To Each Platform According to its Needs

Perhaps a little Marx to start the day, but while reading over some recent Facebook versus Twitter comparisons the basic concept of creating the right message on the right platform remains true.

Hashtags, in particular.

That's a genuinely Twitter function.  When Facebook emulated, many wondered what the impact would be.  At least one report out now says, it's a "zero" impact.

Digging into the numbers, I'm more struck by the small base numbers.  Sure, that's some dramatic differences -- 1.3 to 0.8 against on Facebook and .0069 to .004 for on Twitter.

Personally, Facebook is a prose composition.  Twitter is a hip text world.  I've been concerned that bringing the hashtag into FB looks a little "desperate" to be cool.  Sort of like more than two hashtags gets annoying on Twitter or multiple exclamations on FB.

Look at the numbers again.  The Facebook forwarding is next to the decimal point.  Twitter?  Not so much.

Reminds me of a similar look by Facebook claiming how they had as much, if not more, raw traffic related to second/third screen interaction with television shows.

Well sure.  There are simply more people on Facebook.  We see that here at Arkansas State (15K-plus on FB to 9.5K on Twitter), but they are different audiences.  Same was true when I left Northwestern State (12K to 1.5K).  Only place we saw opposite was the early years running UA athletics where Twitter dominated . . . but only until we got serious and launched Facebook.