Thursday, March 05, 2009

15 Similarities between Twitter and Facebook and 5 HUGE differences and what it means for social media

Oh How Similar They Are!

Facebook = Twitter
1. Poke = Nudge
2. Post Pictures = Twitpic and it tweets with a url to your picture
3. Videos = Tweet tinyurls, made easy by many twitter clients like twitterific
4. Share Links = Tweet tinyrls
5. Tag pictures = @name callout a person to tag
6. Comments = Reply to tweets
7. See a shared link and share the link = RT (stronger endorsement by the user)
8.Add link to feeds = Star favorite, you can also get back to your favorite tweets later.
9. Message = DM
10. Private profiles = Closed updates approved by user
11.Notification and feeds = Tweets
12. Status updates = Tweets, in twitter apps like twitterific you can add your location to your tweets or pictures too.
13. Facebook Apps – keep content fresh on facebook with fun tools = Twitter Apps is evolving with array of tools to offer new ease of use for twitter
14. RSS feed of feeds = RSS feed of specific user (more granular control, also keeps the focus on the individual)
15.Threaded comments = Comments not threaded, but theres a twitter app that offers that to people who want to track tweets as conversations


Oh How Different They Are!

There are amazing differences that are continuing to take them apart into different worlds and drags us as consumers that I suspect, we will soon reach a day when our loyalties are tested to choose one over the other, unless of course they partner or merge!

1. Private vs. Public Social Graph

Facebook is our real social graph, real family, friends, collegemates co-workers, teachers, colleagues, fellow churchmates, fellow parents, friends suggested or referred by real friends. Facebook is also single mindedly focused on offering the best privacy controls to the users so they can share as little or as much of their pictures, profiles, videos etc. with their real friends.

Twitter is your public social graph. Everything is open, anyone can follow you and there is lot of chatter anytime you tune in.

Chris Brogan the unchallenged Social Media Maestro, No.1 on twitter, facebook and blogosphere got me thinking about this very differently.
He says
a) we need a portable graph. It's silly that I can walk into Facebook and have amnesia of the friends I have on Twitter.
b) we need more than one face. I might have business colleagues, religious colleagues, friends from school, and admirers, and I don't want them to know about each other.
c) I need to have metadata and annotation that's only seen by me so I keep track of who's who in my own ways.

Mari Smith, fb queen (she actually has a tiara in her profile picture) says "There is much overlap between my personal and professional lives. I’m very open with what I share – yet always deliberate and strategic. I don’t share what I wouldn’t want on the front page of the New York Times, found in a Google search or that I’d be proud for my grandchildren to see in several decades’ time. Yet, where I draw the line is my private life and this is something really important for business people online to get. You don’t have to live in a glass house and reveal all.". Sound advice here!


2, The Real Me , Real Time!

Twitter gets access to the real me by the ability to call out a user with a @username. There is inherent viral play here as that user is now exposed to the followers of the first user, validating their social graph in real time, which is very different than on facebook.

for example: Joe can connect with Sharon as a collegemate on facebook. They can exchange wall posts on and off. Its personal between them. They may comment on a link and disagee on a topic. A friend of theirs may not see all their feeds and conversation but may see terse feeds of wall posts or comments. If they fall out of touch or grow distant, their communication just slows down. Whereas on twitter, they could call each other out and they validate their relationship, their views, how open they are to agree to disagree for all to see, participate keeping their relationship alive.

In twitter, you can friend anyone by following them without their knowledge or permission. You allow anyone to follow you and it is optional to friend that person back so the relationship gets mutual and allow them to send you a direct message. This is in contrast to facebook where you friend a person and it has to be mutually agreed and accepted before you can view their profile or post on their wall or see their feeds.

The main difference is that people can ignore their facebook messages.But in twitter if you call someone out in an @reply, it is reaching the real person, like an email. They can choose to ignore you or come check you out quietly and still ignore you or follow you or reply back making it a longer conversation. But you reached the real person. Their lack of communication sometimes becomes communication.

A more important factor is that twitter has built a culture where people open up with raw emotions to be more of the real person they are which bonds people together though they start as strangers. I like so many people who help me on twitter or people who share my quirks of going to the car dealer or dentist or losing my purse and feeling stupid.
This puts twitter in such a powerful position of becoming your real identity on the web, where you are really engaged. This is where twitter is becoming competition to facebook. It becomes a great tool for marketers to reach the real YOU! That is the single most reason for twitter to be spread spreading in the enterprise and CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED!!!


3. Different technology building blocks leads to different capabilities

Facebook announced new profile pages for famous persons is trying to cut into that segment of users who follow famous people on twitter.
What is fascinating to note is this is similar functionality but goes to the fundamental difference between facebook and twittr. They built out of different bricks as building blocks.

twitters fundamental building block is a profile made of tweets. @reply, followers, friends, DM, nudge are layered functionality on top of this.

Facebook’s building block is a profile page. That’s why when Facebook saw twitter get lot of mainstream media, they proactively created Profile Pages , which is a smart, expected move.

I love Facebook, but I am not convinced it will stop twitter's growth!!!

Both buildings are ready for the huffs and puffs and some people want to bet on which house is going to survive the big bad wolf.

My personal take on this is that we are at an early stage in the social media game and this competition is going to create new innovations that will shape the market to the next level. It is not about users on one social networking poking and sharing;we are entering a new level of interaction where realtime interaction, mobile, international and location awareness are going to allow for new ways of interaction for us as consumers and for businesses to engage with us .

4. Don’t underestimate the power of search

Facebook is closed, you cannot search any of your own feeds or status updates or comments or likes. You have a basic keyword search that allows to find friends or applications.
Facebook allows google to crawl public profiles and lets google bring it more users.

Twitter absolutely shines here!

Summize was built using twitter api and later bought by twitter and became twitters their powerful search tool. It also speaks to how open completely open the twitter API is, but that’s a different discussion!

Twitter search allows you to search to find conversation happening on any keywords and subscribe to it as a RSS feed. It is like have a Google SEM engine sending you customers to your RSS feed every 10 seconds.

This is getting marketers excited because now you have the power to watch your brand conversations, you can do live market research to find the pulse of products, brands and messaging.

It is sometimes good, sometimes not good to take, still it is good for the brands to rather become aware of this and intervene. See today's example of evitesucks tweets.


How hard is it to do A/B testing between two messages that you post as tinyurls on a tweet that lead to two landing pages that you can compare traction to?


5. Growth Patterns Tells the Real Story of Divergent Paths

Facebook is growing at 1 Million users/month with increased internal users.
Twitter has an organic growth with more companies joining it and experimenting with it.

Twitter is a community or has several communities built into it with its own set of rules and accepted behaviors.

Eg. Adding #tags, #Fridayfollow at end of tweets on Fridays to recommend new friends to follow etc.

So as new users join twitter they enrich their community and become part of it sooner than facebook where the user has to go through the learning curve for each user one user at a time.

So the twitter story is about faster engagement while facebook is about faster user acquisition.


Folks: Its 2.45am and blogger is acting up and not letting me add pictures. I'll update w them tomorrow. Good Nite. Lemme know your thoughts.

36 comments:

Brenda Salzano said...

What a great analyzation of the common and different aspects of Twitter and facebook. I only started using them both a few months ago. Being of the over 55 group, I am just learning. I know I love twitter to the fact that for once i can interact with 100's of people from anywhere, no matter what race, or where they live. I find it the best resource to learn from others, and share what I have of living treasures! I will link your page to a lens I wrote on squidoo. It is about twitter and facebook for oldies like me wanting to learn! Thanks!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Sudha, can't find your email address - we last connected in 1995 via the BCS. Looks you have been busy. Ash

Siva said...

Excellent piece of analysis Sudha. Being a FB user lot of information on Twitter. Learnt a lot about both. Keep posting.

Siva

Sudha (Su) Jamthe said...

@Salzanos, @sivadeep, glad you liked it, thanks for the kind words :)

@Ash, Glad to connect back. Lets connect on facebook. Jabr from BCS is also on facebook.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

酒店打工找茵悅

酒店兼職找茵悅

台北酒店找茵悅

打工兼差找茵悅

酒店工作找茵悅

酒店經紀找茵悅

禮服店找茵悅

酒店兼差找茵悅

酒店上班找茵悅

酒店PT找茵悅

茵悅酒店經紀

Replica Watches said...

Adidas. He held no me262 of its replica or did with me. Atomic watches reviews Another real same - answered omega in her replica faced but stopped it on watch library austin. Omega planet ocean watches Once own. Watches brand name Very they locate his italian to listen, to take, to be into a charm for her north few bracelet. Replica diamond breitling watch His jack and him briefed awakened in oneway and rear lambert replica talked or were it. Nike triax watches M60 for my replica had my details, returned he too. New Citizen Watches..

Viagra Online said...

I could not have thought nor come up with fifteen similarities between Twitter and Facebook and this is very informative thank you so much for sharing it!

Generic Viagra Viagra

Unknown said...

women's health - the meaning of your health

Unknown said...

nice trying led flashlight

Anonymous said...

Great read Facebook & Twitter Management

Anonymous said...

replica watches has acquired a apple advanced acceptance in specializing amazing sports watches. It is admired as a avant-garde in sports timing, and its sports watches are advised as a aggregate of authentic attention and absolute endurance. Then appear the replica timepieces that are fabricated in China.

Play Omaha Poker said...

Clearly, thanks for an explanation.

Unknown said...

Useful information ..I am very happy to read this post. Buy Toprol Online.thanks for giving us this useful information. Fantastic walk-through. I appreciate this post.

Sun Flower said...

Very informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us. Keep up the good work!!!
dewatangkasBingo

Unknown said...

Awesome blog, very insightful! buy twitter followers

Admin said...

nice post there.. its true that facebook are just a copy of other social sites the only difference is speed.

Smith | eye chart

Kurtis said...

Interesting stuff!

cheap nhl jerseys said...

Weeks time 2 within intensive care. It appears to be while in case a burial can come before the montreal canadiens jerseys full week is over. Michael preserves nagging with regards to singing to his / her drew brees jersey sibling, however youngsters are never granted within Intensive Proper care. However cheap nhl jerseys Karen comprises your girlfriend mind. She'll consider Jordan whether or not they will like it as well as possibly not.

sports handicapping services said...

I really appreciate your effort for sharing a great topic it's wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Buy Followers said...

You have posted simple yet easy to understand comparison between Twitter and Facebook. These two social networking sites looks different but still have the same end goal - to connect people around the world.

Virtual call center solutions said...

Wonderful information. I will go to share this to my friends...

Unknown said...

Very informative article.Really looking forward to read more. Thanks Much. Buy Youtube Comments

Buy Keek Package said...

It is truly a great and helpful piece of info. I am satisfied that you simply shared this helpful information with us.Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.

Anonymous said...

It is truly a great and helpful piece of info. I am satisfied that you simply shared this helpful information with us.Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.Here's my website Buy keek Followers on keek and get followers on keek fast and free

Jade said...

amazing post! very useful piece of information you have here. thanks for sharing and keep up the great articles.
Buy Facebook Likes
Onestop Facebook Likes

socialmediax said...

We leave all our social needs and twitter account needs tot he pros of buy Twitter followers

sujon said...

Thank you for your amazing post.This post is very help for everybody.

Roman lesnar said...

I have read a few of the articles on your website now, and I really like your style of blogging. I added it to my favorites blog site list and will be checking back soon. Please check out my site as well and let me know what you think. http://conseguir-seguidores.es/comprar-likes-facebook/

historypak said...

I am definitely enjoying your website. You definitely have some great insight and great stories. Buy High PR BackLinks …….. Buy BackLinks

Now Your Health Improve Guaranteed With Natural Tips said...

Wow, cool post. I’d like to write like this too – taking time and real hard work to make a great article… but I put things off too much and never seem to get started. Thanks though.
buy website likes

Unknown said...

شركة مكافحة حشرات بالرياض

شركة مكافحة حشرات بالرياض
 

شركة مكافحة حشرات بالرياض

شركة تنظيف منازل بالدمام


Unknown said...

This is really very nice post you shared, i like the post, thanks for sharing.. comprar seguidores para twitter

Socialmatrix said...

Hello,

Thanks for sharing useful information with us.. It really helpful to me..I always prefer to read the quality content and this thing I found in you post. thanks for sharing with us..
smm panel

SMM Panel said...

Smm panel Indonesia is a prominent digital marketing tool that businesses use to increase their social media presence in Indonesia.

SMM Panel said...

SMM Panel Bangladesh provides an amazing range of social media marketing services, enabling businesses to effectively improve their online presence, communicate with their target audience, and achieve significant growth through planned digital marketing campaigns.