All forms of online communication are not the same and you should not treat them like they are. Yes, you can communicate with a person by sending an e-mail, an instant message, an @reply on Twitter, a Facebook message or hosting a webchat, but they are not equal. Think about how you talk with your various personal contacts on a daily basis’s. You call some, you text some and you e-mail other people. This same idea holds true for social media. The creators of Facebook and Twitter might have been set up with a specific use in mind but through use users have defined these websites.

In the last few weeks I have started to spend more time on Facebook. I use Facebook to receive invitations, find a friends phone number or sending a message until I can convince the person to e-mail me instead. Based on the amount of time people spend on Facebook, I decided there must be more to it. I started reading the stories on my wall and posting articles and updating my status more often. However, my status updates were really just infrequent tweets. The responses I received from my friends and family proved that I was not sending the correct type of message on Facebook.

I have a few examples. I am a fan of several environmental nonprofits. Last week one of these groups posted an article that looked interesting but I did not read it all the way through. When I posted this article on my wall, several friends started commenting on the article, but I could not respond before I thoroughly read the article. On Twitter, I would have posted it; people might retweet the article, send me a quick note or just ignore it. But that’s not what happened on Facebook.

Last weekend someone posted about being a Steelers fan. I have known her my whole life and never knew that she was a Steelers fan. I commented and she wrote back. The messages were long and we got a chance to catch up a little bit. That would never happen on Twitter, even with people I know.

On Twitter I feel like I am shouting at 1000s of people and hoping that someone will listen. I rarely know if people listen. I can track if they retweet me or if they click on a link in my tweet I can track the click through rate but everyone feels so far away. The attention span on Twitter is so short. It’s what I love about Twitter. Since you only care about what is going on now you can step into the conversation whenever you have time and then leave again. No one notices you. You get to know people but generally they are not your good friends.

While on Facebook, these are people that you actually know. You have met them; you have both agreed that on some level y’all are friends. So, when you say something your friends want to listen. They want to know what’s going on in your life and will comment on it.

You should pick the channel that makes you most comfortable. Most people will gravitate toward one website or the other. Once you’ve picked one start talking to people. If you listen to them you will gain a better understand of the community and your posts will get better.