily weighted to the top 10% or even the top 3% accounts that have the most followers. Where as Facebook, everyone uses it, sure some people use it a lot more, but a lot of traffic on the Facebook network is between peers. Facebook is much more of a peer based network, whereas Twitter from the language alone is one of guru and follower.
Twitter is good for identifying influencers, those with 1000s of followers. Facebook is much more personable, much more peer to peer. Facebook lends itself to more grassroots style campaigns. Whereas Twitter is much more rapid and viral. 140 characters even with a link is limiting when pitching or trying to spread a message, Facebook is better for branding and once created a well done Facebook page lasts longer.
Twitter is a distribution channel whereas Facebook is a destination in marketing. Twitter is like those planes towing a message through the sky, lots of people can see it, but the next day it is gone. Facebook is more like a mural or large billboard advertisement, it can stay in one place for years, it appears in the background of a million views. There is a lot more room for creativity in a billboard than in a line of text being towed across the sky.