I think most Gen Y doesn't like to connect with any company on Facebook or Twitter unless that relationship offers them something of value: pertinent info, discounts, exclusive offers, etc.

In my experience of using both platforms to help companies connect with their audiences the results are varied. If the company is small and offers services then Twitter is the way to go. If the company is large and product focused Facebook often yields more sales. These are the only hard and fast rules I have noticed. The groups in between have to take the proper time to do market research and see where exactly their customers are. A Pew research study from November placed the number of Americans updating a social status on a regular basis (once/day) was about 20%. This is for the general population. This number is still too low for a lot of companies.

I have to disagree with your statement about Twitter being the way to go for businesses looking to hit the <24 demo. There is no statistical proof of the younger demo flocking to Twitter. The top graph is a reflection of the shift from early adopters to early majority in the product life cycle of twitter. In fact, qualitative research from teachers and 20 somethings shows that for those <20 Twitter is considered “lame”. Mostly because they “don't get it”.

“Facebook's recent changes to using the News Feed and Live Feed also does nothing to help its case for being an easy way to reach its users.” -Jackie

In fact this is to the contrary as Facebook pushes Page stories from large groups to the top of your “News Feed”. Forcing more eyeballs onto stories from Pages by defaulting to News Feed also helps. This is something I have noticed from managing multiple Facebook Fan Pages.

I love the info presented and I wanted to add to the conversation. I think authentic connections are what will benefit businesses using these services. Making one customer on Twitter will definitely be better for business in the long run than making one customer on Facebook.

Again Thanks for a great post.

Blogging makes easy with Twitter. Simple and to-the-point. The structure and design of Twitter just shows it statement. People are more and more inclined to broadcast their life and livelihoods online and they found just the right place. And where there is a lot of people, that is the perfect way to build a business. Twitter is really the perfect marketing tool today.

As for me, I find Facebook more appealing than Twitter. For one, you could use the chat feature to directly message your friends much like using a Yahoo Messenger. Also, Facebook offers a lot of games and application to entertain its users.

In my experience my friends don’t keep their ages a secret either, but only if you’re a real person. If you are just a web site, that can be a different thing. But I agree that it’s hard to speak for a generation as a whole, or speak of identifiable generations. A lot of times I feel that this generations thing is more of a stereotype than reality.

That's interesting. I am in Gen Y but I don't know anyone who had a Friendster account, so I can't speak to your experience at all.

It's hard to speak for a generation as a whole but in my experience, entering a real DOB is not an issue for myself or my friends. I guess some applications can access it, but then what? It's not like it's my SSN or my age is a secret. Maybe there's a good reason to keep that a secret, but I haven't found it yet.