Facebook Vs Twitter

Lesson 1 Case Study

Dibish Purkoti

International American University

BUS 590: BUSINESS STRATEGY

Professor Dr. Upendra Koirala

Professor Kathryn Tvorik

September 6, 2015

Rivalry between Social Networking Sites

Introduction

The case talks about the social networking site mainly concentrating on Face book and Twitter. It explains how face book has been able to capture the large audience then twitter and reaction of other micro blogging sites such as Twitter, My space, Liked in and Google to face book’s popularity. The case signifies that the pure rivalry exists between Face book and Twitter and not with Liked in and MySpace. The case also highlight on the fact that threat posses by Face book and Twitter is on the king of search engine site i.e., Google. Overall the case has mighty strong analysis that Face book and twitter are the major rivals presenting the fact both are the popular micro blogging sites use my billion of users.

 Major issues and Analysis of case

Major issues

        The case focuses on two major issues which are change in competitive environment and its impact on business strategy and next one is leadership and strategy.

        Case clearly explains that the competitiveness among Micro blogging sites i.e. Face book, Twitter, LinkedIn, My Space and Google and how these one or two sites stand out strong among other competitors by changing its strategy due to change in competitive environment. For example Face book is more popular than Twitter but twitter takes this popularity as his means of promotion because whenever someone’s twitter stream spill over onto his/her Face book newsfeed there is promotion of twitter through Face book and it also doesn’t take this as a threat rather twitter is taking as good promotional strategy. This clearly hints impacted change in strategy of Twitter due to change in competitive environment brought by Face book.

        On the other hand the case resembles the culture of micro blogging site as a medium for connecting people through regular update on their friends, relatives, families’ icon and acquaintances. The case also focuses on leadership which has been explained by the popularity of Face book and twitter over other micro blogging sites. Face book hold 150 million users compared to 6 million user of twitter. So, how do they stand out in crowd of micro blogging site the answer to this is their leadership strategy. These two social networking sites are providing various new and versatile features such as uploading and sharing pictures, videos and better privacy features creating own groups and followers. This also resembles the true sign of leadership.

Analysis of case

The following major factors have been analyzed in this case:

Facebook’s Main competitor

        All four sites i.e. face book, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace all different networking sites and they all aim to connect people. But, the real rivalry exists between Facebook and Twitter because both sites are very popular networking sites and have got large volume of users which is not even closed compared with the users of MySpace and LinkedIn. Another reason for the existence of rivalry between face book and twitter is similar features in both sites. Face book redesign its social networking site making two significant changes that was similar to the features of Twitter. One was public figures could communicate with fans and followers and another was one could get regular update about his/her friends act and thought. Commonly these features were already present in twitter. More importantly this rivalry has been created by the competitive environment.  Hence, focusing on popularity and common features of both networking sites the author felt that Face book’s real competitor is Twitter and not my space and LinkedIn.

Similarities and differences between Facebook and Twitter

        Similarities are both Face book and Twitter is social networking micro blogging site that helps to connect with friends, family, relatives, acquaintances etc. On both networking site one can communicate with any popular or normal faces by following one another. Similarly, on both blogs and individual can be updated on their friend’s thoughts and deeds.

        However, two networking sites posses’ differences too and differences are in Face book it’s easier to find people depending on the fact that Face book is used by 150 million users and it also provides more capacity for sharing videos and photos and someone’s post without the requirement of any other applications where as in Twitter it’s not that easy to find people. On the other note Twitter’s strength is on so called asynchronous nature meaning someone can choose to follow someone but he/she need not follow a person who follows him/her. Its strength also lies in its stellar search technology that allows one to track real time cover stations outside their network. Contrastingly, Face book lacks these features other differences are Facebook is available in 70 different languages, the unlimited post length, and option of playing games where as Twitter is available in 29 languages, 140 character post length and no options of playing games.  (Facebook vs Twitter, n.d).