Even though both sites operate kind of similarly, which one do you or would you rather invest your time in?

I really think a lot of this will come with what you are more comfortable with..for me, personally, I would have to lean towards facebook because it I understand it more. I have heard quite a bit about twitter but to be a 100% honest, still dont really understand the concept behind it...perhaps my learning curve isnt where it should be? lol who knows.

I feel the same way EricRE. I like facebook, although I haven't used this as a tool for my business, yet, I find it invaluable for families and friends to stay connected.

I am grateful enough to be part of an amazing company and they use the internet in new and creative ways. It’s a great time to have a computer and be on line!!

I prefer Twitter over any other SM site. However, from a time investment point of view, FB is where it's at. With over 500M users and aggressive strategies/potential to geo-market, Facebook wins hands down.

I personally like Twitter. Facebook - not so much.

Facebook is an interesting "fad" to many of us who have been around the WWW since the beginning because it is a closed system like AOL or Compuserve is/were. Closed systems were essentially replaced by the World Wide Web so Facebook's current popularity is a peculiarity.

I am in the camp that believes it may not have staying power beyond another few years and with that, I am not wasting a whole lot of my time there

I think facebook is far more productive than twitter myself. And, I think twitter and facebook are both fads. Myspace was the saddest fad of them all lol. I didn't like myspace when there WAS no other option.

I'm more of a Facebook person - it has more of a community feel to it than Twitter and you're not limited to 140 characters. I've had more success with the fan pages and groups on Facebook, but there are people out there who have tremendous success with Twitter. It really depends on your preferences and what works for you.

I have gotten about 10,000 in commission this year thanks to Facebook. A few leads from Twitter but I dont' tweet much. I forget about twitter and get annoyed when I am on there and am met with the Fail Whale. LOL

When I was actively selling real estate one third of my sales would come from my website, one third from keeping in touch with past clients (repeat business and referrals) and one third from ad calls, sign calls, farming activity and the like.

I see Facebook as being complimentary to other activities that generate business from all three of these areas - and see the value. It is just one more tool.

I like Twitter because it is actually part of the web - meaning if someone sends out a tweet - it can be found on Google within minutes (under "updates" but sometimes in the general serps). That has value for promotional purposes but also for community.

Whatever you write in Facebook can probably be automatically sent out over Twitter at the same time. Whatever you write in your blog can as well. The forum posts here are automatically tweeted too. So, Twitter does not have to be a time consuming activity to be of value - it can all happen automatically. (unlike Facebook?)

To see how some are using Twitter as community - see http://stocktwits.com/ - a good example of the value of the immediacy of the information Twitter provides - especially if you are in investor.

Good point about Twitter. All of my blog posts go to Twitter. I just never *engage* people via twitter - I've not really considered the google juice part of it too much. I just rarely if ever see a tweet come up as a search result....

That's a good question. Personally, I like working though Facebook better. I feel there are more communication possibilities and it opens more options to tell people about my business.

My personal thought, I would think that you would be able to turn more business and get a better responce via Facebook.

I think both sites are equally worth your time and serve different purposes.

LLVR I can tell you from an internet marketing point of view neither is a fad. Facebook is growing daily and becoming more powerful than Google. They are working on thier own search engine and I believe they are a serious threat to google. Twitter is also growing and changing and also has its own search. These sites may have began as social networking but are developing into search engines, places to advertize, brand your business, and make money. They are not going away but rather growing with leaps and bounds. If you are not on . . .you should be.

Perky Realtor you are on the right track. All blog posts going to both is exactly what every business person should do!

Facebook is great to connect with people, offer great info and brand yourself. You can network with buyers and sellers as well as with other Real Estate Agents and investors. I know a lot of people who find other Real Estate agents with buys who fit thier listings and vise versa.

Twitter allows you to post much more often and has a much more live feed. You can promote yourself, listings, and business at a completely different level on twitter.

How do you get followers on twitter? I have a link under my email signature on my business email, but that's it so far.

Just wrote a contract today from someone that I don't know due to a periodic post I put in my status about real estate. Well of course I've gotten to know them a good bit over the last few weeks but until then they were just added because they were a friend of a friend. I come to find out that she's best friends with a friend I went to school with. This is also why I will max out my friends eventually. People I don't even know respond to my posts. Twitter to me is way weaker. Half of what I see is a "tiny url" that someone is putting up to try to get you to a blog. It's not a rich enough or flexible enough environment for me. I still use it though. I do like the more global reach of Twitter though

I get a lot of good links on Twitter. Problem is sometimes I get so overwhelemed with nine gazillion tabs open...then the system freezes and I have to reboot or something...and lose them all...rofl

^^^Merkaba, that's GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you get overloaded w/ friends then you'll have to dump some of the "non productive" ones - the ones that never interact with ANYONE on their wall and just post game statuses, etc.

What IS the friends limit for a personal account anyway? I have over 600. I'd say half of them are just random agents from ActiveRain or some of their friends....

Facebook's limit for a personal account is 5,000. If you create a "page" then there is no limit (I think).

I had a similiar problem, then I got a new computer and my issues went away.

I agree that sometimes with twitter there can be too much happening at once and it's hard to know what tab should be the most important ones.

I believe that the trick is to NEVER ask yourself A or B!

Why not use BOTH facebook and twitter?

There are free tools out there like DLVR.it that will sync up your RSS feed with your Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIN accounts so all you have to do is post to your blog and all these sites are updated.

Then you only have to check for mentions or replies and respond. And you will be all set and you will also have put your Social Media Marketing on Auto-pilot!

Hope this helps...

Kevin

"Amended Standard of Practice 12-5 to let members who are advertising their service or a listing in certain electronic communications (micro-blogging on Twitter, for example) to disclose the name of their broker and other required information through a link rather than in the electronic communication itself, because such formats don’t allow enough space for making the disclosures."

Now that some time has passed, I decided to give some more feedback about facebook vs. twitter. Yesterday I was checking out my statpress on the wordpress dashboard and noticed that Twitter was the #2 referrer to my website. I was very surprised. I knew people were clicking on the links I posted, but never thought it would be the #2 referrer. However, I have gotten several leads from my facebook recently. Being active and posting daily has really paid off. I think both are very worth while for different reasons.

I use both. But twitter seems to get a faster return for me. I already have connected with two people from there who are moving to the area in the future and have started following me. They're now in my database of "potentials" and I have their info. So basically, half the battle has been won! I just need to REALLY lock them down at the time they say they'll be ready, until then, there is solid engagement with those two leads since I tweet and communicate everyday and anytime I post a new blog post, I have it feed into my timeline. So many ways to engage...we just did a webinar on it last night!

and it should take no more than two clicks. For example, clicking on my bio (click 1) and then clicking the link to my blog where you see my broker info (click 2)...

For the benefit of future readers - this is no longer the case. Facebook is no longer a "closed" system due to changes made by Facebook and changes made by search engines. Results from Facebook Fan Pages now appear in Google just like any website would. In addition, Facebook "likes" and commentary are used in Google's ranking algorithm.

In addition to the relationship building benefits of participating in Facebook there are now search engine benefits!

You need to be participating in Facebook. It is a huge part of the internet that is not going away. Participation is required if you want to increase your business from the internet.

Social Media is becoming increasingly important, not only to connect/establish relationships, but now are also weighted in SE's algorithms. I wrote a blog post about it: http://blog.homegain.com/blogging-and-social-networking/is-social-media-the-next-step-in-seo/

Social media cannot be ignored or avoided - hopefully that's obvious when you see the amount of users on FB, FB's traffic, Twitter users, etc. Social media also goes hand in hand with SEO, not in competition. SEOmoz has a good discussion on it: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/comparing-seo-social-media-as-marketing-channels .

I prefer Twitter more than Facebook. For me, it's easier to use and maintain. I also get a lot of link backs from Twitter. However, I still think that if you want to promote something, it's better to use both.

The ones that yeild the best results as far as SEO and also give you the means to connect with many all at once are the ones that are worth your time

youtube
twitter
posterous
facebook
wordpress

I like both FB and Twitter, but facebook makes a lot more sense than twitter and you can add your friends, see what they've been up to lately etc. But Twitter is also a good site for business :)

There is a way to link your twitter and your facebook account together, so that the posts on twitter can end up on your facebook as well. I think more people use facebook, so if you had to choose one that would be more useful. But, if you used both it could help you marketing grow.

It is probably not a good ideal to link all your social media sites into a system that tweets it all out. Begins to look so much like boiler plate spam. Especially if the buyers are checking our your FB site, then popping over to linkedin and see all the same stuff. It is probably best not to.