I’m sorry. I have been irresponsible when it comes to social networks. Albeit I only use Facebook and Twitter I know that I have been selfish in doing so. Many of my followers on Twitter also are my friends on Facebook. By republishing 90% of my tweets as status updates I am doing a great disservice to those friends.
Unfortunately I am not alone in this crime. It seems like the vast majority of people with multiple social network accounts are doing this. It all boils down to laziness. We all want to publish our moments and thoughts immediately as they occur and we want these updates to reach the broadest audience possible. But is this the right thing to do? Surely we must have reasons for joining certain social networks, otherwise we wouldn’t be consolidating all of our feeds. As Maddox put it in a recent rant of his:
There’s a reason people choose one social network over another, and the rest of the world shouldn’t have to spend time figuring out the proprietary syntax of your stupid network. If people wanted to receive your Twitter updates on Facebook, they wouldn’t be using Facebook.
He brings up a valid point, and like every valid point there are valid arguments against it. Many people republish the same content on Twitter as they do on Facebook, Tumblr, or whatever other social network they use because they have different followers on each of those services. Granted there is some overlap but the reasoning behind linking updates across all services makes sense. If my goal is to share content with all of my followers then why should I deprive certain social network friends and foes of that delicious content? After all it’s nothing more than information exchange.
I only have two social network accounts: Facebook and Twitter. And there is a clear divide between the two. Yet I have been cross-posting updates on both networks without giving it a second thought. Sometimes I wonder why I even have Selective Tweets enabled since I end up adding the #fb tag at the end of almost all my tweets. Rarely do I update my status from Facebook directly.
And I have been wrong in doing so.
And I apologize.
For me Facebook is about my private connections where Twitter is about my public connections. I don’t add everyone as a Facebook friend. I only add people I know directly. More or less: I’ve had personal interaction with them face-to-face and I feel that we have good common ground. There’s something deeper than just “I met you at the club the other night and we exchanged a few words.” I’ve received a lot of friend invites the past few months due to my job as a somewhat public figure in a certain niche of the internet and I’ve had to decline most of them. It’s nothing personal. It isn’t that I don’t like you. I just don’t know you beyond whatever barrier existed between my work and you. And because I do have lots of pictures, videos, personal experiences, and other intimate details on my Facebook profile, I’m not about to start sharing all of that with the world (nor do I have the time or patience to create a bunch of different groups with different privacy settings to accommodate everyone. That becomes a chore and every time I add something I have to adjust that item’s privacy settings).
It’s not just limited to those people. I’ve denied old acquaintances: people I went to school with from pre-school through high school. We may have shared some classes together, we may have been part of the same group of friends, but if you honestly believe that sending me a friend request out of the blue after seven years of having absolutely zero contact with me will convince me to accept you into my Facebook friend network you are gravely mistaken.
But fear not, my deprived acquaintances. This is where my Twitter feed comes in. My Twitter account is set to public. Anyone can see what I post there, unlike my Facebook. Other than using Twitter to follow certain celebrities that I may or may not idolize, I use it to follow the people I don’t know intimately enough yet know through various avenues of life. It’s a good way to network with people and get quick updates and tidbits about their lives and current events. Twitter is also a great way to slowly break into the “intimate” realm of my life.
A quick pause here to address my use of the word “intimate” throughout this post. Yes I mean it in a very sexual and pornographic way.
Twitter is a great way to not only follow my thoughts and happenings but a great way to quickly respond to me and actually have your response read by me. Even though I limit my Facebook friends (I only have 200-something, which is considered both normal and healthy) I still get many updates going through my news feed at any given time. Many times I don’t have the chance to read them all. Most of the time I read the ones that are directly in front of me and respond if a response is warranted. But on Twitter any replies or mentions to me get read since I don’t get that many. And that’s the best way to get noticed. And possibly followed. And possibly met. And possibly Facebook friended.
So from here on out I’m going to be keeping in mind my original intentions for having both a Twitter and a Facebook. No longer will be two feeds be joined at the hip. Granted, there will be some tidbits that get cross-posted but not all. Here goes. I’m rebooting my online life and will be updating it in a more conscious, responsible, and mindful way. “It’s better for me. It’s better for you. It’s better for them. Think about it.”
Tags: Facebook,
I'm gonna fail at this in a week anyway,
social networks,
Twitter