Why Facebook Marketing Is More Important Than Twitter Marketing

Google, Facebook and Twitter are the overall winners of the Web 2.0 wars and (barring acquisition) will be the players we still talk about several years from now. We will never speak of Twitter or Facebook in the same breath as MySpace or Friendster: both have done a far better job of extending their presence beyond their respective destination sites; they are embedding themselves in the daily surfing habits of users.

Who will the long-term winner in Social Media be? I think that case has been effectively decided. It struck me as a put-a-fork-in-it done-deal when I read this TechCrunch article about the ShareThis/Starcom/Rubinson research, in which it was found that:

When it comes to sharing on the Web, Facebook rules. Facebook accounts for 38 percent of all sharing referral traffic. Email and Twitter tied for second with 17 percent each. Those are the percentages that actually clicked through. The raw sharing numbers are higher. Facebook makes up 56 percent of all shared content (up from 45 percent in August, 2010), followed by email at 15 percent (down from 34 percent) and Twitter at 8 percent (down from 12 percent).

Forget about the click-through’s — that’s a function of the stuff you decide to share, and who you share it with: that’s a measure of users’ curation skills.

No, what wows me is the “raw sharing numbers.” Sharing content is the connective tissue of Social Media … and Facebook owns 56 percent of that traffic?! And that figure is up 25% in less than a year?!

Put a fork in it, folks. Facebook wins.

What does this mean for marcomm pros? Time to get smarter and smarter on Facebook Marketing. Don’t ignore Twitter (I still have high hopes for the Li’l Blue Birdy!) but consider re-orienting the majority of your efforts towards optimizing for Facebook. It’s only going to become more important.

Continue reading here: If I Had A Million Dollars

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