The Facebook / Twitter Compromise

First and foremost, can I just say what a great weekend I had at the Mom 2.0 Summit? It was a wonderful mixture of old friends, new friends, learning, exploring, and of course, cheeseburgers. My Flickr set is here, and the whole group pool is here. It pretty much shows you the whole shebang better than I ever could.

Mom2Summit_14

(For those wondering what IS the deal with the cheeseburgers, it started a few years ago a BlogHer when some ladies got sick of the nibble food and were ready for some REAL FOOD. As for the paper bag hats, I think they explain themselves in their awesometivity.)

But one thing did kind of come out of the weekend that was surprising. Well, maybe not so much since I had heard of others talk of the phenomena before, but it had just have never happened to ME.

The Facebook / Twitter Wars.

See, here’s the thing. I am a big believer in finding the social media tools that work for you. Mine are, in order of importance:

1. My blog
2. Twitter
3. Flickr
4. Facebook
5. Last.fm/iLike/Blip (I really haven’t settled in yet on one music site)

Notice where Facebook is in relation to Twitter?

I have had a Facebook account forever, but really only recently started paying attention to it as the onslaught of people from my past appeared. And it’s become such a weird mixture on there for me. Blog friends, IRL friends, PTA friends, high school friends, not to mention the mayor of Denver. That’s a big cross-section and I realize I can’t make all of them happy.

So I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised when I got complaints as the Mom 2.0 tweets blew hot and heavy. I am SURE it’s annoying for people not immersed in social media to have their Facebook page filled up with nonsense from some blogging conference in Houston. All the same, non-tweeting people could probably take a second and realize how hard it is to keep up with multiple social media outlets, AND that Twitter isn’t ALL that hard to understand if you bothered to dissect it. @name is a person, #something is an event. See? Not that hard.

But, I caved and I pulled my Twitter stream from Facebook. And I thought about it. I talked to people. And decided to turn it back on when I got home from Houston. Because it’s my stupid Facebook and I can do what I want with it. If I am THAT annoying there is always the unfollow option.

Or, scroll down to the bottom of your News Feed on Facebook and click “Options for News Feed” – and tell it to give you less Greeblemonkey. That simple.

I also see the other side. I do. So I also decided that I will turn twitter back off again when I go to another conference, like SXSW Interactive in Austin next month.

This whole topic is so fascinating to me, though. As people come onboard with networking sites, how do we find ways to get along and get things done?

How does it work for you?

This article has 22 comments

  1. Ms. Maxwell

    Twitter is kind of where I follow others, but Facebook is where I post more. I also post my blog links on Facebook but don’t tweet them. I’m not quite sure why it’s worked out that way, or that I planned it. I feel different on Facebook — maybe because so many of my Facebook friends go back so far in my life? I dunno. Interesting thoughts, though.

  2. Em (@momzageek)

    Aimee – I follow you on Twitter and I am completely with you on this one… I recently started doing a lot more
    RT on Twitter and I actually had friends calling me asking me if my FB posts were spam 🙂

    I know they will probably all get on board eventually, but while I am waiting I sure wish I knew enough to write a greasemonkey script or something that would let me discriminate between which posts go to FB from Twitter and which I save for my socially connected friends only.

    Maybe I can make Mom 2.0 Summit or BlogHer one of these days.

  3. Backpacking Dad

    I don’t feed Facebook my Tweets. Because most of the people on there didn’t sign on as my friend to know what I’m doing every damn second. Because most of the people on there that I know I added before the insta-update feature was even added to facebook. I think of that feature as a two-or-three-times/day update slot.

    Facebook’s front page shows so much more info than micro-blogs that to flood it with those kinds of updates seems wrong to me.

    Also, I’m a Facebook snob. I’ve added very few people since I started blogging, but I’ve added a LOT of people on Twitter. So the content I send to each is different.

  4. Sizzle

    For me, FB is totally separate from Twitter and my blog because it has my real name attached to it. If I didn’t have a “secret identity” then it wouldn’t be an issue. But I use all three tools differently to interact with different cross-sections of people.

  5. Alison

    I don’t have my Twitter feed connected to Facebook, because for me they’re separate entities. I have a third fewer followers on Twitter than I have friends on FB. I dunno. I use them for different things. I do have my Brightkite set up to go to Twitter though. That just makes sense to me.

    /2 cents

  6. Bronwyn

    I use Facebook for my personal life and I try not to innundate those people with my “work” a mention here, a mention there. To me Facebook is like a more rich email, I can keep track of friends and in some ways enhance the ways I keep track of them. Twitter for me is more about connecting via random chatter. I think it also matter who has which service, my closest friends have F/B but not Twitter so it makes sense that I would use them differently.

  7. Paul Merrill

    I turend it off before I went to Podcamp Boulder and haven’t turned it back on yet. Laziness.

  8. Aimee Greeblemonkey

    Good points for those who use the two as separate things. I see that. Especially if you use Twitter for marketing your business.

    It’s just that I don’t, I am the same on both, so if I didn’t have Twitter update FB, FB would stand there blowing in the wind.

  9. mothergoosemouse

    I think that’s really quite accommodating of you – more accommodating than I’d be.

    Then again, you know what I think of Facebook, so there you go. 😉

  10. Shelly

    “so if I didn’t have Twitter update FB, FB would stand there blowing in the wind.”

    That sentiment makes it sound like you don’t care about FB, so why even send them there? Just because a social medium exists, doesn’t mean it needs to be used either.

  11. Aimee Greeblemonkey

    That’s fair to summize, Shelly. But I wouldn’t say that I don’t CARE about FB, I just care about it a whole lot less than other things. And as I mentioned in the original post, it had absolutely ZERO value to me until all these people from my past jumped on in the past few months.

    I also recognize that people are certainly not on FB to hear about ME specifically, so I am trying to find a balance for them too. Cause I do care about the people that I have there that I can’t get elsewhere. I have a constant struggle with just having enough time in the day, so basically the choice is either turn Twitter off and let FB go dormant, or the compromise I found. I have already come to a place where I allow myself to ignore all the other weird apps on FB, and in fact I wish FB would have a way to turn those off permanently…. but again, I am just trying to find the right balance for me which I know is not the right balance for everyone.

  12. Meghann

    *sings* “it’s my Facebook, and I’ll tweet if I want to. . .”

    Here’s how I use my Facebook/Twitter: I never really log on to Twitter. I send updates from my phone mostly. I’m on Facebook all the time though, and use it to keep track of everyone. (Including you Aimee! Which also explains why I always just comment on your status, and never message you on Twitter.) I enjoy seeing all the updates, as that’s what I use my Facebook for. Without them, I’d be kind of bored over there, as I’m not a “Superpoker” or anything like that.

  13. Anonymous

    Just do what you want to do! WHO CARES?

  14. Shelly

    That’s also coming from me, who prefers to be the least connected as possible. The only reason I have a cell phone is because I alt mode commute each day.

    I heart FB for all the friends I am in back in touch with. But, I don’t get Twitter at all.

    Oh, and on FB, you should be able to disable those pesky applications by clicking the “X” in your list of notifications. It usually gives some sort of ignore option, whether it be the application or the person who sent it!

  15. J at www.jellyjules.com

    I don’t do twitter, but I am on Facebook.

    That’s how I handle it. Twitter does seem like fun, though!

  16. nutmeg

    Less Greeblemonkey? Bite your tongue!

  17. Kristy - Where's My Damn Answer

    As you know … I’m still new to Twitter and I’m still trying to figure out WHERE it fits in my social networking. I certainly do feel that it’s a powerful tool and I’m loving it so far. I think we can all agree to disagree and move on. If someone doesn’t like it … slow down the roll and adjust the incoming feed.

    One thing I’ve noticed about Twitter is that people follow you and then once you accept them, it seems that they are unfollowing you. I just figured out how to remove those folks so it doesn’t look like I’m following everyone but nobody’s finding me interesting enough to follow back – haha.

    Weird worlds I tell ya.

  18. Burgh Baby

    I don’t get it. Seriously. I, for one, loved all the twitter updates because HELPFUL, and wouldn’t have cared at all if they were scrolling through my Facebook account as well. How can a helpful quote from a conference possibly be as annoying as someone throwing Britney Spears at me? Or sending me the same GD meme I did three years ago? Or inviting me to some virtual party that I don’t give two craps about?

    The thing about Facebook is that it is very easy to ignore the “noise.” Thank God.

  19. Cathy - wheresmydamnanswer

    I am very new to twitter (about a week) so I am trying to wrap my feeble brain around it – what I can say is that using both twitter and FB has really helped drive traffic and expose us to some incredible people and sites. At this time I do not FB my tweets.
    I am a big fan of the social media and love all the reconnection with old friends and appreciate the new ones I am making!

  20. Evan Bishop

    Aimee,

    Great post and yes, I’m playing around with it finally as I was tired of posting my blog, then tweeting, and updating my FB status, as well as posting the link to my FB page … ugh!!!! it’s not only the people that follow that are annoyed with the redundancy! Not to mention I’m not the type to tweet 10 times a day, so if I tweet my status, and it simultaneously updates my FB status all the better! That being said, I’ll wait to hear the complaints from all the non-twitterererer(er?)s out there. Seriously though, if you’re FBing, can you really complain about tweeting as well?

    E

  21. EatPlayLove

    they are two different beasts for me, but I was never offended by your tweets streaming into FB, because I get it. (now you can chuckle)

  22. NaysWay

    I use everything you listed as my social network. And I’m almost using them in the same order as you. I hate Facebook, though. It’s allowed everyone I chose to forget from high school to find me and act like we were best friends way back when. Twitter is much, much better (my opinion).

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