It’s the battle between Twitter and Facebook: to tweet or to update status. The competition is going on and it is very tight. Facebook is more popular and easier to use while Twitter has newer features that attract more teenagers and young adults. For me, the winner is Facebook since I have been a Facebook user since 2010 and I just joined Twitter a couple of days ago. Right now, I have 621 friends in Facebook and 9 followers in Twitter. I guess I’m not familiar with the mechanisms as well as the ins and outs of Twitter unlike Facebook. After 3 days of joining Twitter, I only have 3 followers so I need to beg my 17-year-old son to follow me and he tweeted me this picture.
Nice picture. Cowabangga Dude or Green Lantern?
Personally, it will be challenging to use Twitter as another social media. There are too many social medias to use. As my classmates insinuated and commented, who has time to use it? I am a Facebook person. Just like asking somebody: are you a cat or a dog person? Likewise, are you a Facebook or a Twitter person? or even an Instagram or a Meet-up person? Everybody or in this case, every social media should be given a chance to be anybody’s social media of choice and not just because we were told to explore it. Therefore, we should give Twitter a chance.
“Just give me a reason” WHY?
I don’t have a reason, I have 3 reasons why we should give Twitter a chance to use it more frequently compared to Facebook or other social medias: First, using 140 characters to tweet makes a member use their brain to create something special, catchy, bold, edgy, daring, whimsical, stupid, prude, fearless, and even something magical. I guess this is the purpose of micro-blogging that is to stimulate people’s inner soul, heart, and brain. Unlike in other social medias like Facebook, it can be so dragging to read those long statuses. Twitter is always on the point or direct to the point.
Second, Twitter has all the features seen in other social medias. My favorite feature is the “trends” part of twitter. You can see right away who is trending and the best part is that you can change your “trends” tailored just for you. This means that you can choose which topic/subject is more important to you.
Third, you can “retweet” or share information in just one click. I personally think that this is the best feature of Twitter. Retweet, retweet, and retweet equals to information, information, and information.
With all these reasons, give Twitter a “thumbs-up” or “Like”.
Ooppss…..that’s a Facebook feature.
Innovations in Health Communications 
Ron, well, I have to agree that I like FB better than Twitter. I just do not understand the wisdom in limiting people to 140 characters. To me, twitter is like Sodoku, but with letters. Anyhow, I refuse to have a FB account, because I am not enamored about knowing that a friend of mine is having dinner and a glass of wine in Carmel. Is that information useful to me? Enough from me. Also, like you I just acquired a twitter account.
Hi Morris. Thank you very much for your comment. For me, Facebook is not only seeing your friends having dinner and a glass of wine in Carmel. Although that is not a useful information, there are some features of FB, which can entice people to use it more.
I have 6 brothers and 6 sisters and there’s no way that I can communicate with them on a daily basis. I live in Stockton, CA and most of them are in the Bay Area except our oldest brother who lives in NJ. FB has this feature in which you can have a “secret group”. The entire family shares information, videos, pictures, events like birthdays, wedding, baptism, and others. My father is 91 years old and he has a FB. Since my mother has some illnesses, I can monitor through this secret group on what’s going with my mom’s health (it’s hard to talk to them through telephone because of hearing deficit due to oldness). That is so important for me with my busy schedule. Because I have a CA medical license, I can call any prescriptions for my family.
In FB too, in our community, we have this NICU Family support group in which we have about 254 members. I am a member since I have an ex-premature daughter. Again, members share information, pictures, blogs, and even literatures. Members know that I’m a neonatologist and a Pediatrician so they ask questions and medical advises to me even just simple questions like how you take care of “Duro kaka or poopoo” (constipation), common colds, car seats, cribs, formulas, SIDS, jaundice, breastfeeding, and others. Also some referrals and recommendation for who’s the best Pediatrician suited for their preemie babies. I feel good serving our community in a simple way.
It is so nice to be reunited with my friends and classmates in elementary, high school, college, medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, and recently with our class MPH OOMPH. Just 2 weeks ago, I went to Las Vegas and attended our Medical School reunion. It was a blast and most of us were reconnected because of FB. Some of the members of our cohort is a great help for me. Since I’m older than these young and smart professionals, my brain is not as good as their brains so I ask questions to them through FB.
I guess FB is not for everybody and it depends on how you would use it as a social media. Thank you.
I agree Ron! I love this feature of FB. Like you and many others, I’m way more familiar with FB as compared to twitter, that I joined recently for this course. All of my family is in Pakistan and FB keeps me updated about them and as you said, we can share any kind of information that we want, among our family members:)
Having said that, I also like the “140 characters” feature of twitter since it makes the posts shorter and easier to go through:)
I agree. I have been using FB for a while and prefer it in general because the main reason I use FB is to see pictures from friends and family that I wouldn’t otherwise have much contact with (and of course share pictures of my own). Twitter doesn’t seem quite as well suited for this, though I must say that now I am actually on twitter, I am enjoying skimming through the feed and do find it much easier to skim through the feed than to look through my FB newsfeed. However, right now I am mainly following celebrities and organizations on twitter, so they do not seem redundant together – I am getting very different information from each. And from the point of view of a health organization, I actually now think a twitter account would be more useful than a Facebook profile, just because of the ease and simplicity of the message you can put out there.
Hi Catherine. I totally agree with you that Twitter is better from the point of view of health organization since you can just retweet those information and later you can just read it.
Hi Ron,
I have to admit, at the start of this all, my initial reaction was the same as yours: “There are too many social medias to use.” I love your reasons posted here, but even more, I’m trying to get better at integrating my platforms, sharing out (in ways that are appropriate for each medium) and creating fresh content to keep people engaged. My experiment today: I posted a blog to my personal wordpress (about the ACA and the Supreme Court) then I synced up to twitter, tumblr, linkedin, and facebook. I’m not sure the feed went through, but my next assignment for myself is to try reposting to each of these sites, but in different ways, pointing to the original wordpress post. Wish me luck!
Hi Teresa. That is a great idea. Wow…you have a tumblr account too. Good luck on your experimentation and keep me posted. Thank you.
Ron, Twitter serves slightly a unique benefit in a way that you can catch up a lots of information (especially ones that you are following). Professional tweeters are good at compressed the good information in a short format which I like. I am also new just some of us. So far, I am liking it.
Ron i love how your post is full of interesting media. Seeing yours now gives me ideas for my posts which seem so much more boring and uniform. I love the photoshopped picture and definitely can see the power of social media in “bringing it on”. Good job and I do agree that twitter is a good format for the spread of information.
Thank you very much. We learn new things everyday.
I’m new to Twitter too…even though I’ve signed up for three or four accounts in the past that I’ve never used. I’ve always preferred Facebook, but your post makes me think that maybe I should learn a little more about this “twittering” thing. :). By the way, I love the pic that your son posted!
Hi Miss Holly. I thought that was cute too (the pic). Honestly speaking (I should not be writing this according to Professor Holly Schrotch), I’m feeling so weird in Twitter. I feel I’m just by myself unlike at Facebook wherein you can feel the presence of your friends. I must admit that Twitter will go you more information especially in your field of endeavor and interest. Because of that, I will stay at Twitter.