Facebook Versus Twitter: A Look at Two Very Different Social Networks

I use both Facebook and Twitter. A lot. I have noticed that my use of these websites is very different, and most individuals I know who use both use them in very different ways.

I have been on Facebook for about two and a half years now, which I find interesting, since I swore I would never, ever get it while I was in high school. By a couple months into my first year of University, I took the plunge, and have never looked back. I use it to keep in touch with friends I may otherwise never hear anything from. There is a significant downside however: there is a serious lack of privacy. Unless you change your settings, your entire friend list sees every photo you post, every time your relationship status changes and every status update. Therefore, while I am a fairly open person, I definitely do not use Facebook as a place to air out my dirty laundry most of the time. It is one thing to say you’re having a bad day, it’s entirely another to make thinly veiled attacks at individuals who scorn you.

I rarely go on Facebook for news or interesting links. Occasionally I will get a link to a song someone likes, or a blog entry someone wrote, but for the most part, the news I receive pertains directly to the person who posts it. I’ve also noticed that it is a great place to share photos. Have a new baby? Excellent, post photos for all of your friends to see! For me, a good person to “friend” is someone that I know, and am interested in hearing from or about. I do not “friend” strangers, since I do not want someone I do not know reading about my life, even a censored version of it.

Twitter is very different. It is much less complex than Facebook, in the sense that it does a lot less. You can post the equivalent of “status updates” to your followers, direct messages, and retweet interesting comments. I’ve said it before, but I use Twitter a lot to get my news, from the Winnipeg Free Press, and other news sources. Twitter is my “business” social network. I try to keep things fairly school appropriate, and communicate with fellow CreComms on it. Twitter is really good for keeping in touch with CreComm students and instructors: if I have a question, I’ll tweet it and usually I’ll get a timely response. Twitter is what I use to promote my blog much of the time, because my profile is open (meaning anyone can read my tweets if they want), and I figure my followers on Twitter are more likely to read it than my Facebook friends.

I never had any reservations about joining Twitter, which is surprising, since many people I know have or had reservations about it. I simply heard about it, and decided to join when I learned that Frank Warren, the creator of PostSecret, had an account on it. I started following more people, and gradually found a reason to start checking it every day, and the rest is history. As for who is a good person to follow on Twitter, it is simple for me: who will provide content that interests me, or amuses me?

As for a strategic use of Twitter and Facebook for PR, I feel the demographics are fairly different. The best way to use Facebook in a PR strategy will be to create a fan page, group, or event, and try to gain members, fans and attendees. You can also post links on your Facebook, but I find that often times, people ignore those postings, so the best way to reach lots of people is to create a group and promote it in hopes of getting a large number of members. Facebook is good for reaching a large number of people, but they have to have joined your group first, which means you often have to send out invites, and hope people join, and that their friends join based on reading it in their news feed.

Twitter is a little different. What you can do is create an account specific to what you are trying to promote, and start tweeting about the event, film, et cetera. Follow individuals that are relevant to what you are trying to promote. For example, if you are trying to promote a local film, follow local actors or directors, and start a dialogue with them. People will see this, may find what you have to say interesting, and start following you. Use hashtags, and words that people will commonly search, such as the word “film” or “independent”. If people happen to be searching those words about the time you post your tweet, they may find it, go to your profile, and decide you are worth following. But to me, the worst thing to do is create a Twitter account merely to advertise a product. Nobody will follow you back if you don’t have anything interesting to say. Post links to relevant news articles, to the official website, post tweets with a neat fact about what you’re trying to promote. And engage your followers in a dialogue—read their tweets and send them one back! We all like to have our tweets acknowledged, and I would be more receptive to someone’s message if they took the time to read what I have to say first.

Twitter

Today in Melanie's PR class, we learned how to use Twitter. I've been using Twitter for about six months now, as @MissJenh. I started to follow @postsecret but kept with it after I realized just how useful it was. Around the time of the Iranian election was when I started checking it every single day. Twitter was an invaluable resource for the Iranian people at that time, and I found myself worrying when the people I followed stopped updating. Were they arrested? Or even killed? Several accounts stopped updating long ago, and I was told by a friend that, that was because Iran cut off the internet in the country...but I fear something worse happened to them. I know for sure one of the people behind @persiankiwi was arrested, but I believe they were later released. I found they were the best source for news on the protests in Iran. I really got behind their fight, and even changed my time zone to Tehran time (and kept it there until yesterday in fact) to help throw off the Iranian government, who were looking for these brave individuals.

Now I use it to get my news, and to get a good giggle on occasion from @simonpegg and @ThatKevinSmith. I follow folks at the Winnipeg Free Press, but my favourite news source on Twitter is @shortformblog. It gives the news in one sentence format, and provides a link to the actual news story, should you choose to read it in full. It's a great way to get news on the go.

It has only been recently that I've started communicating with people I know "in person" on Twitter. Before that, my own updates were infrequent and I used it to get my news. But now I'm communicating with people I know more and more, so I feel like I am getting more out of Twitter than I was before. I think it is useful for PR folks, and other people in the communication industry, because it allows you to get your message out to a number of people, very quickly. You are not relying on the mass media to get your message out, so you can do it on your own terms, albeit in 140 characters or less. You can provide useful links to your followers about what your organization stands for, and advertise products. I think taking advantage of social networking is essential to getting your organization off the ground. Why would one turn down the chance to spread the word, promote and advertise their organization? I think in this day and age it would be foolish not to take advantage of Twitter.

My Twitter account is used both recreationally and professionally. I follow a large variety of people, and tweet about school stuff, link to things online I find interesting, and stuff about day to day life. Since starting CreComm, I have tried to keep my own personal tweets fairly work safe, meaning free of course language (difficult because I can have quite the sailor mouth and it has been difficult to keep this blog free of curse words), nudity, and the like. I've become fairly devoted, and at least skim through every tweet I receive on my home page, and check it at least once a day.

I hope to see you all on Twitter, and if you have any people you think I should be following...let me know!