Twitter and Facebook are about to go head to head in a grueling evaluation of their effectiveness as blog syndication channels. At the end of three standard paragraphs there will be only one declared winner, one declared loser and ultimately two options that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but for comparison sake: the following is brought to you by Smobot – “the social media optimization guide.”

First, we have to assume a level playing field. Let’s examine a situation where you’ve got an equal number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, and both options will each only receive one status update per blog post, the content of which shall be, again, assumed equal. Facebook enables users to comment, “like this” or something, share content, and invite friends to “fan” that Facebook page (fan: v. – the act of becoming a fan of a person, place or thing’s Facebook page). Twitter enables users to @reply and retweet content. Overall, retweeting occurs more frequently than Facebook sharing (refer to Mashable’s home page), but Facebook enables users to easily suggest the Facebook Page to their entire network of friends. Round one is a draw.

Second, we must reexamine the first assumption we made about a level playing field. The fact is that it is easier to gain a ridiculous amount of Twitter followers though the (sometimes spammy) follow/unfollow tactic, than it is to drive the same amount of Facebook users to a Facebook Page. So for that reason, Twitter wins round 2 decisively.

But the very thing that caught Facebook on the chin during the last round woke it up in the final round. Consider the amount of noise on Twitter. I have one Twitter account with over FOUR THOUSAND casual follow-back followers and one Facebook Page with a few hundred fanatical fans. Most of my follow-back Twitter follows are almost pure broadcasters, by the very nature of Twitter, which fosters an “all about me” attitude. They each follow thousands of other tweeters hoping they’ll be followed in return. Are they going to see my status updates in the noisy birdcage that is Twitter? My loyal Facebook Fans are more likely to actually view my status updates in their news feeds than my Twitter followers are to get lucky enough to have seen my momentarily available updates. You can’t follow what you can’t see. And with the knock-out puch, Facebook is the victor.

That said, as an aid to your success using Twitter, I recommend this Twitter Tool. I use it myself to manage my Twitter account, gain followers, send mass communications, etc.  I bought it as an investment, and it has already paid for itself. It’s almost necessary to use such a tool to remain competitive in the Twitter cage.