Is Facebook the Better Social Media Platform than Twitter?

A lot of people will argue that they like Facebook better than they like Twitter. When you look at the two, side by side, it’s quite easy to see why people prefer Facebook. There are a lot more features on Face Book, compared to Twitter, but that is not all. Think about how many users are online. There are over 122 million Facebook users TODAY. There is no doubt that Twitter is all the rage now, but will it stand the test of time? Perhaps Twitter’s biggest downfall is that it is VERY challenging to express yourself in only 147 characters, and remaining professional at the same time. It can be hard NOT to resort to shorthand when posting ‘tweets’. Whereas Facebook allows you to get your messages across, without resorting to confusing ‘TXT’ speak.

Want to Make Face Book Your Social Media Platform of Choice? Follow these Rules…

If you have decided that you want to make Facebook your main platform of social media and reach over 120 million users, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind. Here are some tips to help make your business’ Face Book experience the BEST it can be and how to make your business stand out from the crowd and still remain professional at the same time.

First, the Facebook TOS (terms of service) allow one account per person. It’s important to understand that a business is not allowed to have account on face book. Are you wondering how on Earth a business can be on Facebook then? Well, there are Facebook accounts and Face Book pages. These Facebook pages are for businesses. To put it simply, you would invite your friends to come to your personal Face Book account, and invite your clients and business prospects to your business page.

The best thing about Face Book pages is that your business is allowed to have as many as it needs (or wants). Let’s say you have two areas of business – a product and a service. You could create two separate pages, one for each. An example of a large corporation is Apple. Apple could have a Face Book page for their Macs and another page for their i-phones and i-pods. So what’s next? What else is important to bear in mind when it comes to utilising Face Book as your main social media platform?

Well, after you have done all of that hard work getting people to your Facebook page, don’t bombard them with status updates and scare them away! Constant Facebook status updates are rather annoying and you will find that your list of fans will soon diminish. Other than it being REALLY frustrating, posting endless updates will quite possibly discredit your reputation and give off a kind of ‘try hard’ impression. It has been said that at MOST, you should be updating your Face Book status ten times a day. Personally, I think that is still a bit much.

Other Helpful Tips to Ensure Your Business gets the MOST out of Face Book

You need to separate your personal life from your business. If you need to discuss personal matters with someone, use the message service or email, rather than the public wall that ANYONE can read.

When making a post you should ALWAYS post the finest quality content for your business’ page(s). Further to this, you should be making regular posts to keep active and utilise your posts because Google and other search engines actually index social media posts. So, be sure to ALWAYS use relevant keywords in your posts. Do your own bit of SEO, for free!

You should do your best to make your business’ Facebook page clean and simple. Don’t support anything that is controversial or join any of those silly groups. Try to keep it as professional and simple as you can. Too much clutter and randomness (which is normal for a lot of personal Face Book pages) will usually hinder your business getting its message across to the public.

Just think of how much more popular you will be with some people. There are a LOT of Face Book addicts out there that will LOVE that you are on Facebook. You will probably increase the number of people coming to your website if they like what they see on Facebook.

So, is Facebook the ONLY Social Media Platform to Use?

No, there are many other social media platforms that should be utilised. Obviously there are benefits of using Facebook, Twitter and Linked In together. Linked In is a business platform and the sooner you are utilising what it has to offer and remaining active (by participating in groups and in answering people’s questions), you can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your subject matter. Linked In is great for getting people to leave you testimonials and that is a great booster to you career!

In summary, to be truly effective in social media you need to be on every possible platform Face Book, Linked in, Twitter and MySpace! and we should not forget content bookmarking and digg…