Twitter Vs Facebook: Rebound ! | SocialExcerpts
Twitter Vs Facebook: Rebound ! Jan 06
There is a popular saying in the “social” world that Facebook is for friends you went to school with and Twitter for the ones you wish you went to school with. It is indeed hard to choose one over the other, but if one had to, would it be THE social network or the microblogging site?
If one asked you “What will you have for breakfast, bacon or milk shake?” would that be a fair choice? Both Twitter and Facebook add to the brand that you are online. The reply for the question would lie in your taste. It would be up to your interest to decide which platform you choose to spend more time on.
What are the features that should draw you to Facebook?
Facebook is a must for people who want to stay connected with their friends and make new ones. With IM and video chats now available on the site, one need not log on to chat rooms at Google or Yahoo anymore. They say sharing is fun, and no where could it be more pertinent than on Facebook. A conglomerate of Yahoo messenger, Gmail, Flickr, Youtube etc. life becomes fun with friends on Facebook. Using Facebook is like going for that marriage party where you meet friends, family and old relatives and spent quality time catching up with the gossips of life.
Aninda Das, IT Ecosystem Enabler at NASSCOM India, feels Facebook is more localized and has greater reach. So he prefers Facebook for brand management.
Why Twitter appeals to the Gen Y?
The appeal of Twitter lies in its real time results. The immediacy with which one gets response for the posts beats any other platform. A perfect platform to broadcast your views, exchange ideas with likeminded people, twitter also ushers a sense of precision with its 140 character limit on tweets. The biggest advantage of Twitter is that it is a public platform (unlike Facebook where you cannot “connect” with a person unless you add him as a friend.)
Gillian Muessig, CEO, SEOMoz prefers twitter over Facebook because of its character limits and the RSS feed. Shilpa Srivastava, Manager Operations at Compare Infobase, Kolkata also votes in favour of Twitter for its interactive platform and reach beyond the circle. “Twitter works as a great communicator and you get to know a lot of people so social networking is taken care of”, she adds.
What is the popular verdict?
When the choice between Facebook and Twitter was posed to our audience on the social platforms, the fractured verdict was a clear indication that both the networking sites were equally popular among the users. Facebook was popular among users who are online with the aim to connect with friends, while Twitter was the favourite among online media enthusiasts.
Social media strategist Clive Roach opines his usage of either of the two platforms would depend on the target audience he was eyeing. Founder of Friendster, Ruhani Rabin also echoes Roach “We do use Facebook fan pages and Twitter because they are most effective in terms of users and audience”.
The bottomline is, both Twitter and Facebook are effective communication tools and optimal use of both can extract fruitful returns on the web. Utility, applicability and profitability of either of the two platforms will change according to the need of the user.
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