I am sure there will be some reaction to this post but having given it some thought – it seems to me that Twitter may actually have more of a viable business than Facebook. Yes hard to believe, but play along for a bit and read below.
One of the essentials to running a successful business is sustainability in product or service that you offer. Along with this, another key thing to remember when it comes to sustainability is the platform on which you advertise your brand or spread information about it. With the growth of social media, there are many platforms to use for these purposes, with the two biggest being Facebook and Twitter. However, of these two, which one offers the most sustainable platform for your business?
When comparing these two social media giants, it is important to look at their current performance in the market, this can now be achieved since Twitter has decided to go public and Facebook has been public for a little while now. As of November 2013, Facebook has witnessed a decrease in active users, with many teens and a portion of the Millennial generation choosing to use a different platform for their social media needs. Meanwhile, since Twitter has gone public they are witnessing a steady growth in users and overall their IPO offering went a lot smoother than that of Facebook. To me, this is not only an indication of Facebook’s continuing decline overall, but also of Twitter’s ability to learn from the mistakes of Facebook and create a greater degree of confidence for businesses.
It is also imperative to take into account both companies recent acquisition of smaller social media platforms. Facebook decided to buy out Instagram, an image and video focused social media platform, for a cool $1 billion dollars. Meanwhile, Twitter has bought out Vine for $30 million, with Vine being a social media platform mainly focused on the sharing of videos. When taking into account the sustainability of both of these companies, their acquisition of these two smaller platforms says a lot. When Facebook decided to buy out Instagram, they should have probably thought out the decision a little bit more before dropping one billion dollars. While Instagram does allow users to do a little bit more than Vine, the main thing to consider is whether or not Facebook shot itself in the foot with this purchase. The reason that I say this is because the rapid growth of Instagram may likely take away from the number of users who access their Facebook accounts regularly. Though this will sustain Facebook as a company, it is likely to cause harm for it as its own individual platform. On the other hand, when Twitter decided to purchase Vine it did not take very long for those in advertising to realize its potential as a platform. This is good news for Twitter since videos from Vine are capable of being embedded, it is more of a compliment to the services that Twitter already offers.
When it comes to their purpose, Facebook is somewhere in-between a blog or a company site and Twitter is a microblogging platform. One has to ask when considering the status of these two companies as to where they fall in the larger picture of social media platforms, could social media still thrive without the middle man? As of right now, Facebook is more or less functioning as the “middle-man” social media platform. What purpose could it continue to serve with the growing popularity of blogs and Twitter? The only viable purpose that comes right to mind would be Facebook as more of a directory, think of it like a phone book or the Yellow Pages on steroids. That would give Facebook a degree of sustainability, but not really a lot of usability for businesses, advertising, or individual needs. However, Twitter is indeed a great resource for creating small bits of information, news, and advertising possibilities, all of which you could directly link to your company website. When you have a means to directly take people from the microcosm of a blog offered by Twitter it becomes apparent that the need for Facebook becomes much smaller.
In conclusion, when you are considering the most sustainable social media platform for your business Twitter wins hands down. Not only did they learn from Facebook’s lessons when they went public, but they also made the smart business decision to buy a company that complemented their existing services making them much more sustainable than Facebook.
One interesting fact when looking at Facebook is how SnapChat recently declined Facebook’s offer to buy them out. SnapChat’s denial of the offer could have been for many reasons, however, when you look at Facebook vs. Twitter and their stats/ sustainability SnapChat very well may simply be waiting for their value to go up and approached with an offer from Twitter. Twitter is likely to pay them much more for their company but also be a lot more capable of carrying on the purpose of SnapChat than what Facebook may be capable of. If this is the case, which it very well may be when looking at the information for Twitter and Facebook, then it is likely a very wise business move to invest more time in Twitter as it is the overall winner when it comes to continued sustainability and features.
What are your thoughts?
