In recent months I have watched my mother leap into Facebook, happily friending the people she knows and commenting on their status and pictures. It’s easy, it’s fun, and you automatically have something to do once you get there – connect with the people you know.

Twitter is a network I love passionately, but most people just don’t get it. Who do you follow? What do you Tweet about? Isn’t it weird that people follow you who don’t know you – like stalking?

I came to Twitter as someone who already read a lot of blogs, and had started a blog of my own. I followed my favorite bloggers and authors, searched for people who were interested in the same subjects as me, and had plenty to Tweet about. I’m not sure exactly which personality types thrive on Twitter, but I know it has been a hard sell to my clients, even the ones who are interested in blogging and social media.

A lawyer/client of mine called and said, “I’m on Facebook and I love it. I’m on it every night. Now how do I use it for marketing my business? I mainly use Facebook to find friends from high school, fellow Unitarian Universalists, and people who are into Burning Man.”

I suggested the lawyer start a blog about legal stuff, and then explore using Twitter to build an audience. Leave Facebook for the fun stuff.

Am I the only one who gets a bit overwhelmed by our personal lives and our professional lives getting so tangled up online? I like to leave a bit of separation – post my personal stuff on Facebook, and focus on my professional life on Twitter. But I notice this is getting harder as Facebook and Twitter become more entangled. Tweet Ups that have Facebook groups, etc.

Facebook is a great place to start, just because the whole setting up your page, tinkering with it as you will, finding & linking with friends “thing” is moderately self-explanatory, and something that can be put down and picked up at will, days later, without feeling like you’ve missed anything.

Leave Twitter unattended for days, and you may never catch up! Twitter is not difficult, but probably not a great starting point.

Both services offer value, but I believe Twitter offers more value once another social identity has been created.

When I broke in to social networking, a colleague suggested that I get Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Slideshare, Tumblr and SocialMedian. I use FB and Twitter more than the others right now, but I will find more and more uses for the other networks in short order.

I agree with you Jeff – FB should be the first stop for someone new to social networks.

For someone without much experience with social networking, the concept, pacing, and limitations of Twitter may be a little much to deal with (as compared to Facebook) — it assumes a slightly greater level of technical know-how, in that images/video/etc must all be handled off-site and linked to (much of the time using a URL shortening service); the userbase is smaller and less structured; the content can move extremely quickly at times; and most importantly, it often does not seem to become quickly evident to someone why others would care to hear the answer to the question “What are you doing?” at any given moment.

Facebook has a huge userbase, a more formal/easily understood structure and feature arrangement, works to be as self-contained and do-the-work-for-you as possible, and is almost certainly slower moving than Twitter. There is a reason we’ve all recently heard that a rapidly growing demographic on Facebook is the middle-aged crowd: it’s more friendly and immediately useful even to those who don’t care to contribute much of their own material. Pictures of people/their kids/their pets, personal information like location and relationship status and interests… the purpose of sharing these things is immediately obvious, you have time to peruse them (because they aren’t just flying past on a timeline and then lost forever), and the technical experience required is very low.

If I’m mistaken I’d love to know. Anyone want to defend Twitter over Facebook?

There may already be some more narrowly focused social network Ie.g., Banktastic) specific to what that person is involved in.

Facebook might be a bit daunting to someone new to social media.