Twitter, Facebook, PR and Me...and You.

As I explained in a blog post from September 2010, I am pretty old school when it comes to online technology and social networking.  Before Crecomm my social networking consisted of chatting over beer, cheese and salami at the local community club.  If I wasn’t in CreComm I would definitely not be on Twitter and I might not even have a Facebook account. 

As for the difference between Facebook and Twitter:  I think of Facebook as a way of keeping in contact with people I know.  And Twitter is more about getting in contact with people or groups I would like to know.

I mostly use Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and family outside of Winnipeg – my brother James in North Carolina and my brother Peter in Indiana. Peter and his wife are expecting another baby at the end of this month and I am sure I will hear about it on Facebook first.  I also have cousins in Ireland and other friends abroad I have met on my travels.

As for Twitter, none of my family, or friends outside of CreComm use Twitter.  (Well that’s not true an Irish friend of mine just started following me on Twitter.)  So I definitely do not use Twitter as a social tool.  In fact I barely use Twitter at all.  I look at my Twitter account once or twice a week. I follow my fellow CreCommers, some news agencies, some TV shows, and people I admire or think are funny like comedians, writers and musicians.   And I only post a message in order to promote my latest blog.  Which, I know is not a good way of building relationships on Twitter. I really need to get on the Twitter bandwagon and use it more regularly and properly…that is interactively.

In terms of strategic use of social networking in PR I think you need to use all the options out there, Facebook and Twitter and mainstream media, because you never know where your audience is getting their information.  As I said most of my friends are not on Twitter.  So an online PR campaign using Twitter to reach a target audience of middle class people in their early thirties that drink beer, play sports, ride the bus, enjoy movies, art, travel and reading would not be very effective in reaching my friends.  Facebook would definitely be a better option.  And mainstream media like online news organizations would be better still.  Having said that I know there are people that fit into the above demographic that are on Twitter.  I just don’t hang out with any of them.  But it makes me wonder if my non-tweeting friends and I are in the minority of our demographic?  Or are we the norm?



Soupy out.