[6thSigma]

Twitter's advantage is that companies already use the platform to broadcast things to followers. So "ads" are already inherently in the platform - but now they can pay money to broadcast those tweets to more than just people who follow them.

And it can be more targeted than something like Facebook because they can say "Show this ad to people who follow our competitors" (I have no idea if you can actually do this in the platform now, but I'm sure they are working on something like it). That is very powerful because those people presumably are in your market and since they follow your competitors they are welcome to seeing ad-like tweets in their timeline.

[the_watcher]

>> And it can be more targeted than something like Facebook because they can say "Show this ad to people who follow our competitors".

You can do exactly this on Facebook, and it is very effective. Twitter's ad platform is better built than Facebook, but targeting will likely always be better on Facebook because it simply has more information about users.

[6thSigma]

I would think Twitter would be able to better target ads to me based on who I follow and what I tweet. Based on the ads I've seen so far on Twitter, it seems like it's in its infancy. I don't "like" any businesses on FB because I only use FB for friends and family.

Also FB ads are so much more invasive. I am not the average user though.

[the_watcher]

Twitter ads only appear in your stream, which I at least keep very curated, since the volume people tweet can destroy it's value. I find Twitter ads much more intrusive. Also, go back through your likes (if you haven't). You'll be surprised how often stuff gets in there that you don't remember liking (you may be an exception and keep it very curated, most people do not). Facebook can target you based on any one of the pieces of information on your profile, which includes everything Twitter tracks, plus the additional fields. This doesn't even go into Partner Categories, which you cannot avoid being a part of, Custom Audiences from companies whose email list you are on, and Lookalike Audiences where you show up as similar to customers on another companies email lists (none of which Twitter offers). While you can target users on Twitter based on what they tweet about, something I don't believe Facebook offers yet, that is something that I would be shocked if Facebook doesn't roll it out. From my experience using both platforms, the one major targeting option Twitter offers that I'm not sure if Facebook is near being able to offer is sentiment analysis (you can target based on positive or negative feelings on a given topic). The only reason I lean towards assuming Twitter is ahead here is I know they have put resources into sentiment analysis.

Overall, the amount of targeting you can do on Facebook dwarfs Twitter, regardless of how atypical a user you are.