How Facebook Is Starting To Compete With The ReTweet
One of the main reasons that Twitter is such a powerful tool is the speed at which information spreads across networks and the sheer power of the Retweet, great content usually spreads like wildfire around Twitter. Facebook on the other hand has always had a different feel to it in that good content would always appears on the site but the ability for it to spread virally (not a word I like but you know what I mean)has been limited. A great music video for example might be shared across 1000s of different user’s streams but the ability to pass that video around and it to spread outside your own network of friends is not something that existed and Facebook correctly identified that as a major weakness and have been doing a lot to address how content spreads across Facebook.
Facebook Are Making Sharing Easier
Unless you have been asleep for the last year you will have noticed that Facebook are making their platform more real time in nature and really trying to push the news feeds and status updates front and center. The web as a whole is a lot more real time in nature these days than the huge static beast that it was a couple of years ago and Facebook have been quick to embrace change and realize the threat coming from Twitter. There have been a number of innovations over the course of the last year that have made it easier to share content on Facebook including….
Real Time Facebook
We often forget what Facebook was like a year ago as it changes so fast but it has changed from a static site to a site that puts the main focus on real time data and streaming lots of content in to our news feeds. Only a year ago updates could take up to 15 minutes to appear to your friends but Facebook have moved the technology of the site along (it does still have issues) significantly and been helped by their acquisition of Friendfeed. As content and interesting updates pass by in real time and are constantly updated we are more likely to see something that interests us and want to share it with our friends. We are not at the stage where news breaks on Facebook yet as it is still to slow in comparison to Twitter and lacks the users updating their status to make that work but it is one the way and feeling more real time by the day.
Facebook Pages
It feels as if Facebook pages have been around for ages but in actual fact they haven’t and before pages there wasn’t really a great onus on brands or publishers to create content. There were networks of friends and groups but it all felt very static and one dimensional. Publishers of pages now realize that creating great content is going to be the lifeblood of a good page and is a sure way to engage your fan base. The by product of creating great content is that people are going to want to share that content with their friends and with the above sharing options and great content streaming through users news feeds it is only inevitable that people are going to start sharing that content.
Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day
People think that the day Twitter launched people were on there RT’ing away and passing information to each other but it certainly wasn’t like that at all, these things take time. Is Twitter still miles ahead of Facebook in terms of real time updates and spreading content? Yes absolutely. Have Facebook made a lot of developments in the last 6 months and made some inroads? You bet your bottom dollar they have. I can see more and more people sharing content on Facebook in front of my eyes and I really hope it picks up speed because it really could be one of the most powerful tools ever due to the massive user base and worldwide appeal.
Anecdotal Evidence
I have noticed that people are sharing the posts from this blog on Facebook an awful lot more in the last couple of weeks to the extent that yesterday we took the big step of adding a share on Facebook button to posts. 6 months ago you would have been lucky to see one person share your post on Facebook but as you can see from the buttons here people are actually hitting the share button quite often. What is really exciting is that I am seeing shares that happen well beyond our usual network of readers and there is a small RT effect starting to happen just as it does on Twitter. Its very very early stages but just from monitoring the traffic on this blog (5% of our visitors come from Facebook)I can see that things are starting to get more fluid on Facebook and people are sharing content.
Can Facebook Compete With The RT?
Not yet. They are making some good strides and people are very slowly starting to spread links on Facebook. The real beauty of Facebook is the trusted nature of the site and the fact that it is so conducive to rich media content like photos and videos. You can do everything within Facebook (that is what gets it the crazy valuations) without having to leave to 3rd party sites to view your content. As people start to share more and more links and content on Facebook the ability for content, news and ideas to spread will multiply. In terms of breaking news and real time action the Re tweet on Twitter still rules the online world but I can see Facebook shaping up for the battle and I for one like the look of the cards they are holding right now.
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