I saw a tweet by a well-known blogger and technology executive that he was spending far less time on Facebook. When I asked what was doing online instead, he quickly replied “Twitter! More engagement, realtime discussions, feedbacks. Facebook is becoming (for me) a stream of useless stuff”.
It struck me as an interesting comment because it reflects my approach to Facebook as well. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, Facebook serves as a professional utility and personal branding tool. It is not a place where I spend much time looking at my News Feed and getting updates on what my “friends” are doing.
Twitter, however, is a resource tool (It has mostly replaced Google Reader as the way to discover new content), a research tool to ask answers to just about anything, a place to stay up-to-date with the biggest stories of day, and a way to engage with other people.
As a result, I probably spend 80% to 90% of my time on Twitter, and only 10% to 20% on Facebook. This is one of the reasons why I find Facebook’s continued growth to be so fascinating because I’m personally not fascinated with it as a service, although it is a truly amazing story.
The question is why Twitter or Facebook?
Is this something that is common among people who are heavy users of the Web and/or involved in digital marketing, development, social media and editorial content? Are we simply not the sweet spot for Facebook?
It may be Facebook isn’t the place for people like myself who want different kinds of information or engagement. In comparison, Facebook thrives as a place for people to stay in touch with friends and family, which isn’t done much on Twitter.
Maybe it has to do with how quickly things can be done on Twitter as opposed to Facebook. Twitter is an efficient tool for multi-taskers by letting them come and go quickly, whereas Facebook tends to be a place where people spend a lot of time.
Or maybe it has to do with privacy. On Twitter, you do have to provide a profile but the amount of personal information that is disclosed and shared with other people pales in comparison to Facebook, which is increasingly about making your entire life (at least the digital part) transparent as part of its social graph philosophy.
So, what do you think? If you use Twitter more than Facebook, why? If you use Facebook more than Twitter, why is that?
As I tweeted along with your G&M article the other day, I’m getting an increasing ick factor with Facebook – it’s a great way for keeping in touch but I really wish I could just turn off my news feed – I don’t want to see the photos of your debauched vacation, or hear about who got back together with what dud of a boyfriend. (Okay, I do want to see the pictures of your babies….). I check it about once a day (mostly out of a force of habit).
By contrast, I tweet three to five times a day and am always scanning Twitter to find out what’s going on. For me – right now – Twitter’s where it’s at. I don’t think Twitter is good for much – except for sharing snippets of information and finding out what other people are interested in and talking about.
Many of my friends appear to still be on Facebook a lot – until you notice they’ve just synched their Twitter updates to Facebook (and LinkedIn). I like to keep these words separate, however – different social media, different uses and demographics.
I’ve been contemplating the same thing for quite some time now as well, and the element that keeps resonating is that brevity wins and twitter is quite possibly the best platform available at the moment that allows this.
We’re all moving at top gear whether we like it or not, and twitter seems to keep up with that pace. It gives people the chance to express their feelings / thoughts the instance they come to mind. Blog posts, articles, breaking news, etc, twitter acts as our everyday RSS feed allowing us to immediately filter out the what’s relevant. Facebook as great as it is and you can’t help but be impressed by the strides that they’ve made. 500 million users in this time span is simply remarkable. With that aside it isn’t instant. The platform is developed in a way that forces you to spend time going through the various pages, events, wall posts etc etc… whereas twitter provides all of that at an instant and most of all in 140 characters or less.
I think as more people adopt to twitter they’ll realize the benefits of the platform. People want information now and they want it to be relevant and Twitter i would say just based on it’s functionality does a better job than facebook at providing that.
I’m a successful IT professional, I have never used either one of these services and don’t see the point of them on a personal or professional aspect. On the contrary the rather seem negative since the would add to our information overload.
I bet both of them will be gone soon, just like RSS and other fads, humanly it impossible and unnecessary to digest so much crap.
I use both Twitter and Facebook for different reasons. My personal FB profile is reserved for friends and family, but my FB business page is more of a community site with news, events, and promotions.
Twitter, on the other hand, is raw networking with the world. I’ll follow people just because they share a common interest, like cooking, cycling, or travel. Twitter gets more of my time because it’s what has led to the best networking. Almost all my new work can be traced to an initial connection on Twitter, which I think is pretty amazing from a marketing standpoint.
I do believe that the different social media spaces require different approaches to use and engagement. Find the right approach for your organization, based on your goals, and just be yourself and do your best.
I have a similar approach to Twitter and Facebook. It is interesting that they have three distinct roles that provide different kinds of features.
Thanks for comment.
Mark
I’ve learned a lot in reading this article and the comments. I have a strong ick-factor reaction to Facebook in general and so don’t maintain a presence — they’ve shown themselves historically to be on the side of the big company and against the little guy. (It’s my hope that G+ can replace the “essentials” of Facebook, but it has a long way to go.)
I’m amazed at Twitter’s ability to get me real-time, democratized news, undigested by corporations. It’s a great leveling field for citizen journalism and for that reason I consume a lot of news through Twitter.