Facebook vs. Twitter: Which is Better for Marketing?

The Facebook vs. Twitter debate --and which one is a more effective marketing tool -- continues as another conflicting headline makes its way into the social media ecosphere.
Despite daily coverage of the social network leaders, questions like this one found on Quora, "Are Facebook Likes social proof of anything other than mass opinion," are not uncommon. Though business owners may possess more savvy, the tangible benefits of social media are often difficult to assess, particularly when there is lack of context for a given statistic or success story.
Consider these two headlines: "Facebook entitled 'Likes' more profitable than tweets" via Mashable on CNN and "When It Comes To Marketing, Twitter Destroys Facebook," by Business Insider.
In the Mashable article, the social media centric event company Eventbrite is profiled whereas the company claims that "an average tweet about an event drove 80 cents in ticket sales during the past six months, whereas an average Facebook Like drove $1.34."
Using in-house custom analytics, Eventbrite provided the following social media marketing data on its blog last October: "Facebook equals $2.52, a share on Twitter equals $0.43, a share on LinkedIn equals $0.90, and a share through our "email friends" application equals $2.34."
Given the inherent social nature of events and that people want to attach their name to one as well as encourage participation, Facebook makes good sense. Twitter is useful as well but is less integrated and socially focused, among other limitations it possesses.
Conversely, a December 2010 Business Insider article broadens their Facebook vs. Twitter analysis to include aggregate data from a social media referral platform SocialTwist. Here the company found that "after analyzing more than one million links on both platforms, researchers found that Facebook's shared links average only 3 clicks, while Twitter's embedded tweets generate 19."
SocialTwist is geared toward small business, affiliate marketers and bloggers in particular. As such closer social ties may be less relevant than exposure in generating interest.

Source: news.yahoo.com