A while back I came across a great quote: "Facebook is where you find the people you know, Twitter is where you find the people you should know." To me this really says it all, and I'll try to explain why ...
I'll use myself as an example to start with. Among all my friends on Facebook there is only one person I've never met in real life. Among all my followers and the people I follow on Twitter, there are only two I know in real life. Most of my friends on Facebook are relatives, childhood friends or people I know through work. Very few of them can be of any great help in my professional career, but I value them all very much as friends. Don't get me wrong, some of them could be very helpful to me in a professional capacity.
On Twitter, however, the whole point is really to follow people you find interesting or have the same interests as you. As my interests for example revolves around subjects like the internet, social media, photography and such, I tend to follow people tweeting about those things. Similarly people with the same kind of interests tend to follow me, as I also tweet about these things.
So what's the conclusion then? Well, to put it in a very simple way ... Facebook is more like a playground where you relax and have fun with your friends, while Twitter is where you connect with others in a more professional manner. This doesn't mean that Facebook is useless for business. It's not! It's a great marketing channel, a place to reach out to your consumers, as well as potential consumers. With half a billion users it is perhaps one of the key places to market your goods and services, as well as conduct your customer service. However, it's not a place where you find new business partners.
Twitter, being more of a one way communication tool, is off course also a great place for your marketing efforts, but you won't find the same level of dialog with your customers. However, Twitter is great for finding like minded people, people with the same interests, people in the same line of business. Because of the relative ease of Twitter to connect with other people, you're more likely to reach out to a potential business partner than you would be on Facebook.
I would very much like to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think I'm right, or do you have another opinion about this? Let me know.