Last week, I participated on a panel at the Entrepreneurial Imperative 2010, a conference here in Knoxville, TN, focused on entrepreneurship in Tennessee.  The panel was titled “Social Networking - Untangling the Web of Cutting Edge Technology.”  My topic was marketing for startups. Specifically, I spoke about the following:

Quoting ExactTarget.com, an article in eMarketer.com last month said that focusing on developing a user base on Twitter is more valuable than Facebook.  While both are important tools Twitter users who followed a brand were “more than twice as likely” to purchase the brand after becoming a social media follower than Facebook users who “liked” a brand

My response to this statement is that we must go to where the audience is, and the numbers show they are on Facebook.   Of course it’s more complicated than that, and below are two points to support why I vote Facebook.

1) For most businesses, a larger percentage of their customers will be on Facebook.

Facebook has millions more people than Twitter, and I’d argue it has become a utility, like e-mail that compels people to check it at least once every other day. Twitter’s benefit is still hard to understand for many people which means that businesses will be spending time educating their customers about Twitter.

2) Facebook offers a more interactive experience.

Twitter is reminiscent of text messaging, while Facebook allows for the building of a deeper experience, albeit behind their walls, where your customers can easily engage with you.  This spectrum of experience runs from A-Z on Facebook; you can build out custom applications or you can start with the default page.  Either option has greater opportunity for interaction with your customers than Twitter.

Lastly, I can’t dispute the stats from eMarketer. Twitter users have a special affinity for brands that are also on Twitter, and they reward these brands in the marketplace.  However, given the choice of putting time into one platform or the other, I’d start with Facebook. The audience is already there. With the appropriate strategy and approach, you can interact with them with full engagement on a platform they already love and trust.