Making New Friends on Twitter vs. Facebook

Twitter One of the things that I really like about Twitter over Facebook is that it is easier to make new friends. Facebook lends itself more to connecting with people that you either already know, or have met at some point in your life, rarely do Facebook users ever go out and friend people that they don't actually know simply because they have similar interests, or most Facebook users that I know aren't that bold…

I typically use Facebook in the aforementioned manner, connecting to people I already know, or have worked with at some point in my life. With that being said, I might "add" or "friend" people that I have met only once before if I thought that they were interesting enough people, this usually occurs at conferences or business meetings, etc. for me. However, if I can't locate a persons Facebook profile too quickly I usually don't fret too much because there is also the LinkedIn factor that I won't go into in this post, but usually my business contacts are already connected via LinkedIn.

In the case of Twitter though, it's a pretty safe bet that you will meet and "follow" people that you don't know simply because of the way the network was designed to flow. For example, a good friend of mine, Nick Brewer, and I had an idea to put together a user group in the central Arkansas area for web developers, bloggers, etc., to meet and discuss our industry. We started a Facebook group page and had a few people sign up to be a part of the group based on our initial description of the groups focus. However, it wasn't until we started promoting the idea on Twitter to others in the central Arkansas area with similar interests that the group picked up a lot of momentum. The vast majority of the people that are now a part of our group, the Central Arkansas Refresh community, are people that I didn't know, or know very well, prior to building our relationships online via Twitter.

Of course, once a user joins the Central Arkansas Refresh group Facebook page, I typically add them as a Facebook friend as well, but for the most part, the relationship can be traced back to either meeting in person or by following each other on Twitter.

The point to all of this is that if your goal is to connect to existing friends, co-workers, and classmates, Facebook is likely your best place to start, but if you are looking to meet new people that are totally unrelated to you, but have similar interests, the best place to get started is probably Twitter…

About the Author

Cotton Rohrscheib

Cotton is a veteran developer having worked on over 300 projects worldwide, ranging from small business to the Fortune 500. Today Cotton enjoys exploring the possibilities of software development and website integration with all business models in mind.

Cotton has served on numerous boards of directors and most recently as the President of a State Tourism Organization. He resides in Conway, Arkansas with his wife Donna and attends The Church Alive, where he is a Youth Leader in his spare time. Cotton also remains active in many aspects of the development community and interacts frequently in blogs and forums with other members of the development community.

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Cotton Rohrscheib