By: Jane Evans

Jane Evans is a content creator extraordinaire from Australia who is on Twitter and runs a Website called Giant Leap.

My name is Jane and I’m a Facebookaholic, and an all around Social Media Enthusiast.

You know you are verging on it when your tween daughters open Twitter accounts so they can tweet things like “what’s for dinner?” and “Can I have a new Club Penguin account” Which is code for “Mum you’re spending too much time in your office – come home.”

Fortunately home is only a few yards away, and they’re only Twittering because it’s more fun than Skype, which we usually use as the home video intercom.
Yes, we’re a family of girl geeks.

Recently we had a choice, laptops or pay tv – we chose laptops, I’m glad we did.

The girls love Mushi Monsters, Club Penguin and Rune Scape just as much as they loved Family Guy, and they can see the best bits of that (and more) on Youtube.
As for me, I can do business, chat with friends and discover the world with Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter with a little bit of Skype and Blip.fm on the side.

A lot of my friends can’t quite get to grips with all this social media, they’re just starting to understand Facebook and are using it in interesting ways, but Twitter is a mystery to them and nothing is further from their minds than Linkedin.
However, spend time with all of them you will find a world of entertainment and opportunity far more interesting than channel nine could ever dish up.

Here’s how I break down my Social Media Activity:

Facebook: My biggest rule is; to be my friend on Facebook, you have to be a friend in real life. I couldn’t think of anything worst than opening my page and seeing a stream of ridiculous quizzes completed by strangers, yet there’s something weirdly voyeuristic when you’ve actually met the contestants. And when they put up a picture you want to go and see the whole album. I recently watched my nephew’s complete trip to South America shot by shot, update by update. Do you think an auntie (no matter how cool) would be given that information any other way? Every birth is celebrated, every birthday acknowledged, every cry for help answered. I get to share so much more of life’s moments with those I love (and acquaintances I care about).

Twitter: Twitter is completely different from Facebook and although Facebook has a much larger user base it seems like anybody who is somebody is on Twitter. I only have one rule; if you have ‘guru’, ‘life coach’, ‘social marketing expert’ or ‘conservative’ in your profile description, I will not follow you. I don’t want a million tweets on ‘how to make money on the internet’ or links to anti abortion sites. I have found the best clips from Youtube, great design tips and the answer to almost every technical dilemma on Twitter. I have followed news stories in real time as if I’m reading the wire in a news studio. I have met interesting people, heard interesting stories and been sent to places I’ve only dreamed of on the net.

I got an umprompted direct message from Bootsie Collins (Parliament). I think I spent the whole of 1976 dancing round my bedroom to ‘The Clones of Dr Funkenstein’ ( I was a weird kid!) I asked him how he knew I was a funkateer (it was a whole different language back then) his response was: “You got funk and you got style, your an all around StarChild. P-Funk love & hugs! Bootsy baby!!!” I blipped immediately this tune (Yes, I’m still weird).

But how do you make the most of Twitter? It’s simple really:

• Follow great people with something interesting to say.
• Tell everyone you know the REALLY interesting things they say (retweet)
• Say interesting things to others

As with all social media, what you get out, is proportionate to what you put in. But if you don’t have time to do that on twitter, then just follow a few hand picked news channels and celebrities you love, that’s enough.

But if you want to explore alternate realities with like-minded people then add as many as possible (and delete them if you don’t like what they say).

Skype is for people you want to chat to for hours (and you don’t mind them seeing you when your hair’s a mess.

Blip.fm lets you express yourself and be your own DJ.

And Linked in? This tweet I got the other day says it all:

“You create content? We should do business, here’s my Linkedin profile”

Maybe I am addicted, but I think I’m addicted to something good, useful and potentially profitable. So do I think my ten year old should really have a twitter account? When she sends tweets like this she should! “Hey guys, I know I always say this, but my mum rox!”

By: Adrian T. Dayton

A rule of thumb I use for Facebook and Twitter is this: Facebook for friends and groups, Twitter for business. That is not to say that either network cannot be used for both activities. There is plenty of crossover between FB and Twitter, and even a Twitter application for Facebook but there are fundamental differences between the two as well.

Twitter is very inclusive with respect to meeting new people. The inclusive nature of Twitter has even spawned the innovation of a special day of the week called #followfriday, which is a way of recommending quality people for your followers to follow by using #hashtags. Follow Friday has a few corresponding websites such as TopFollowFriday.com, which lists the people on Twitter with the most daily #followfriday endorsements. Facebook, on the other hand, is more directed towards real life friends. Following someone on Twitter can be a one way street, but Friending some on Facebook always involves a connection.

Facebook has filtering tools that allows you to organize and segment groups. If you create a group on Facebook you are able to message all individuals within the group. Facebook groups can cover most any kind of group you can imagine; parties, campaigns, meetings, you name it. The weakness of Facebook groups are that getting the word out to strangers or people that you are not directly connected with you is quite difficult without using advertising.

In sharp contrast with Facebook, Twitter is a noisy cocktail party where almost everything said can be overheard by anybody else. Profiles on Twitter can be private, but are almost always open for all to see. This open form of communication removes many barriers to conversation. Twitter helps to facilitate connections between total strangers by encouraging people to read each others tweets, communicate, follow each other, and become acquainted. By allowing others in on your conversation people can find connections with each other based on the content of the conversation rather than relying mostly on a pre-existing friend network, as Facebook does.

Conclusion

Facebook and Twitter both have their strengths, and both are amazing in their own ways. If you are only using one of these platforms, I suggest you take the time to learn to use them both, because from here on out Facebook and Twitter will help define how our society communicates.

By: Garin Kilpatrick

The most common way that people broadcast Facebook updates elsware on the web is by installing the Twitter Application for Facebook. The disadvantage of this is that once you sync the Twitter application with your Facebook status you cannot choose which tweets also post as status updates.  With the Twitter app for Facebook it is all tweets to facebook, or nothing.

Selective Twitter provides a simple solution to this dilemma.  I will start off by saying that Selective Twitter is the simplest Facebook application I have ever encountered.  Adding the application is a simple one step process that involves you entering your Twitter user name.  And that’s it!

Once you have followed this one step process simply post #fb at the end of any Tweet and the Tweet will also post as a Facebook Status Update.

Broadcasting your Facebook Status beyond Twitter

For social media butterflys there is another solution called Ping.fm that allows you to post updates to Twitter and Facebook, and also to over 30 other social media Websites.

Once you join up with ping you can add thedifferent social websites you belong to, including Wordpress and Blogger blogs, and choose to broadcast your message to certain sites, or to all of your networks at once.

Ping.fm is used by people like @ChrisPrillo, @Mashable, and myself.  I can personally testify to the simplicity and effectiveness of Ping.fm

Want to Broadcast more than just a Status Update?

A service that allows you to broadcast not only status updates, but also content, is called Pixelpipe.

Pixelpipe’s motto is “Free your content” and they already support over 60 services and counting.

Conclusion

The above are just three ways to move alot of content on facebook and across the web, with little effort, and certainly there are many more.

What are your experiences and thoughts about the above services and others that are out there?

Garin Kilpatrick