I love Twitter. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Twitter is my favorite thing on the internet.
It’s part edification and part entertainment. It’s creative micro-expression. It’s the first thing I pull from my unmarketing bat belt.
So if I’m this passionate about it, how is it that there aren’t more people on Twitter? Why do I still have to convince so many of its value?
To answer this question, one need only look as far as facebook.com
The Big Difference Between Facebook and Twitter
I think that, in general, people tend to be, either, Facebook people or Twitter people, I am a Twitter person though I still use Facebook.
Let’s go back in time…
Networks based on existing relationships
Once upon a time in mid-2006 MySpace made sense to people. It was the most popular social networking site at the time. People could share photos, comment on each other’s pages, create custom profile page designs and generally engage in fun, friend activity. It made sense. The people you connected to were your friends and you shared with your friends.
Facebook rose to prominence, again, through the creation of a network that enabled sharing amongst friends. Until recently, people also felt that Facebook provided some privacy in their social networking. People often join Facebook to reconnect with old friends, stay in touch with friends that live far away or see what’s going on with family. Ultimately Facebook and MySpace were networks built around friends and family…people that you knew or already had some sort of relationship with.
Networks based on interests
Twitter is a network that is generally built around interests rather than existing relationships. On Twitter you follow strangers. On Twitter you discover people that you would otherwise (likely) never meet. This is the disconnect for people.
Twitter was built on openness. It was and has always been public, though some people choose to protect their tweets (doesn’t make sense to me). On Twitter, with the exception of my wife and two best friends, I follow a huge number of industry thought leaders. I connect with other social media professionals, and bloggers. I do this to educate myself and build relationships within my industry.
I also have other accounts to follow other interests. This allows me to be an individual of many interests without cluttering up my home feed.
Where Twitter maintains a HUGE advantage over Facebook: SEARCH
Let’s face it, as much as Facebook tries to impose openness, people don’t want to be totally open with Facebook. They just don’t. It’s not why they joined. Because of this, Facebook creates pockets of conversations hidden from public view. When you search on Facebook you are presented with fairly limited information from your network and those that have open status updates.
Twitter on the other hand is an enormous rushing river of information. A giant public discourse that ANYONE can tap into to gather intelligence about any topic, and you can search by location. Just go to Twitter search. On Twitter search you can find out what people within 5 miles of a given zip code think about Sarah Palin. On Twitter search you can find out what a certain user said in the past week using a specific hashtag.
Search is what gives Twitter its power. Facebook can’t, and maybe never be able to, compete with Twitter on this because it is a fundamentally different experience.
Most people still don’t “get it”
You can’t really understand Twitter until you use Twitter. People look at it as mindless nonsense. They say, “I don’t care if you are eating a sandwich.” OK, be honest, is there not the same level of mindless nonsense on Facebook?
The truth is that every comment is a chance to connect for someone, whether on Facebook or Twitter.
2011 is a year for accelerated growth
Twitter has been steadily growing, with over 150 million users worldwide, as of April 2010. Twitter will continue growing and with any luck more people will “get it” and the pace will accelerate. It’s been in existence long enough that people can feel comfortable trying it out.
2011 is the year where people that use Twitter need to explain the value to their non-twitter, Facebook friends. I’ve tried to explain why I use Twitter and every person that I’ve talked to about it has at least opened their mind to it. Twitter gets better with each person that joins.