The Comparison Between
Twitter and Facebook
(The Assignment of Writing
V)
By
Aprilia Nurita Sari
14111075P
Higher School of Foreign
Language
TEKNOKRAT
2015
Abstract
Social media is the collective of online
communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction,
content-sharing and collaboration. In
this era many people use the social media, like facebook and also twitter, many
kinds of social media that we know. But as I know in popular just 2 of them,
faceook and twitter. And in both of them, many differences like if in facebook
there is a group and in twitter it is not and etc.
And
sometimes facebook is more popular in ths era, but sometimes twitter also, many
strength and weaknesses about two of them, so I want to discuss it for my
paper.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
People say that Facebook is
for connecting with the people you went to school with and Twitter is for
people you wished you had gone to school with. WhileFacebook is a multi-purpose social networking
platform, allowing users to chat, post photos and notes, and play games, Twitter is built around the posting of short 140
character messages, or “tweets.” They are the two most popular social networks
in the world.
The two Social Network Titans are
oftentimes named in the same sentence. Yet, when looking at the use case of the
two, they couldn’t be any more different.Whilst Facebook is argued to be fully
mainstream, Twitter, with 13% usage of the US population has a more targeted
audience.Of course, I am in love with Twitter big time. Facebook is coming on
strong too though.
1.1 Facebook
History
Facebook
was launched by Mark Zuckerberg, along with his college roommates, in February
2005. It was initially only intended for Harvard students, but eventually expanded to
include students at other Boston colleges, Ivy League universities, and Stanford. The site gradually added
support for other universities, before also becoming available to high school
students. In September 2006, it became available to any users over 13. On May
17th 2012, the company went public. It was valued at $104 billion. Facebook’s
user base is still growing rapidly.
Uses
Facebook is used by members for a
variety of purposes. It is mainly used by individuals who wish to stay connected
with, or reconnect with, people that they know offline. As well as
maintaining a personal profile and posting messages on their “wall,” users can
upload photo albums and videos, share links, write long notes, send private
messages to friends, text and video chat, and play games.
Privacy
Facebook allows users to select from
various privacy settings, from a completely visible profile to one that is not
even searchable except by acknowledged friends. Users can change the privacy
setting on each individual post, from public, friends only, private, or
“custom.”
1.2 Twitter
Histrory
Twitter
was founded on March 21st 2006 by Jack Dorsey and was launched on July 5th
2006. Twitter tends to be fairly secretive about its number of users, but it
had explosive growth between 2009 and 2011, with 2 million tweets a day in
January 2009, 32 million tweets a day in January 2010, 90million tweets a day in September 2010 and 200
million tweets a day in July 2011.
Uses
Twitter allows users to post 140
character messages, or tweets, and follow the messages of other users on their
Twitter feed. It is mainly used to communicate with other individuals with
similar interests, regardless of whether users know one another off Twitter,
and to follow updates from celebrities. Users can upload photos, share links
and send private messages to people they follow
Privacy
Twitter has two privacy settings: public
and private. Private messages can only be read by people that are followed by
the user. Individual messages cannot have different privacy settings.
1.3 Controversy
between Facebook and Twitter
1. Facebook has been involved in several
controversies, particularly involving privacy concerns. Facebook prevented
users from permanently deleting their accounts until 2010 and has been
criticized for changing user’s privacy settings, making more information
publically visible or available to data mining, without their explicit consent.
The site has been repeatedly criticized
for removing photos uploaded by breastfeeding mothers and deleting their
accounts.
2. The company Twitter has not been involved in
any major controversies itself, but the site has been the focus of several legal cases
recently. In July 2012, a British teenager was arrested after sending abusive
tweets to Olympic diver Tom Daley, and earlier in 2012, a student was jailed
for inciting racial hatred after tweeting abuse at Fabrice Muamba.
Contrast
1.) Lifetime of
a status update vs. a Tweet
A Tweet has by far a
much shorter lifespan than a Facebook
update. According to some interesting insights from Sysomos,
about 92% of engagement with a Tweet happens within the first hour after being
tweet. A Facebook update on the other hand is far longer to be present in
peoples timelines. It can often stretch over several days until all interaction
with the update dried up.
The indication on
lifetime of Twitter vs. Facebook updates particularly affects posting
frequency. A recent study here has shown that you can easily post 1-4 times an hour
on Twitter to
have a high impact, whilst only 0.5 status updates per day seem to be most effective.
2.) Friends vs.
Followers
Funnily enough,
Twitter called followers friends too in the very early days. Yet, by nature the
two things are fundamentally different. Friending someone on Facebook carries a
far deeper connection then following on Twitter.Of course, the action itself
doesn’t mean anything and you can build meaningful relationships
on Twitter in the same way as on Facebook. It feels that in
terms of personal spheres following
someone on Twitter is more detached than a Facebook friend though.
A Twitter following
can be strictly interest based on topics the person is tweeting about.
Friending someone might show a deeper social interest in the person
that comes into play with Facebook. Trying to friend everyone
you follow, might not be the optimal solution.
3.) Speed
Another crucial
factor is the speed of messages being passed on. Here Twitter obviously comes
out as the far faster medium to transport
messages. Examples of the Japanese earthquake, the death of
Osama Bin Laden or other breaking news happenings portray this very
nicely.Facebook on the other hand appears to move a lot slower and I found it can rather be used for timeless news and updates.
I found that if you
are aiming to create an instant viral effect for
news or an
important update, Twitter proves to be more effective. For less
time sensitive content I
found that Facebook can be a powerful distribution channel.
4.) Online
Friends vs. Offline Friends
On Facebook you
interact with your family and real life friends. On Twitter you talk to online
friends interested in similar things. This is how the argument went for some
time. As both networks evolved this might not be entirely true. You
have most likely experienced it yourself that there are many
occasions where things happen the other way round.The argument
that Facebook focuses on the Social Graph and Twitter on the Interest Graph is
still valid I believe. Even though the two are merging to some extent, Grandma
is on Facebook, whilst she might not be on Twitter.
I feel that building
a large following with a business purpose in mind is easier to achieve on
Twitter. Personal Facebook profiles still represent a more private layer, which
some don’t want to build out in such a way. So we sometimes should be a little
more careful with friending than following I found.
5.) Optimal posting times
A recent study by
@DanZarrella found that best times to tweet during the day are
around 5 p.m. On the other hand, Facebook status updates seem
to be most effective at around noon. In
terms of weekdays Wednesday appeared to be the best for
Twitter, whilst the best day to share on Facebook
appears to be Saturday.
Our patterns of
accessing Facebook and Twitter are quite different. The peak at work days for
Twitter indicates the strong business and news side of things on Twitter. A
strong Saturday for Facebook might show us that the entertainment factor on
Facebook is higher.
To me, these are the
most striking differences between Facebook and Twitter. It’s also worth
mentioning that this might not stay the way it is. Both networks are changing
rapidly and if Twitter manages to achieve more mainstream usage, there might be
a shift.
References :
