Even though they are on the same medium, there are benefits that one has that the other does not.
Facebook has many more options and features than Twitter, but this also make it easier for messages and information someone wants to send, to get buried under all the clutter. People always complain about wasting time on Facebook and never getting work done, and I think this because you go on to update your status, or send a message to a friend, but you see a revealing picture of a girl you went to high school with, or you just remembered you need to harvest your crops in Farmville or Barn Buddy.
The focus of Facebook is to bring everyone together regardless of where in the world they are, and this is true, to some extent, but how effective is it really? It's not only a communication tool but also an arcade. It's a outlet for emotions and feelings through notes and rants. You can draw, you can take pictures and you can creep on people you don't know.
It is, effective in the PR world because it allows you to make yourself unique with what groups you join, what people and causes you support and what events you say you're going to or not going to. This pre-segregates the critical mass of Facebook users into smaller and smaller communities which, in turn, makes it easier for organizations to target specific groups.
Also, because Facebook has so many capabilities other than messaging, you can pile on as many extra features you think people you want to target would enjoy, giving them more of what they and making things more personal and customized for them.
If Facebook is the articles, crosswords and personals, Twitter is the front page. Now, we have to establish something first. Yeah sure, you follow 5628 people and almost as many follow you but you're doing more harm to yourself than good. You want a front page that is convenient and readable. You only want to see the things you want to see and will follow whatever interests you.
You have to weed out everyone who's tweets are just that. Tweets. You need to cut down your follow list to people and organizations that have a message and information in everything they post. You might feel bad not follow Timmy, but he'll get over it. If you do this, everything that appears on your feed will be relevant to your interests and if they tweeter is serious, their messages will be of value.
My sister an I had an argument about the effectiveness of Twitter. The thing I noticed is that the only people she mentioned was Ashton Kutcher, Perez Hilton and some other celebrity. This proved my point. Most people follow people because they're famous or their friends, and this isn't effective use. (Except Sarah Silverman, she's too funny)
Now, you might think it's not a powerful tool because of the 140 character limit. This is true in some cases, but in other cases, not. You can always link the follower to the Facebook page or somewhere else. The tweet is simply to get their attention so they go to the bigger thing. It's the headline, it's the lead, it's the melted peanut butter on the toast. Once you get them to click on the link, you've got them. They've already invested their time into that click, so there's a greater chance they'll at least read a bit of whatever you linked than just close the window right away. Sure, all the cool things you have to show aren't on Twitter, but it's easy enough to show them the way to get there.
If people who send messages and people who receive them use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, use them properly, effectively and remove all unneeded clutter, their message can remain focused and be received as it should.
For everyone else, I hope your harvest in Farmville was better than last year's.
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