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In my Great Personal Social Media Experiment, one of my lessons is learning how the tools I use affect the people with whom I communicate.

Onbe of my methods is running my Twitter messages through my Facebook status. The risk? Sometimes heavy Twitter use (during webinars and Boston playoff games) floods my Facebook page- and those of others. The reward? Many people not on Twitter interact with my Twitter messages via Facebook.

This has got my attention more as I participate in the great Twitter back-and-forth during the Celtics’ playoff run. I have had a couple of people tell me they had to turn me off on Facebook due to the volume. For now I deem these "acceptable casualties" as these are all people I interact with elsewhere, and the same messages result in plenty of engagement with others.

There are toools to designate only some messages for Facebook, but so far they are too clumsy for me to use. The big choice: crude valve or blunt instrument? Blunt instrument- for now.

Mobile post sent by DougH using Utterlireply-count Replies.  mp3

7 thoughts on “Control Valve Vs. Blunt Instrument”
  1. Interesting, the only response that I have gotten from pushing Twitter updates directly to my status has been largely negative. However, this may be the case because I was previously using Facebook as a personal platform rather then a business one.

    Will go back only when they have “surgical tools” and not a blunt instrument.

  2. I was actually surprised by the positive response I get– it’s all based on facebook containing a completely different group of people who don’t see the original Twitter stream.

    Right now the tool I know about is a Facebook app that allows you to designate Tweets with a “#fb” tag, but I know I will mess that up and destroy what context I have now.

    This isn’t over– I seek the surgical tools you mention, but ones that are intuitive, maybe even “smart.”

  3. I absolutely detest the constant stream of Twitter updates in my Facebook news feed. I make the choice whether to delete the people who do it on Facebook or Twitter because I don’t want to see them both places.

    It’s not a problem for me to add #fb at the end of a tweet if I want it to also post to Twitter. That’s only 3 characters and easy to remember. Tweetdeck also has a check box to send tweets to Facebook.

    I understand that you do reach some people on FB who don’t use Twitter. But for those of us who do, it annoys the hell out of us. We can’t see enough news from other people when the feed is clogged with a bunch of stuff we’ve already read on Twitter.

  4. This is something I worry about.. I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of people people who are against putting you’re twitter feed into facebook.. I know Mitch Joel is using Tweet Deck to decide if a tweet should go to FB or not, and have been thinking of going that way myself, but just haven’t gotten around to doing it..

    In any event.. I’ve only gotten positive feed back so far.. But, much like Nixon, I’m always thinking about that silent majority

  5. Connie, I may yet go to the #fb tool if i have to– if I start getting more complaints (can I count your comment as one?). I’m going to need some sort of system I can stick to to make sure I don’t kill all the Facebook conversation tho, and I don’t feel I have that set in my mind yet.

    Connie and Matt- Tweetdeck would be great if I used it exclusively, but ironically that tool takes over my screen real estate and my CPU when I try to use it.

    Obviously, this is something I’m still thinking about. AS I say above, anyone I have lost on Facebook is someone with whom I converse regularly somewhere else.

  6. Yes, you may consider my reply a complaint. :-)

    You might start by using #fb on any tweet that is not an @ reply. Those are painfully obvious on Facebook that the message came from somewhere else. Those who aren’t on Twitter won’t even understand the use of the @ symbol in a Facebook status update.

    I agree that TweetDeck is a memory hog and I rarely use the check-box function for FB there; I’m afraid I will forget to turn the feature off. And then, there’s the fact that you can’t use TweetDeck when you’re mobile. But the #fb still works in that situation.

    Facebook also makes it easier for me to turn down the noise. I was just about to mass unfollow a bunch of business connections on FB for this reason (couldn’t see news updates from friends). And then FB created separate news feeds for groups. I had taken the time to put personal friends and family members in groups, so now I can click on that news feed and see only their items.

    Thus, I may spare your life. LOL

  7. Doug,

    I face the same (or at least similar) issue. Friends and family on Facebook wonder what the heck I’m talking about when I’m in heavy biz mode on Twitter. But, I receive just as much, sometimes more, feedback via Facebook on some of my biz related tweets from my SocMed peeps. So, like you I’m leaning in the blunt instrument direction.

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