A constant dilemma for marketers is which social networking site to choose, Facebook or MySpace? While I’ve mentioned before that both sites should be utilized to their fullest potential, you must ultimately decide which site to spend more time and/or money on.

MySpace and Facebook are actually pretty different. MySpace includes several sub-cultures while Facebook is primarily an education-based class. Although Facebook opened its doors to the public to allow anyone to join the website, there still remains a large socio-economic class division between the two sites because of the facebook website’s restrictive beginnings.

Facebook was primarily only available to higher education (universities and colleges). After it launched in 2004 as a site for Harvard University students, the site began adding university networks one-by-one. It later opened up to high-schools, and now includes a network for anyone. The restrictive beginnings pushed a safer, more school-oriented network image on the site. Many schools and military facilities have allowed access to the Facebook website while restricting access to MySpace.

For a marketer, choosing which site to invest more time and money into lies with the potential effectiveness of the message. One point to consider is clutter. It is clear and evident that the MySpace website offers more spam and clutter than the Facebook website. MySpace has always been more commercial and hence, spam oriented. This in itself allows for a possible higher penetration rate of messages when using the Facebook website. Another point to consider for a commercial product and/or service is trust. The more trusting a potential customer is towards your brand, the higher the possibility for a turnover. Once again, Facebook wins in this category. Due to the significantly less amount of commercial messages on the Facebook site throughout the content, users will be more trusting towards a commercial message than they would on the MySpace website. MySpace, however, does offer a larger user base,more tools, and more resources to market, making a marketing endeavor on Facebook a less traveled route. Both of the sites to apply limits to one’s actions, a topic discussed in full detail for the Myspace site in the MySpace Marketing book. If you’re considering advertising, Facebook is definitely the way to go due to their highly targeted ads and small-business conscious prices.

Considering what most users do on Facebook when compared to MySpace and what both sites offer to a user, most companies that use media (bands, filmmakers, etc.) will find the Facebook website more difficult to market on due to its limitations. Marketers that can think creatively could work around these limitations and find the Facebook website to be very effective, but otherwise, Facebook is best used by marketers that target a higher-educated audience, usually by a specific demographic area. One of the best uses for the Facebook website is event marketing for an 18-24 age demographic.