Facebook and Twitter, when worlds collide
I never really bothered with my MySpace page, I didn’t use my Facebook page. Instead I hopped on Twitter. Twitter made more sense to me for what I wanted to get out of it. Twitter is truly a tool that can be used in many different ways. I made some new friends by way of Twitter and, despite best efforts, quickly found that many friends lived in one of two worlds - Twitter or Facebook.
I signed up for a Facebook account a long time ago but never used it, but the other day I finally logged in and filled it all out. I noticed that a lot of “gossip” was happening on Facebook and since I enjoy the gossip, I couldn’t let it pass me by any longer. But there was also one more reason to start making use of my Facebook page - marketing.
One reason I never made good use of MySpace or Facebook before was because it took too much effort. You had to login, navigate, find the right dohickeys, write, link…a lot of effort compared to Twitter which sits quietly and conveniently. Plus Twitter fit into my daily routines far better than any MySpace or Facebook. I also never needed a Facebook page because I have a web site, this web site. I write here, share photos here, videos, commentary, games…all that stuff…I want people to see my own work, not some generic Facebook page. I don’t have control on a Facebook page and that bothers me, but it’s great for everyone else, which is fine. Better something than nothing.
Even with a filled out Facebook page and a How Well Do You Know Me quiz, I figured Facebook would suffer the same fate as the MySpace page I had - abandonment. Due to the extra effort to update a social page and a web site and a Twitter, something would suffer…and it wouldn’t be Twitter or my site. So it’s a good thing that Facebook was smart enough to embrace Twitterers like myself and integrate Twitter into Facebook. Every tweet I sent through Twitter appears on my Facebook page. Perfect.
Well, perfect in my world, not everyone elses. Quickly after hooking them together I got bitched at because the frequency of Twitter updates “ruins the Facebook experience.” Now since I’m still a Facebook noob, I have no idea what the “Facebook experience” is, but it sounds like a bunch of crap. But we all use Facebook for different reasons and expect different results (just like Twitter). Isn’t Facebook about sharing bits of your life with friends? Twitter serves a similar purpose only it’s sharing bits of your life with the world at large, and since the Facebook population sits within the Twitter population it makes sense that one would trickle down to the other.
So there are really two galaxies at work here, the Twitter Galaxy and the Facebook Galaxy. Some people live in both, some people only live in one place. I lived only in Twitter and was speaking to the entire world which means my comments often landed on deaf ears, or ears that didn’t even know they were supposed to be listening. A lot of my friends only live in the Facebook Galaxy. They simply shout between themselves and aren’t too interested in the rest of the world, they have no need to.
But I want to hit both of these galaxies and the Twitter-Facebook connection let me do exactly that - and it worked.
It was proven on a Thursday night during our weekly CAVEradio show. As I always do, I broadcasted out on Twitter that the show was starting and to come listen to me. Then because my tweets ended up in Facebook there was a whole population of people that got the message that didn’t before. And guess what, they followed my link and some even tuned in to the show. Some didn’t know I even did a radio show or had a web site, some knew but never participated because they always forgot. Their habits of checking Facebook collided with my habits of updating Twitter in glorious fashion.
Very rarely do expectations get met but this time it happened exactly as I had hoped. Without doubling my effort I was able to reach double the audience.
I’m still not sure what the “Facebook experience” is. Maybe one day it’ll hit me and I’ll change my ways, but until then my Facebook friends will have settle for getting my life updates and links on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.
Facebook by itself is actually quite good. But I outsource most of what other people use it for to other sites (Flickr, Delicious, Twitter, Vimeo) for sharing media. Also, Facebook requires the mutual agreement that you are friends, whereas Twitter is a one way follow with the chance they may follow you back. I typically don’t become friends with people on Facebook unless I actually talk to them on a regular (yearly) basis.
My Facebook just kinda sits there, too. There are lots of people on there, but mostly people I knew back during my school days and I don’t really talk to any more. In fact, most of them were “recommended” by Facebook through mutual friends. I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to contact 95% of those people. I think there are like 5 that I actually want to talk to. Oh, well.
I’m gonna stick with Twitter. And I really should get on this whole “marketing” thing. Maybe once I have the new design finalized I’ll go on a huge Twitter campaign.
V, the problem with having every tweet be an Facebook satus update is that Twitter is steam of conscious, conversation style social networking tool, while your Facebook ’status’ is (for most people) updated at most daily or sometime once every few weeks. By having multiple Facebook status updates every day you flood your friends News Feed with your updates and since only the ~20 most recent updates are shown you push others updates off the main page. This cause problems when your friends only update their status once every few days and their update is pushed off the main page by twitter based updates.
You write articles/blogs every few days (or few weeks) for MorningToast, now imagine if Jen decided to start writing 4-10 blogs a day and posted them all to the MorningToast front page. All of your articles would just be pushed off the main page within just a few hours of being posted, hurting the ability of others to find and read what you wrote. Similiar concept with Facebook and Twitter updates.
IMO you should updated your Facebook status to say “Follow MorningToast on Twitter”, that way people who want to know what you are thinking/doing on a constant basis can follow you on Twitter and those who just want to get infrequent updates on you can follow your Facebook page.
OK, so let me get this straight. My tweets are flooding your Facebook home page and that’s bad. But everyone’s comments on comments on photos is flooding my home page and that’s okay? Your clutter is my clutter, and my clutter is your clutter. Same diff.
How often someone uses Facebook is up to them. I know people that tweet *maybe* once a day. And I see people on Facebook that are there *all the time* updating, chatting, whatever. Just like Twitter, Facebook is just a tool - a hammer - if I use that hammer to build a barn, great, if I use it to smash a window, that’s fine too.
And let’s not forget that is why there is a history link for your FB home page. Just like on Twitter, you can go back in time to see what things you may have missed. That right there is the “Facebook experience,” actually going beyond your home page to interact with applications and people.
Honestly, I’d love it if this blog was updated 3-4 time a day. That would rock. That means there was actually something to write about that often, and that means more readers because there would be more to read. People want content. More content = More people.
The fact that updates happen too often makes you use whatever it is more frequently. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Unfortunately, just saying “follow me on Twitter” doesn’t work because people are lazy. Putting up a billboard does not work, so I’m going door-to-door…and believe it or not, it is working. Those vacuum salesmen knew what they were doing.
It’s unfortunate that the rest of the world doesn’t use Facebook the way that Brian thinks they should.
I must say, I agree with Ben.
A lot of information was washed off of my Facebook page by a flood of twitter updates. It was an honest mistake, yes. The etiquette from one social network doesn’t always transfer directly over to another.
Here is an analogy… As an amateur radio operator, my equipment has the potential to cause harmful interference to my neighbors TV’s, stereos, computers, or other electronic devices. You’ve probably seen the FCC sticker on electronics that says that it can not cause harmful interference, and must accept interference that may cause undesired operation. My radios do not have that sticker because they are not required to comply with the FCC part 15 rules. I can screw with my neighbors TV reception as much as I want, and there is nothing that they can do about it. Part of being a good ham is to do everything within my power to reduce the amount of interference that I cause, even though I am in no way legally required to do so.
I am charged, by amateur radio tradition, to be a good neighbor.
Brian, the attitude that you are taking amounts to giving every one of us, and every one of our friends, whether you know them or not, the finger. It is akin to me telling my neighbor “screw you, I don’t care if my radio makes your TV unwatchable, I’m fully within my legal rights”.
Honestly, I’d like to see a mute button on twitter. What posses people to go to conferences and tweet every two minutes all day long about the conference is beyond me. The same goes for tweeting every 2 minutes while watching TV, going to a concert, or anything else.
Social networks are great tools, yes, but their effectiveness can be nullified when the signal to noise ratio drops too low.
G+
I agree that they should offer a Twitter mute button. I think that would solve a lot of problems and complaints. Integrating Twitter itself is not a bad idea, but if people (like me, apparently) abuse it, then give people tools to be able to skip it.
Or add some sort of switch that lets me turn on/off Twitter integration easily. So the times when I’m tweeting frequently I can just disable it for that time.
Does Tweetdeck allow tweeting and Facebooking? Maybe the solution is not to hook up Twitter directly to FB but use a client that can do both. I just don’t want to have to go to two places to do the same thing twice.
I understand the interference analogy but the difference with a radio/TV signal versus Facebook is you can go back and see things on Facebook. There is a history of information. Even without tweets entering the pipline, people have so many friends that you have to go back pages to look at information anyway. You’re not going to see everything you want in the one page view. Twitter does the same thing…my Twitter page only shows 20-some updates, I have to go back in time to read there too.
> “It’s unfortunate that the rest of the world doesn’t use Facebook the way that Brian thinks they should.”
This is exactly the problem with social networks and web services in general. Everyone thinks they know the best and proper way to use it, but nobody really does.
Stupid “open for interpretation” concept. If it’s allowed within the rules then it’s okay, otherwise they wouldn’t/shouldn’t let it happen. Plus we’re talking digital web pages here, not front lawns and politics.
But it seems Facebook is somewhat smart when it comes to Twitter updates, as stated on their app page: “Facebook only allows a limited number of updates to your profile per day. ‘@reply’ Twitter updates won’t show up in your Facebook profile box or status.” So if not for that things would even be worse.
For the most part I agree more with Ben and Matt BUT Brian’s kind of thinking is Facebook’s mistake. FB is getting into bed with Twitter by allowing the updates to be connected. FB has also gone out of their way to make themselves more Twitter-like with their “what’s on your mind” box. People who are new to FB will use it more like Twitter is used.
What bothers me more about FB (and this has nothing to do with Twitter) is when I get an email when someone I do not know leaves a comment on a friend’s page. Talk about flooding…
And the Twitter debate continues: Twitter Spam, when is it spam and when is it not?
A brief entry:
http://onlinehustler.net/2009/06/twitter-turning-into-spamtter/
My feeling is that since Twitter is opt-in, we pick who we want to follow and not follow. Don’t like what they’re tweeting, unfollow them. I do a follower audit every week or so…it’s really quite simple.