LJ vs. Facebook

[sleigh]

I tend to post mostly to LJ, with Facebook automatically picking up my LJ posts as "Notes." I prefer LJ to FB for posting since, well, I'm long-winded -- I suppose it comes from being a novelist. The character restrictions on FB I find too limiting, especially since some subjects demand more than just a surface examination. (It was the even more restrictive character limitations that drove me rather quickly from Twitter -- that and the inanity of most of the tweets I was reading.)

But... I'm noticing an interesting trend and am wondering if other LJ/FB users are noticing the same: I'm getting more responses to my posts from FB than from LJ now. I don't know if it's the 'immediacy' of FB, or that I have a slightly different set of people watching FB rather than LJ. But even my 'friends' on LJ who are also on FB are tending to post more to FB than to LJ.

Anyone else seeing the same tendency?

Comments

[controuble.livejournal.com]

Posting to LJ because it allows greater length makes a lot of sense, but it seems to me that most people check their LJ once or twice a day and keep FB running in the background most of the day. Thus, they would read and reply from FB. I'm guilty of the same. When the reply is one line or a short phrase, I reply there, but this seemed to require a slightly more lengthy reply than FB would have allowed.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to me (though I'm not one of those people who have FB running in the bg all the time).

[guppiecat]

Facebook is attracting more people because people are lazy.

Eventually, there will be the ultimate social networking app where people can only post "yay" and "ick", and reply accordingly, and everyone will leave FB and Twitter to waste time there.

(I too get more replies on FB these days, but I get higher quality replies on LJ. I think that quality matters.)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I don't know that the quality's necessarily any higher here than on FB (for me, anyway), though when discussing Things Of Import, the length issue gives LJ a clear advantage for deeper discussion.

Your 'ultimate social networking app' made me grin, though. :-)

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

I'm still seeing far more responses on LJ than on Facebook. I'm intrigued by this, though.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Maybe your LJ friends are more loquacious than mine. :-)

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

I'm still getting more responses on LJ, but I find it curious when an LJ friend responds on FB.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I do as well, but find it's happening more frequently. There seems to be a set of people who started on LJ, but now seemingly prefer FB (or at least check it more frequently and thus post there).

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

It definitely seems like fewer of my post on LJ get comments, but I also know I'm posting less frequently. I rarely read other peoples posts on FB, and I try to maintain an awareness of what's been posted on LJ.

But I've definitely been both posting and commenting less.

The community of people who respond on FB is different, but FB also gives people the ability to "like" something, which is essentially the "Yay" function guppiecat was mentioning. I definitely find more people respond to my status updates (which are really just cross-posted tweets) on FB than on twitter...

[parsleigh.livejournal.com]

I find that often I just want to say like or not and I can do that on FB and not LJ. I admit I am sometimes lazy, but I do find that I get more comments from my FB posts, which are shorter, than my LJ posts. Attention span, maybe? (Mine included)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You can RAE, BNC here, of course.

K.

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

I get more feedback on facebook, too. I've noticed a general drop off in activity on LJ over the past couple of years. I think it's sort of going "out of fashion," and that it tends to be the "real writers" that blog and that the casual social networkers tend to prefer facebook or twitter. Also, a lot of people on facebook are real life friends and family and so they will respond to just about anything there, whereas not many people have the patience to read my blog. ;-)

[haniaw.livejournal.com]

I also usually post to LJ and have it "appear" on FB. I find that most actual responses are still coming from LJ. The ones from FB tend to be mostly "like" clicks although occasionally there is actually a comment.

I usually read LJ first since I can access that at work. I check FB only from home in the evenings.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I have more than four times the Friends on FB as I do here. A greater percentage of LJ Friends are active (ie likely to read/comment) than on FB, but the raw numbers favor the more immediate feedback.

I noticed this trend almost a year ago. In some ways, I blame Dreamwidth for diluting the LJ pool while using the same basic structure. In other ways, I think it's a natural progression to follow the hot apas.

But mostly, I'm just happy that I avoided Twitter.

[elialshadowpine]

I find I get about the same amount of responses for both, but the LJ replies tend to be longer, whereas FB replies are often a sentence or two, maybe.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I use FB for playing scrabble, and to maintain contacts with people who I know from places other than our always-locked LJ and our f-list. I'm still fighting a holding action against having to follow people in two places. It's probably past time to unfriend a zillion people over there again.

Without any career-related need for linkedin, I guess I think of FB more as my personal version of that than another purely social network.

K. [plus, I like the longer response format best]