Ah, the all important question.
Let me illustrate the reasons why by using a simple list of Pros and Cons:
Pros and Cons of Marketing on Facebook Vs Twitter
#1. Better Reach
Pro - You get your own business page or account on Facebook or Twitter for free.
Con - People have to actively Like your Facebook page to see your posts in their feed. On Twitter people can see your posts if they simply see it while looking for specific hashtags. They don't need to follow you to see it. Yes your Facebook page is free, but how does it reach people?
#2. Facebook Spam
Pro - On Facebook you can join various groups dedicated to specific topics.
Con - If you post advertising or spam in those groups they typically kick you out and block you.
#3. Twitter Advertising
Pro - You can post things promoting your products or services on Twitter and most people won't care.
Con - People can potentially unfollow you if they think your Twitter feed is too spammy, but depending on the topic they probably won't care. Eg. If you are a mystery novelist and post an ad for your newest mystery novel then that is really expected to be there and nobody is going to complain about it. Hot Tip - Avoid making your Twitter feed look spammy by using every 2nd tweet to interact with colleagues in the same field. Eg. If you're a mystery novelist, talk to other mystery novelists and interact with them.
#4. More Interactions
Pro - People can interact on both platforms fairly easily.
Con - If you ask someone to Like your Facebook page it is considered to be an annoyance. On Twitter however if you Follow someone many people will give you a Followback. If they don't give you the Followback you can later change your mind and Unfollow them.
#5. Building an Audience
Pro - On both platforms it is possible to just sit back and hope people find your Facebook Page or Twitter account interesting enough to Like or Follow it.
Con - Building an audience on Facebook however is problematic as the platform feels more invasive for people and they are less likely to Like (and actively Follow) your Facebook Page. On Twitter however the Follow/Followback system makes it very easy for people to build a growing audience as it follows a "Scratch My Back and I will Scratch Yours" approach.
Conclusions
Generally speaking Twitter is the easiest and most efficient solution for most companies and people running a business to promote their brand, products or services.
We may write another post similar to this one in the future. "5 More Reasons..." There are other ways Twitter beats Facebook in terms of marketing with respect to audience engagement, visibility to the news media, the ability to interact with celebrities, the use of memes, and much more.
BONUS TOPIC - WHAT ABOUT YOUTUBE?
YouTube does have potential to be better than Twitter for marketing purposes, but it also requires a lot more work and sophistication to create a really good YouTube channel. You need to have or develop some serious film-making skills to make a super popular YouTube channel, and building an audience on YouTube is extremely time consuming before you start to see any results.
Twitter in comparison is relatively low tech and doesn't require as much effort to make a popular Twitter feed. Thus for certain fields, like mystery novelists, Twitter actually makes more sense because it is geared towards writers as opposed to be film-making buffs.
