Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
A great friend of mine, Jeff Harkey, recently wrote an article titled “More Twitter, Less Facebook“. His view is that he can get more bang for his buck using Twitter than Facebook. He goes on to say (in my words) that he would rather the quick rich exchange of information as forced by Twitter than the random, sometimes useless, and less content rich updates on Facebook.
Be sure to take the time to read Jeff’s entire article here.
Jeff Harkey operates FireNews.net among other sites. He is a steward and fan of the fire service. His view of Twitter vs. Facebook is a mixture of thoughts on his personal use as well as business use of both sites. I can relate…kinda.
FireNews.net – Facebook – Twitter @FireNews
Jeff states:
“Reading through my Facebook feed is very time consuming, and I usually don’t feel smarter when I’m done. It’s also hard to tell when I’m done. Where did I leave off last time? Oh yeah, I think I remember seeing that puppy before…….
Reading through a Twitter feed is fast and efficient. I can easily read new Tweets from where I last left off and be sure I haven’t missed any messages.”
I do not have a clue how he keeps up with either. With over 5900+ followers on Twitter (I follow 3900+), I can’t keep up with hardly anything more than conversations between myself and others. I often check to see what is trending within my followers, but other than that I realized a long time ago I wouldn’t be able to keep up.
As for Facebook, I have 2900+ friends on my personal Facebook profile. I DO NOT know each of them personally. As for The Fire Critic Facebook Page, there are over 25,000 fans. The good thing about a Fan Page is that it is up to them to keep up with what is going on. The interactions are kept to comments, messages, and postings on the wall by others. That is just one of the pages I update.
FireCritic on Facebook – Twitter @FireCritic
When I read that Jeff likes Twitter over Facebook I thought that he meant for business use…for which I thought he was crazy. Facebook provides A LOT of traffic to FireCritic.com. However, once I realized he was talking more about his personal use, I could somewhat understand what he was saying.
Here is where it is different for me…
The Fire Critic has become more of an alter ego for me than just a “blog” I operate. I don’t mean a Jekyll and Hyde type of relationship, but many of the readers of The Fire Critic know me from operating it. I run the Facebook Page just like it were me talking. I update it more often than I do my own Facebook Profile.
As for Twitter, I used to have a personal account (FireFleitz), but I haven’t updated that in years. I do all of my updating via FireCritic on Twitter.
I do enjoy the fact that you HAVE to be brief and concise when using Twitter, but I also like the ability to hold more in-depth conversations on Facebook.
What do you think?
Do you use Facebook?
Do you use Twitter?
Which do you prefer and why?
