The Social Media Toolbox

Since the original publication of this page, Google has jumped into the fray with Google+. How does it compare to Facebook and Twitter?

While there are several social media sites on the web today, most online users end up spending a significant amount of time on either Facebook or Twitter (or both). The two services are both similar and radically different at the same time. Both are meant for news and life sharing, but each site's unique functionality and audience create advantages and disadvantages for each site.

Facebook

• Great for users to make comments about anything and everything
• Great for photo sharing
• Quick, easy access to games and quizzes
• Easily share videos

Simply put, Facebook wants to keep users on their site.

Twitter

• Also great for user comments
• Great for link sharing
• Video and photo sharing is accomplished through links out

Twitter functions more like an RSS feed. This site has no intention of keeping you on their site all the time.

And don't forget Google+. It may be the new kid on the block, but it is obviously shaking up the status quo. Facebook, for example, has begun rolling out several new features to maintain its dominant position.

Google+

• Same link sharing features as Facebook, but more control!
• Easily sort which audiences can see posts
• Great search feature (It is Google, after all.)

One of the distinct differences between the sites is the search function.

If you search for "blue cars" on Facebook, your primary results are user profiles or pages with the keywords somewhere in the title. Below those results, you'll find some general web results supplied by the search engine Bing.

Try the same search in Twitter, and you end up with a series of comments that include the words "blue car" somewhere in their 140 characters. You can follow the user link to get to the person's profile, but user accounts are secondary to providing the comments themselves.

Users can achieve similar search results in Facebook if they know where to look. Upon searching for "blue car," you can look on the left side of the screen to find a list of ways to narrow down your search, including options such as People, Pages, Groups, Apps, etc. Keep looking down the list, and you'll find Posts by Friends and Posts by Everyone.

Not too surprisingly, none of my friends had posted anything about "blue car," but Posts by Everyone turned up a slew of results.

So, while Facebook is capable of doing what Twitter does, it does not make the option as obvious as Twitter. Twitter, on the other hand, can only do a fraction of what Facebook does.

Search features on Google+ are much more similar to Twitter than Facebook. A search for a keyword will search any publicly shared information (posts, account names, etc.). If someone posts about the "blue car" and only share it with friends in her circle, then that post will not show up in search results.

Social media is an ironic predicament. It's entire purpose is to share information, yet a crucial factor is how you can limit the extent of the sharing. After all, you don't want your mom seeing your party pictures, or - more importantly - identity thieves gathering all the necessary information in one place.

In many ways, Twitter is able to avoid these concerns since users do not usually post as much information about themselves on this service. Even if you make all of the same text updates on Twitter as you do Facebook, your Twitter account is not directly tied into your photo album and all of your applications and quizzes, etc.

Facebook is intended to be the hub of your existence, with functionality included directly in the site or through Facebook connect to seemingly every service you could want. Of course, each time you grant another app access to your information, you are letting them see several pieces of information that you may have restricted through privacy settings in other places.

That being said, Facebook has greatly improved its privacy filters for sharing posts online. Then again, Google+ was the one who made easily filtered sharing in the first place. Though Facebook denies that they made their changes to fend off Google+, the timing is strange.