Interesting thing has happened over the past few hours. A comment on Twitter about how Facebook is copying the former (d?)evolved into whether or not one should post the same content to multiple social media platforms.
The other party thought one should. I disagreed. They said there was a “consistency issue” which I took to mean a problem with truthfulness etc. The irony of it all was the person has never spoken with me by phone or met me in person.
I went over posted a couple of questions on Facebook and started the same debate there too.
Here is my take:
- I have different audiences. Facebook comprises more of family, alumni, church friends, neighbors etc. They tolerate me for who I am and don’t love me more (or less) for what I do. They want to see pictures of my kids etc. Twitter is much more professional for me. I don’t claim to be the voice of TiVo, but I’m not shy about the fact that I work there and that am in recruiting. I share and engage on new, thoughts and views in that aspect of my life.
- I am “me” in both places. Yep, you still get my oh-so-dry humor, directness and candor.
- If you’d like to get both streams (Facebook and Twitter), why not subscribe to my Friendfeed? Do I really owe it to both platforms to post the same content? I find this unimaginative. If you blog for example and are only announcing your blogs on Twitter or Facebook, I might pick one platform and follow that, but that would be at the expense of your blog.
While I don’t agree with the premise/title of the this article, Warren Moore commented on the post and makes a great point.
…Social networks are not homogeneous in audience, scope or intent…Facebook [bombards you] with media and interactions requests at every turn…[in] Twitter [you can see] a timeline with 20 brief messages…
If the platforms are different, why can’t I have a different presence on each? Can you appreciate pieces of me?
Well, I don’t think of myself as “promoting” things per se, but it is in the public domain. Twitter, I guess does seem more of an announcement stream. As for “divergent”, I would characterize my material as parallel areas that are connected by me.
Neither my personal or professional or work life streams are inconsistent or at odds with each other or with who I am. If that were the case, there would indeed be a huge problem. If someone wants everything, I have a Friendfeed stream.
By: williamu on June 28, 2009
at 11:55 pm
You said: “If the platforms are different, why can’t I have a different presence on each? Can you appreciate pieces of me?”
I mean this as food for thought, or perhaps even devil’s advocacy, since I think that opinion works well for you and has worked well for me in the past.
But if you’re promoting a divergent subset of characteristics on each platform, are you being truly transparent and honest on either?
By: Jeffrey Holton on June 28, 2009
at 6:00 am