Image from Blog of Mr Tweet.
Recently on the blog known as MrTweet a question was posed – “How are you using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter differently?”
If I had been asked I would have responded as follows: Those three networking platforms can be grouped into a historical context – Facebook past, Linkedin future/present, and Twitter future.
Facebook is the past. I have been a member of Facebook for what seems like an eternity but in fact it has been a little under two years. I have 1,472 “friends” as of writing and it’s fair to say that I only know about 15% of these “friends” very well. As a minor music celebrity I have attracted a lot of musicians, bands and labels. As Director, Insights & Digital Media at Nemo and as someone who speaks regularly at conferences on social media as well as online music issues, I have attracted those cohorts too. Just this past week my sister and brother who still reside in the UK joined Facebook and brought along with them various nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles. I now have no excuse for not being in touch with my family more regularly – technology shortens the distance between us. On Facebook that is not necessarily a good thing.
The author centre, tagged in a picture from the early 80’sFacebook is historical white noise to me. I am constantly tagged in pictures and videos and more often than not in an unflattering light. There I am at a wedding in 1987 clearly drunk, and there I am in some unnamed establishment sitting next to some old girlfriend who is probably mortified to see that photo in such a public forum after all these years. [Insert landscape and memory essay here.] I have spent many hours un-tagging myself in photos and videos just to have someone tag them right back after I’ve moved along. One day soon I fully expect to find a video of myself dancing naked on a table at a party. And that’s what is wrong with Facebook for me; the complete lack of control of message, my message.
Facebook really is for college students who want to catalogue images and videos of their crazy drunken selves for all the world to see; images they will live to regret when applying for a job. Closing your account is the only means of control on FB.
For the more mature types on Facebook [apparently there has been a surge of new members in the 40+ demographic] there is the shock of discovering that all those folks in high school or college -the ones that you had left behind and wiped from memory – are now waiting in your email inbox as “friend” requests. There was of course a reason for leaving all that behind. I could go on. Clearly Facebook is best left to the young who actually seem to enjoy being stalked across social networks.
Linkedin is Future/Present. Linkedin I term as future/present because I use it to store current details about my career activities [present]. I have built a decent network of like-minded business people with whom I can share job opportunities and details of event activities and/or my role within Nemo [future client work.] There are useful forums where I can post a topical question and via the crowdsourcing effect of Linkedin I often receive a lot of very intelligent answers [I wouldn't try this on Facebook for e.g.]
Linkedin is a dry world whereas Facebook is a week at the beach in Mexico during Spring Break. Linkedin is quiet time in the study where you get things done. It really is all business.
This brings me to Twitter. Although millions of users are on the Twitter platform its audience is in the low millions compared to FB and LI. Many of my peers who open a Twitter account leave me a message soon after joining that invariably includes the phrase “I don’t get it…” Fair enough, but hey everyone what is it you want to get? If you want to have a tool that is the perfect blend of Facebook [without Spring Break] and Linkedin [without retiring to the study] then Twitter is for you.
Twitter put simply is micro-blogging. Used wisely Twitter gives your followers a real-time window into your social, business and working world down to the minute. Use it unwisely you will find yourself in a lonely corner of Twitter twittering to yourself with a dunces hat on. I put Twitter in the future column even though other social media types put it in the present because I believe that when it is used purposefully it has a transcendental power and therefore we will see it being used much more widely in future.
And by purposefully I mean by intent which then leads to a question – what are your goals when using social media? Remember, we have to put technology to one side, this is not about technology it is about doing something that comes very naturally to all human beings [sociopaths excepted,] – it’s called socializing. Technology has shortened the distance between us but it hasn’t changed why we socialize. It is worth noting that Twitter is arguably more successful than any other social network platform for helping to get offline groups organized around conferences and such – they are known as Tweetups. And for e.g., I know of someone tweeting upon arrival at PDX airport asking for a ride downtown who within minutes was picked up and given a ride from a fellow tweeter – Twitter can be that hyper-local.
On a grander global and political scale, Wikipedia notes: Twitter has been used as a “social justice tool” to connect groups of people in critical situations. On April 10 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at UC Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. On his way to the police station Buck used his mobile phone to send the message “Arrested” to his 48 “followers” on Twitter. Those followers contacted UC Berkeley, the US Embassy in Cairo, and a number of press organizations on his behalf. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his “followers” while being detained. He was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.
Should you be arrested or simply lost just remember Twitter is always at your fingertips – text 40404.
(more…)
