Oh dear, I think I may put some noses a little out of joint with this one.
This is my ‘how I see social media working for me’ post.
There used to be this divide, see, and it was quite clear – Facebook was for Real Life friends, Twitter was for teaching contacts.
And it was fine like that. I was keeping in touch with my friends on Facebook, and sharing and connecting with other teachers, both similar to myself and very different, all over the place, and not even all teachers, in fact. Twitter was easy (alright, after the initial ‘difficult’ hump at the beginning, I grant you, but then there’s advice about that), tweeting, sharing, retweeting, connecting, even, yes, having a laugh at times. It was manageable. And it was manageable (for me) up until it got over to the following/followers numbers going above 1,000. Heck one day you find yourself following and being followed by almost two thousand people! But it’s still quite manageable – you can dip in and out of Twitter when you want, you don’t have to be always on to make the most of it (in face, stepping away for a bit can be a Good Thing). So, Twitter is ok.
Why not use social networks? asks Joel Josephson, and I can see his arguments, I really can. And teachers have started connecting on Facebook. But I do not want everyone I’m in contact with on Twitter to be in contact with me on Facebook. I don’t want 1,000-odd ‘friends’. Yes, I know you can limit the privacy settings, and put people on lists, but I’m not prepared to go through that analysis every time someone sends me a friend request. With Facebook for me, either you’re in or out – I’ll only add someone as a friend if we’ve met and had at least a chat face-to-face.
If you’re reading this, and you really want to connect on Facebook, can you do it via my Page please? It’s why I set it up…
Thanks,
Mike
Footnote – I know there are some who will be thinking ‘Hold on, Mike, aren’t you being a bit hypocritical there?’ and yes, it’s true, there are 10 people who are ‘friends’ on Facebook who I have never met face-to-face. What I’ll say is that this post is setting out my future framework for working with and on social media.
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
YouTube
Vimeo
Doesn’t put my nose out of joint at all- see where you’re coming from on this one.
Why is it that Facebook works so well ‘socially’ while twitter is so good professionally? Of course there is overlap in people’s lives.
I think some people are happy to mix everthing up i.e professional lives / friends etc, while others might want to keep things separate. Facebook is good for mixing but Twitter good for keeping things separate – if that’s what you want – What do you feel about this Mike? I can see from your post that its something you are thinking about and it’s an interesting discussion as to why Facebook and Twitter are the way they are – if that makes sense
All the best
Richard
Thanks for the comment, Richard. I guess I like the compartmentalisation approach. I use this application for this purpose. Just like I could contact my friend by email or making a phonecall. Different circumstances, different tool. At the moment, I’m not comfortable having a lot of teaching contacts connecting on Facebook who I don’t really know personally (and there I’ll include people who I have met at conferences, and people I’ve been in contact with for a while on Twitter, blogs and other networks).
I think my issue would be that some people are almost advocating that everybody connect on Facebook too, but by adding each other as ‘friends’. I like the idea of connecting on Facebook, but for me there are ways to do this without sending a friend request – Groups and Pages for example. For me, these are a more ‘comfortable’ alternative to being ‘friends’
Mike
Hi Mike!
First of all, I am against the idea of using the term “friend” on Facebook, another colleague suggested “contact” instead. I use both fb and twitter, but..: Twitter is just for my job and sharing ideas, I follow people I found their posts interesting (not the suggestion the paplication gives me!), and you could just have your account locked so as to xheck the followers. We have to admit that twitter is business, that’s why there are almost no kids using it. FB ,on the other hand, is let’s say, more entertaining, there’s also the chatroom, and if you’re a careful user , you’ll make great contacts. For me, friends and people I’ve already met, can find me on the phone or even on skype, so….why not give youreslf the chance to make more contacts – professional ones if you like- with people who might never met before, or you’ll never meet them in the future, just stay in touch. More people, more ideas, better world.
Regard, Nora
Greece
Hi Nora, thank you for your comment.
I see the argument for using FB for networking, I really do. But I really don’t want to have hundreds and thousands of people on there. 200 ‘friends’ is my current total, and that’s more than enough to keep up with on there. As I mentioned above in response to Richard, I’m all for connecting on Facebook, but I prefer that to be done via a Page or Group, rather than connecting individually. I also think that with Facebook the landscape is a lot more moveable – in that, when Facebook change something, they don’t tell you at first – with Twitter it’s a bit more straightforward.
Mike
Hi… I completely with you on this one… Twitter and Facebook are two different things – key difference is that one is public and one is more private, I guess…
I read this article recently, which is sort of connected: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/30/remember-delete-forget-digital-age
There are more implications for social networking once different ‘circles’ of contacts are put together….
My dilemma now is working out who is close enough to add on facebook bearing all of the above in mind….
I’m almost completely in line with how you use Twitter and Facebook differently. I’ve ended up saying no to friending new Twitter contacts on Facebook. My idea is that Facebook is for people I am closer to, those family and friends that I speak to regularly and personally. A few from Twitter have made that jump, but not many.
Hi Mike! I totally agree with you. I’ve already written about this issue some time ago in my blog. You can read it here http://sabridv.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/twitter-vs-facebook/ though I have to admit that now things have gone a bit out of hand and I have everything mixed up. I have some facebook contacts from my PLN and some personal friends in my twitter. It went totally out of control, but I would like to start organising things better. This is a good opportunity to start then, thanks Mike for reminding me about my own thoughts (LOL)
Kisses from Freezing Buenos Aires…
Hi Sabrina!! Hope you are keeping warm down there!
I’m with you on organising things better – I think I’m going to properly set up some lists on Twitter this summer, otherwise I think it’ll become unmanageable. Facebook, though, is now going on a purely f2f, ‘had a chat’ basis.
BTW, just read your blog and it was a really good question to ask! Seems like you got some useful answers too =)
Mike
Hi Mike!
There are many networks we’re a part of, and teachers / educators are just one, albeit an essential one. There are so many others I’m connecting with through FB: old classmates, friends, my far-flung family. As much as I love this teacher networking stuff, it does make those other contacts ask “So, what about your life outside teaching?” Knowing that my friendly teacher contacts are on FB makes me post teacher-related things, and then knowing that my classmates are out there makes me post old pictures of us. I’m always me, but sometimes I get this very weird feeling that Facebook is making us build a series of identity masks.
Do you read me?
Hope you’re well, and would like to meet you in person some day.
Anne
Yep, I do read you there, Anne. I think that has been my dilemma being on Facebook. I’m not so much of a teacher that I need or want to be posting teacher-y things all the time. And what about all those teacher contacts who I might not want to see what I post to my friends. As I said in the post, I know there are ways to manage the settings so that one group of ‘friend’ doesn’t see the same thing as another, but I don’t want to have to moderate myself like that there.
Things are winding down here, and personally they’re generally good, but the wider situation is pretty dire edu-wise in the UK. Hope all is well in Germany and you’re settling in well in your new home.
Hoping to meet in person too some day!
Mike =)
As many before said, and I agree myself… i feel facebook should be for my buddies— far away, or from way back when, or a couple of streets over.
Now I’ve added some folks from twitter, but it’s because I knew they would fall into one of the 3 above quite easily… From there, I ignored requests, and even sent folks “this is why I’m not friending you” messages… after awhile, though even the twitter friends started dominating my facebook stream.
The reason why is facebook uses algorithms to give you info from the circle of friends interacting around you. (CHECK out the FB app “social graph”… very cool). If you have a circle of friends that interact quite a bit, it’ll push its way past another satellite group of friends and you’ll rarely ever get info on them because it’s algorithmically less pertinent.
So, your decision seems right if you want to keep those worlds separate, and ya just have to play “the bad guy” when folks ask to connect.
In the long run all of these social media streams seem to be interweaving and playing the privacy rules game ends up quite time-consuming. Alas, if it’s too much, we can always back off, can’t we ? Thanks for keeping it clear n honest, Mike.
That app is verrrry cool =)
Hi Mike,
For me, Twitter is what I want it to be at the moment (although I do wonder if there will be a saturation point of too many people I follow/Who follow me to keep track of). But on FB, which I never viewed as something I could use as part of my PLN, the world of ELT has slowly started to take over and now whenever I check my page, it’s full of shared blog links and info about upcoming conferences etc.
Then there are the ‘friend’ requests with an increasing number now coming from people I don’t even recognise from Twitter. I never even bothered trying to have a rule or ‘system’ for deciding which ones to accept because I’m ‘freinds’ with some PLN people I’ve never met (and am most likely never going to meet) as well as ones I’ve met (and even then, there are people I’ve chatted to for 2 minutes, people I’ve had lunch with and people I’ve sung drunken renditions of ABBA with :p).
What am I trying to say exactly? I guess that if I had to choose one out of Twitter and FB, it would be one of the easiest decisions ever
I’d say singing a drunk rendition of ABBA is a pretty good barometer of a ‘friend’ on Facebook ;o)
I guess my biggest concern on FB isn’t necessarily for myself, as really, when you friend sometime, you don’t just potentially reveal your own stuff to them, but possibly also that of your other friends.
There was a great blog about just this thing recently, will see if I can find it tomorrow…
Mike =)
[...] You can never have too many friends, right? - This is the post where I air my thoughts on the issue of social media and the fact of being a teacher online now – basically, do you add teaching contacts on Facebook, is it different to Twitter? No definitive answers, yet… [...]