Twitter is more public than Facebook:
The most asked question that people have, is what the difference is between Twitter and Facebook. Here are some major differences that prove how audiences essentially use these social platforms:
- Facebook is the most popular social networking website in the world. It had over one billion active users as of September 2012. Twitter had 500 million registered users as of 2012.
- Tweets are generally broadcast to the wide public. When you tweet, your message goes to everyone commonly. Facebook postings are shared within a selected audience. Twitter is basically centred around real-time conversation, while Facebook is more of an ongoing conversation that people get to eventually.
- Facebook is a relationship-building platform and more about social networking. People use Facebook to connect with friends, family, and social contacts to keep track of their their friends and their lives. Twitter allows people to follow important topics, themes, famous celebrities or conversations that are relevant or interesting to fans and followers. Twitter is more detached and provides a fresh news portal and directing traffic. Tweets are mechanism to publicise what people are doing now, where they are, or what's currently on their mind. They can be viewed by any person, registered or unregistered. Registered users can follow other persons to keep track of their conversation.
- While content on Facebook is timeless, Tweets are more important, immediately-relevant and concerning the current moment and so constantly changing. If you have instant news, Twitter is the medium to feed your hungry audience. For content that is less focused on time or timing, Facebook is a more suitable medium.
- Posting times tend to differ: Generally 5:00 P.M. & Wednesdays are the populate time for tweeting, while noon & Saturdays are the optimal time when Facebook postings are updated. This is due to the difference in relevant news and content on Twitter versus the entertainment factor that Facebook has.
In summary, Facebook is more of an ongoing social relationship builder. Twitter keeps people updated on the here and now, and topics and trending conversations are constantly changing. Twitter is less about social connections and more about staying informed. The latest trends, hottest topics and most vibrant news accumulate the most Tweets. Facebook users, though with timeless information and sharing, doesn't always make for the best source of original news. The conversational threads may be easier to follow in Facebook but the trending topics are better discussed in micro-blogging bursts.
Twitter Clarifications:
- Twitter is a microblogging site. The origin of Twitter’s 140-character limit was set so that tweets could fit into SMS messages (which had 160 character limit & needed room for usernames).
- Following someone means that their tweets will appear on my feed. If they chose to follow me, my tweets will appear in their feed.
- In the tab Home; I can see all the tweets of those I follow in my Feed.
- In the tab Me; I can see all the tweets I wrote.
- By @mentioning someone, you are sending your message directly to them. He is notified through his private eMail that you messaged him. Your tweet is not visible to any other user.
- By deciding to approve your followers, you could protect your account thus restricting who could read your tweets.
- To group Tweets being shown to the user:
- By adding all users to a list except the accounts whose tweets you want to hide, you'll see tweets only from the users you've selected without needing to unfollow anyone. Then I could only view the custom timeline directly via https://twitter.com/KILOGARY/lists/MYLISTNAME
- To turn-off retweet from someone you follow:
- visit their profile
- next to the Following button, click the Retweets icon so anything that person retweets won’t show up in my timeline.
