Twitter vs. Facebook
Facebook and Twitter are two of the prominently used social media platforms. There are millions of people world wide that use both services. So that leads one to ask what are the differences and which one is better?
Facebook is a site that is used as a wall to post things, connect with friends, and follow interesting things that you like. A helpful way to think about it is that it is an electronic home. There are pages for different things about you such as things you like, photo albums, and a place where you can state your opinion. And with Facebook every has their own home telling you about them.
Twitter on the other hand is much more stream lined. You only have a page allowing you to but out 140 character statuses. You also have a feed that shows the posts of people you follow.
So the question is which is better. In my opinion Facebook is better at connecting with friends and planning events. There are tools to plan events and invite your friends, tools that make keeping in touch easier, and a chat function that allows you to message people. Twitter on the other hand is good for keeping in touch with companies, or organizations. It is also more direct.
As an example let's look at IUPUI's Facebook and Twitter. On their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/IUPUI/) they have a lot of information telling you about the school, the most recent events, and a newly capture picture of the library all on their home page. In contrast all that is on the home page of the twitter account is short posting of different events that the university has sponsored. This is a good example of the differences in the sites that I already mentioned. Facebook gives much more details, where as Twitter gets straight to the point.
So the question is which is better. In my opinion Facebook is better at connecting with friends and planning events. There are tools to plan events and invite your friends, tools that make keeping in touch easier, and a chat function that allows you to message people. Twitter on the other hand is good for keeping in touch with companies, or organizations. It is also more direct.
As an example let's look at IUPUI's Facebook and Twitter. On their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/IUPUI/) they have a lot of information telling you about the school, the most recent events, and a newly capture picture of the library all on their home page. In contrast all that is on the home page of the twitter account is short posting of different events that the university has sponsored. This is a good example of the differences in the sites that I already mentioned. Facebook gives much more details, where as Twitter gets straight to the point.
In a professional capacity, I use Facebook to get information out about the new adult book club that I run once a month. It does get some web traffic but it is mostly used to see if and when the event is happening. That being said when things are not posted on the site attendance to the program is lower which shows the importance that social media has in a library setting.
So which one is better? I think that depends on your audience and what you are trying to accomplish.
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