Social media is now becoming a hot marketing tool. Twitter and Facebook are the most sought platforms owing to their wide subscribership. Apart from free publicity through posts and updates shared on these sites, these social sites also offer an option of putting advertisements or Ads. However, it is often a difficult choice to make between the two, especially when your marketing budget is limited. So which is the best among the two? Let’s explore these two platforms under different aspects.

Coverage

Coverage as reflected by the number of active users is an important aspect to consider while evaluating the benefits of placing an ad on a social platform. Simply put, higher the users, better is the exposure!

So what are the numbers? According survey websites following are the results!

• Twitter – 288 million active users (monthly)
• Facebook – 3 billion active users (monthly)

User Engagement

In a social media site, not only the number of members who are active is important, but how many of them engage in conversations is also crucial. An ad would be more effective when more people like it and share with their friends. This sets a chain reaction of publicity.

So on an average, according to several websites, Twitter records about 350,000 interactions per minute (in form of retweets for example), while Facebook records about 382,000 thousand likes per minute!

It has also been said that Facebook drives about 20% higher traffic to websites than Twitter!

Ease of Usage

Most of us prefer to use a platform which is easy to execute. Both Twitter and Facebook have online tools to set up an ad campaign.

Facebook has a rather complex system, which is especially because of its advanced targeting options. Comparatively, Twitter ads are easy to set up. However, the targeting options of Facebook are so effective that it can ensure it reaches the right audience at the right time. For eg., on Facebook, one can choose the age group at which the ads are to be targeted, and also further channelize them based on their gender, likes (in terms of food, movies, books, etc), region and even the time at which they are most active!

Who’s The Best?

Given an option, both platforms need to be used to get maximum exposure and both have their benefits. However, if you have a limited budget and you need the best possible option for now, go with Facebook! Although a bit cumbersome to set up an ad for the first time, it is worth the time and money spent. Start with a small budget, try the options and then when you have learnt the tricks of the trade, go big!