Omikron Media

Facebook Vs. Twitter: The Social Media War

In the constant struggle to gain every free minute of your time, the Internet’s social media networks are working overtime and spending millions to make sure you’re able to connect and socialize with others – without having to do pesky things; like leave your house.

But where will your social networking be most effective?

To figure this out, we’ve decided to step into the front lines of this war and research who reigns supreme in the social network arena. So welcome to our first post, of which many will follow, comparing the various social networks and figuring out where your time is best spent goofing off marketing.

So by now you’ve heard the news, Twitter is the about to take over your search results – although it’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. Shortly after Microsoft announced their agreement to make Tweets searchable at the Web 2.0 conference, Google fired back with their own announcement via the Google Blog. Although both big announcements, Bing definitely takes the spotlight; seeing as their Twitter search is already in public beta – while Google has simply made an announcement of things to come; and a very vague one at that – giving no mention of a release date and no explanation on how it will work.

Twitter, as I see it now, is not on the fore-front of social networking. I believe it’s used more often than not by people who have nothing better to do than tell me what type of sandwich they had for lunch or reposting another version of the now tired Kayne West speech; we get it already. As a news source, it’s OK, but I still prefer RSS feeds than sifting through useless Tweets about Google Wave invites and Michael Jackson.

When the deal between Twitter and Facebook went sour it was clear that the battle lines had been drawn. It’s David Vs. Goliath, only with Twitter as the small man in the loincloth. Facebook is pretty much an evolved version of Twitter, but much more intuitive and easier to communicate with – excluding the incessant FarmVille and Mafia War updates; We’re happy you rescued a sheep, but do you really think we care? Sure TwitPic and Twiddeo is a step in the right direction, but my Facebook can do updates, links, pictures, and video all on the same page, with real-time updates, and a convenient comment system. Not to mention the apps, groups and demographically targeted advertising.

The one area where I will give Twitter the advantage is in mainstream media integration. For some reason, TV has embraced the Twitter revolution like no others. Almost every talk show has some form of Twitter communication with its audience; which I think we’ve seen now, is more of an annoyance than anything else. Hell, even my Mom knows what Twitter is; thanks a lot The View. Although I’ll give credit to Sports Nation, they have an interesting show there, and it does benefit from its Tweeting audience.

Now it would be pretty careless of me to make these claims without some sort of data to back them up. And that’s exactly what I’ve provided below:

Estimations provided by Quantcast

It’s pretty clear that the 99.6 million Facebook visits (based on a 6 month timeframe) trumps the 27 million Twitter views – there’s no denying that’s an incredibly large margin. So in sheer numbers of visits, Facebook remains dominant; very dominant.

The demographics for both sites are fairly similar, the big difference being seen in the age of the user. Facebook’s most common visitor is between the age of 13-34, with a large drop off in the 35-49 demographic, and a very small minority of age 50+ visitors. Twitter’s most common visitor is between the ages of 18-49; seeing a large drop in the 13-17 demographic and a steady level of age 50+ visitors. For social networking means, it’s clear that while close, Twitter has much more of a desired demographic for business purposes. When it comes to social networking, I’ll take the 35-49 demographic much more-so than the 13-17. In this regard, Twitter has the upper hand.

Another interesting statistic in the demographics lies in the average income. While they are extremely close, Facebook does attract more affluent users than Twitter, but seeing as how these numbers are estimates and not hard data, the margin of error would pretty much make this a neutral area.

Now here’s where things get interesting. With 12% of its visitors (and 66% of traffic) classified as “Addicts” (30 or more visits a month) and 54% of visits (making up 31% of traffic) by “Regulars” (at least once a month but less than 30), Facebook clearly sees more quality traffic – only 34% of their visitors are classified as “Passers-By” (visit once a month), and they only account for 3% of their monthly traffic; that’s a number you don’t see very often. Compared to Twitter’s numbers (72% of visitors classified as “Passers-By” and only 1% “Addicts”) it is clear which user base is more loyal and more likely to interact with one-another; Facebook. I would argue that Traffic Quality is the biggest deterrent in this battle, and clearly Facebook has come out on top.

One more thing to take into account between these two social media juggernauts is that Twitter is very light (and I mean literally non-existent) with paid advertising, while Facebook has a robust, demographically driven PPC program which allows for ads in apps and profile pages. But do Facebook ads really bother you? It’s definitely not the same old “shoot the monkey” ads we’ve seen on Myspace, they’re mostly unobtrusive and sometimes convenient (I will profess, I have clicked on more than one). While Twitter might not have a PPC advertisement program (yet), they sure do have their share of spam Tweets; which are both obtrusive and annoying. I guess in this field, it’s up to you, but despite the ads, we’re giving this one to Facebook.

The winner of this round: Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Twitter. The fact is, I just don’t use it very often. Most of my social media time is spent on Facebook and Digg, which is still used by most as a distraction rather than a networking or marketing tool. There are plenty of people that have used Twitter and Facebook to build successful social and business networks, but LinkedIn seems to be where most of the serious business and networking is being conducted.

Sarah Palin is Going Rogue all over Facebook

I’m interested to hear your comments. Am I just a conspiracy theorist, or is there really a war going on?

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