Facebook’s well publicised initial public offering (IPO) transition has had it is ups and downs. But as Twitter files for IPO, will they be able to avoid the mistakes Facebook have made?

Here Shelley Martin of PR agency, Neo PR discusses what the move means for Twitter's biggest competitor, Facebook, as well as the businesses and PR agencies that use it

Facebook and Twitter are obvious rivals and with Twitter moving to their IPO, both companies will be competing even more publicly. The competition between the two is also hotting up in terms of the advertising with both companies growing their sites advertising functionality.

Facebook only last month increased the size of the images that can be included within their adverts and are aiming to increase ad clicks, with users now able to click on any part of an advert to reach an advertiser’s website opposed to the previous hyperlink method. Whereas an ex-Facebook executive was quoted saying that Twitter’s s $350 million acquisition of mobile ad company MoPub makes Twitter a superior product, potentially in terms of mobile advertising, so the war rages on.

A good marketing agency will use all the tools available to them. One media platform can often support another, which is why few PR agencies or marketing agencies overlook the enormity of social media and the power it has to lift campaigns and boost ROI.

It's difficult to fathom the fact that Twitter has been filling our screens and shaping our social sphere for 7 years. In that time 170 billion tweets have been posted by over 200m monthly active users. It's hard to gauge the success of one platform alone, yet these stats go some way:

Gary Stringer is the Digital Marketing Manager of AccuraCast, a Digital Marketing Agency focussed on web traffic and customer engage engagement.

People ask me a lot, how can I tweet effectively and what are your best tips for using twitter?