Are You Maximizing Both Facebook and Twitter?

Now that we feel like we are not as behind as we thought in our thinking and practices … let's GET ON IT!! Look at these numbers.

Larry Kim, founder and chief technology officer of WordStream Inc., authored "Twitter vs. Facebook Ad Showdown: Which Offers the Best Social Media Ad Platform?" based on his research into Twitter and Facebook ads to see just how each measures up. He compared them across four areas:

• Which platform reaches the largest audience?
• Do Facebook and Twitter ads drive real results?
• Which social network owns the mobile space?
• Which offers the most varied and effective ad types?

Here's the breakdown, but you really do need to read the full results. One thing is clear: Nonprofits should NOT choose between these platforms. Each has a very unique offering — Twitter is better in some areas than Facebook and vice versa. But, if we are not leveraging it for fundraising and building donor relationships in addition to driving awareness and connections across the community, we are missing a huge opportunity.

1. Facebook has greater reach counting both overall active users (1.15 billion active users to Twitter's 232 million) and also when looking at the daily posts.
2. When it comes to ad performance, it is a bit of a mixed bag. Twitter doesn't publish some of the same metrics as Facebook, which makes it difficult to compare. However, there are two really important findings in this article. When looking at metrics associated with "engagement" (defined as shares, likes, etc.), Twitter is outpacing Facebook pretty extensively. Also, Facebook has clearly outpaced Twitter when it comes to revenue that is associated with its network, but when you compare the growth year over year between the two, Twitter could easily close the gap. In other words, don't bet on one horse — just bet on them both as great advertising, fundraising and marketing opportunities.
3. Relative to mobile accessibility and value — let's be clear — we all know that the Facebook ads that show up in the right rail don't even show up on your mobile device. So Twitter is naturally in a better position on mobile when it comes to this area. But Facebook offers some various products that enable ads within stream. So while Facebook might be behind Twitter in this area, it can quickly catch up with its network size.
4. And — let's face it — the ad formats are a bit of a toss-up. Facebook has a lot but wants to scale back. Twitter has just a few and wants to grow the options.