Q: Which site influences skiers’ decisions the most: Facebook or Twitter?

When we first released our social survey data a few months ago, we knew this was a question we wanted to answer. All social media sites are not created equal and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. So, when we put Twitter and Facebook head-to-head, which would skiers say was most influential on their decisions?

The Theory: Visual vs One-on-One
Our best guess was that Facebook would be more influential simply because of the visual nature of the content that is shared. More detailed information is placed in front of the fan without the fan ever clicking on a link to view a photo, blog post, or video. Twitter excels at one-to-one communications, but we guessed that wouldn’t show up on a large scale in the results.

So, did our theory hold true?

The Setup: Social Questions
The survey asked a few, dependent, successive questions. Are you active on social media? Do you follow this resort on Twitter, Facebook, or both? Did social media influence your decision to visit this resort? How influential was it?

For this analysis we simply segmented the results by who was ONLY following the resort on Twitter or ONLY following the resort on Facebook to see how influential social media had been on each group.

The Results: Close, but A Clear Winner
The first thing we’ll look at is if social media was influential at all on either group. On this metric, Facebook and Twitter were identical. For Facebook, 16.25% said social media influenced their decision, for Twitter, that number was 16.36%.

The difference was found when the “how influential was social media” ratings were compared. This time, Facebook had an average score of 7.82 while the Twitter average was only 6.88.

So, the likelihood of a fan or follower being influenced at all is identical between the platforms, but for those whose behavior is being impacted, Facebook is 14% more influential on vacation decisions than Twitter.

Does this matter?
More than anything, this simply confirms the fact that some social networks are better for some things than others. Facebook is great for sharing visual content and creating a large discussion and feedback system around it. Twitter is awesome at one-on-one conversations and connecting with individuals and sharing quick bits of news, photos, etc.

Remembering the strengths of the social sites you use, working within those abilities, and recognizing where influence is strongest can help shape your social strategy going forward.

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