Facebook and Twitter Are Changing the World

Submitted by Holly on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 8:35am.

I got a phone call from an old colleague yesterday. Well, he's not old, but our relationship is. So maybe that makes us both old, but that's beside the point. The point is, he sounded just like me a year ago: a little lost on why social networking sites and services like Facebook and Twitter matter.

Since I'm a recent Twitter convert (read: addict) and Facebook has long been part of my daily routine, I went through the laundry list of the benefits of these tools:

  • Discovery - you find things you would never find otherwise
  • Personal Connections - you meet people you would never meet otherwise
  • Marketing - great platforms for getting the word out
  • Relationship building - you actually get to see a more human side of folks, and that's nice.

He remained unconvinced. I spent the rest of my night presumably meeting up with old friends, but really just stewing about why I couldn't convince him. What is the killer argument in favor of these tools?

How about this:

Whether you like it or not, these tools are CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE BEHAVE. And really, as nonprofits, isn't that what we're all about: breaking people out of their inertia -- to volunteer, write a letter, buy a different light bulb, write a check. I know that when I have a question, the first thing I do is send a Tweet out on Twitter now. And every morning, I log into Facebook to see what my network is up to. I didn't do those things before.

Isn't something that can fundamentally shift the way people go about getting and managing their information worth checking out?

| the blog

Question is, whose behavior is shifting?
Submitted by Michelle Murrain (not verified) on Tue, 08/28/2007 - 1:32pm.

I've come to realize that when it comes to working with others in the nptech field, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking tools (I have yet to succumb to Twitter) are a very important part of my work, and they have become daily habits - and yes, they have fundamentally shifted how I work with my colleagues.

But, not one of my clients, and few potential clients use these tools. In fact, use of these tools in nonprofit organizations are limited to tech savvy staff of a relatively small number of forward-looking organizations. The fact is, we, as nptech folk, are early adopters. The vast majority of nonprofit staff and decision-makers are late majority.

So I think we need the balance. There are some people for whom these tools are, frankly, irrelevant. There are killer arguments for us, but the killer arguments for late majority folk have yet to arrive.