Asking Questions on Facebook vs Twitter

December 4, 2009 · 3 comments

in Food,Los Angeles,Social Media

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a restaurant that would be a good local place for a longish meet-and-greet meeting*, and I reached out to my social circles on Facebook and Twitter.

* In the end, we ended up at Paul Martin’s American Bistro in El Segundo.  It was a suggestion from my friend Paul.  Great choice!  My pork ribs were very tender and tasty, but the real star of the night was the halibut with creamed corn and bacon that I kept stealing from Lynn’s plate.

My question generated over a dozen comments on Facebook, but got exactly zero responses on Twitter.

That’s interesting.

I don’t think it means Facebook is better than Twitter for getting questions answered, but I did find it interesting that the same question generated such different results.  I have a few thoughts on why the difference.

I don’t have a very large group on either account — 250 or so friends on Facebook, 250 or so followers on Twitter — so this is by no means conclusive.

1) Different types of social graphs

My Facebook social graph reflects my real life graph better.  I only friend people I know in real life (have met face to face) or work with closely (have had extensive contact).

So for my particular question about a good local place, Facebook was more likely to give me a useful answer because a lot of my friends on Facebook are local folks.

2) Facebook is designed to be  more intimate

I find that people use Facebook for more personal sharing — true personal status updates.  That makes updates more mundane, but because only your friends see them, they are also much more compelling.

I use Twitter more like a broadcast medium.  I find that a lot of the people I follow do that too.  It’s hard to have a real conversation on Twitter.  Personally, I get bored of Twitter streams that have too many @replies, and I don’t like doing it myself.  I’ll usually DM or email someone if they ask me a question on Twitter. I don’t think we need to bother everyone else with our little conversation.

Tagged as: Facebook, Twitter

  • CindyWoudenberg

    Greg-Thanks for the comments about Paul Martin's American Bistro! We appreciate the plug and that you enjoyed your meal. Join us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/paulmartinsamb and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/paulmartinsamericanbistro. Cindy for Paul Martin”s

  • Lynn Truong

    You know, after people started following me because of your article, I decided I should try to become more active. I asked at least two questions, and no one responds (why follow me if you're not interested?), and I have way more Twitter followers than fans. Makes me think that Twitter is more for networking (at a conference, everyone wants to give out and collect business cards, but really you're just looking for that one or two, and the rest are tossed), whereas Facebook is definitely more personal (not business).

  • http://avocadoshake.net greggo

    I tend to agree with the business/personal divide of Twitter/Facebook most
    of the time. But lately, I see lots of blurring. Maybe it's just the
    Internet making all business more personal.

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