Does Twitter/Facebook Replace or Enhance Connectivity?

After a long resistance, I joined Twitter about a month ago in order to follow Tourism Queensland and get the latest insider news about The Best Job in the World. TQ refused to answer the 10,000 or more emails which bombarded their inbox and instead chose to get people to follow them on Twitter, opening up the conversation and the process to anyone who clicked the follow button. At first, many people were frustrated by their refusal to respond to emails, but in the end, it was a smart strategy even if the tweets weren’t always consistent or on message because tweets are no longer than 140 characters and part of a public conversation giving no one an unfair advantage.

Tourism Queensland also recommended candidates get on facebook and get lots of friends in order to manipulate them into voting you onto the island. Since they were part of the chorus of voices urging me to get on facebook (yes MA, I really did want to see those pictures!), and talking about how much fun it was, I got on board there too.

While the video above does reflect a good portion of the twitter stream, you get to choose who you follow. Before I add someone, I check read their bio, their recent tweets, and check their website. I know it’s not good form “unfollow” people who follow you, but hey, I really don’t want to hear about how many crunches you did at the gym, or the junk food you crave; there’s a couple people who followed me right away who don’t have much to say to me and I’m just going to have to click that “unfollow” button as tempting as it is to have hundreds of followers and look like there’s lots of people interested in the minutae of my daily life.

And really, who is? Not even my husband, to be honest, so why would the world at large be?

I am interested in social media in general, and what wines people are drinking, and through twitter have heard about social media trends, wines, and wine news. I’m following people I respect like Gary Vaynerchuk and Guy Kawasaki, and even though I don’t harbor the same enthusiasm for sports as Gary does (especiallya east coast teams!), I do find his feed worthwhile.

Many people are finding twitter feeds worthwhile. Recent widely quoted Neilsen stats show an increase in twitter uses by nearly 1400 percent over the past year. As Mashable puts it,

The latest numbers from Nielsen Online indicate that Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Not only is that huge growth in one year, but in one month as well, as in January, Twitter.com clocked in with 4.5 million unique visitors in the US, meaning the service grew by more than 50 percent month-over-month.

The competition that most are now focused on, however, is that between FacebookFacebook reviews and TwitterTwitter reviews. While Facebook remains several orders of magnitude bigger, its recent move to a real-time homepage and its overhaul of Facebook Pages is seen by many as a move to thwart Twitter’s continued growth.

But do these tools replace or enhance connectivity? Will twitter replace facebook? or facebook twitter?For me, they are still enhancing. I can reach two different audience, one on twitter and one on facebook; my message is similar but different. The main way I use it is to let people know about a new post and to broadcast the link so people know what I’m writing about and can find it if they are interested. Looking at my stats, people are following those links and reading the blog more.

If you’re thinking you might open a Twitter account, here are 7 common mistakes of new twitter users to help you get up to speed quickly. And remember the story of “cisco fatty”–think before you tweet.