I read this interesting post in the NY Times the other day about an exodus taking place on Facebook. It seems that there’s a wave of people that have been leaving for various reasons. Some are just getting tired of their shiny new toy. Others are wary of all the personal information that Facebook and it’s zoo of different applications seem to swallow.
I have to agree with them on quite a few levels.
Yet, at the same time, my interest and appreciation of Twitter has been growing. Here’s why.
1. Learning and Mentoring
Where else can you have access to the musings and mentoring of high caliber leaders? This is the great difference between Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is for those you know. Twitter is for those you’d like to learn from. In a sense, I see it as being more professional. The leaders there aren’t necessarily sharing information about things they’re doing in their day. Some leaders never share that kind of information. Instead, many share links to valuable resources, quotes, and things of interest to them personally.
Here are some examples:
Steven Furtick is the lead pastor of Elevation Church, a young and fast growing church running around 5,000 in attendance in three locations at the moment. He consistently shares challenging and helpful thoughts.
Rick Warren, of course…well who doesn’t know Rick Warren? Founding pastor of Saddleback Community church and author of Purpose Driven Life. A man with an enormous wealth and breadth of experience, which he shares daily. They’re like mini sermons. Actually, most of his “tweets” are great outlines for simple sermons.
And there are a ton of other leaders out there just like him in your particular field. I’m currently following 109 pastors, leaders, CEO’s and others.
2. Special Opportunities
For whatever reason, these same leaders are opening up special opportunities, especially on Twitter. Take these tweets, for example:
For those that don’t know Dr. Ed Stetzer, he’s the president of LifeWay Research. Along with Thom Rainer, they’re experts in most things church. Well, yesterday I noticed this particular tweet. He opened himself up for free coaching to pastors of smaller churches for 90 minutes. How cool is that?
I see opportunities like that arise fairly often. A few months ago, as a result of a tweet by Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, I was able to get a free book and enter into a program where I can receive some free books on a regular basis.
A few days ago, I noticed that Ryan J Bell, pastor of the Hollywood Adventist Church in Hollywood, California was vacationing fairly close to where I live. His church is becoming well known for their “incarnational” forms of ministry (feeding homeless, helping the poor, education). As a result of that tweet we were able to meet up and he was able to share with me in person more about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
And if I hadn’t been on Twitter, I wouldn’t have found out about these two great and free leadership conferences: The Nines and The National Leadership Forum.
3. Immediate Information
Twitter is fast becoming a source of breaking news. Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, one of the premier tech blogs out there shares in this post why he thinks it’s a great source of breaking news. And I’ve been able to see this myself.
I recently read that EE Cleveland, a pastor, evangelist, and civil rights leader passed away recently. I wanted to get more information on the topic, so I turned to the Twitter search function to see what people were saying. Here are some of the results of that search. The reason you can get more immediate information through twitter is that Google doesn’t immediately index information that someone might have posted. They’re working on getting faster, but at the moment Twitter trumps it by a mile.
A few months ago, when I wanted to get some breaking info on the newest iPhone software upgrade, I didn’t turn to Google, but to Twitter. I went on there because I wasn’t able to connect to the serve to upgrade, and I thought that Apple had postponed the upgrade. Upon doing a search on Twitter, I found that many people at first also thought that the upgrade had been postponed. But by the minute, I could see the tide-turning, and people beginning to trickle in with more information about what was happening. It would have been impossible to get this kind of immediate information any other way.
By the way, I know many people that are turned off by technology just rebuff stuff like this by saying, “I don’t have time for stuff like that,” seemingly implying that it’s a waste of time and that they focus on much more important matters. I would say two things. For one, it doesn’t have to take a long time. I spend no more then 15 minutes a day on Twitter. I check it on my iPhone and can quickly scroll through 150 or so tweets. Secondly, if you don’t have time for leadership development and to learn, where are you spending your time?
Will you live if you’re not on Twitter? Of course. It’s just a tool like any other. But it’s a tool that I’m really being blessed by and recommend you check it out.
What has been your experience with Facebook vs. Twitter?
Rodlie, thanks for sharing some good thoughts. I do see your point in Twitter giving greater access to those you would like to learn from that are professionals in your career. That's something I hadn't taken full realization about yet, even though Rick Warren is following me! However, on the flip side, Facebook (as you say) is personal. I could blog about "The Value of Facebook vs. Twitter" and my main point would be this: Facebook HAS allowed me to become personal friends with, yes, even new people – people I met that were mutual friends of a friend, or even strangers that have become friends. Hey, I even met one stranger in FL while doing a search for an old friend and she ended up sending me money to support my vision of starting a new church! Also, many (if not most) of the new people who have come to FUSIONchurch have been met or invited through Facebook. Of course I am probably not your typical Facebook user – I have capitalized on it as an evangelistic tool. Just as you have used Twitter for leadership development, I have been using Facebook to make personal contacts with an evangelistic purpose. And yes there is much that happens on Facebook that I don't care for, so I don't use it. But I also get tons of spam on Twitter – "I sent you a … gift. Now send me one back" etc, etc., and I've got record numbers of people following me on Twitter that I know could care less about who I actually am and are only interested in selling me their product or service. Honestly I have been trying to figure out if there is a way to be more evangelistic on Twitter and it doesn't seem to provide that sort of platform, so I've decided to spend more time on Facebook and only use Twitter to make updates for the church. I also know plenty of Twitter addicts that post mostly about their personal life – some even link it to their Facebook account. I guess what I'm saying is that we each choose how to use these different platforms and some may be better than others for our specific purpose, so let's learn from one another and each decide for himself what to invest in and what to leave behind us.
Chris, I couldn't agree with you…..more! haha.. Yeah, i'm not trying to hate on Facebook by any means. FB does lots of things way better than Twitter. I was just trying to point out that it's a great way to connect with and learn from people professionally. People that, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be your friend on facebook. So, on twitter you can connect with them and learn from them. But yeah, I love Facebook and the easy community building that can be done. Each one does certain things well.
I am just beginning to make the migration from fb to twitter! FB has been amazing in reconnecting with old friends, and I'm talking 20-25yrs since I've seen/heard from some! But I love that twitter allows you to find/follow people with similar interests, be "mentored" (as you well put it), and I like the "customized" news feed from multiple sites and people, all in one place. I don't have to web surf my "list" of multiple sites now.. they come to me! (how egocentric eh?! lol!) For example, somehow I found you and this website. I can't remember how, but I'm sure it was through some church leaders on twitter. awesome!
Hey Dave, I'd love to hear more about you using the customized news feed to get your other info. How long have you been doing that? Could you ever send a screenshot of what that looks like? I haven't experimented with that feature yet. Welcome and thanks for the comment!
hey rodlie, thx. for whatever reason, i kept trying to reply and safari would shut down on me? had to revert to my pc! lol! oh, by 'customized' i just meant that i like the ability to pick/choose what bloggers, sports teams, news outlets, etc. i want to follow. Nothing fancy about "news feed" stuff. Being relatively new to twitter, i just discovered tweetdeck.. i love the ability to group by categories! thx again, enjoy reading your posts!