Where do you spend more time? Instagram or Twitter? Just now I realized, I spend a lot more time on Twitter (specifically Tweetdeck) than Instagram. The cause of my realization came from a photo on twitter from someone I know (and very much respect)
Little messages like this are the sort of thing I used to do all the time. This is a good reminder for me to get back into doing this sort of positive notions.
I liked the tweet. There was a short URL in the tweet, so I clicked on it. That brought me to the photo on Instagram. Since Instagram is the de facto image platform these days (much to my dismay), I found it amusing that I liked the photo on Twitter instead of Instagram. Haha. Take THAT, Instagram.
Why have I been using Twitter more than Instagram? Both platforms have LOTS of noise. But with Twitter, I can minimize the noise by customizing my view with Tweetdeck. How can you customize your view with Instagram? Answer: you can’t.
Why it’s better to spend more time with Tweetdeck than Instagram
Lists
- Tweetdeck: you can make lists of specific people to follow, thus cutting down on the noise from people you don’t want to listen to.
- Instagram: you are stuck with one list of people. You see everything, like it or not.
Following keywords
- Tweetdeck: I can make columns focused on specific keywords. Those columns show ONLY those keywords.
- Instagram: You can follow specific hashtags, but to view them you have to either MANUALLY visit each hashtag. Or you just let them appear magically in your stream–dictated by Instagram’s magic algorithm that shows you only what Instagram wants to show you.
Chronological
- Tweetdeck: The tweets are sorted chronologically. You don’t see tweets repeated over and over for days. You can see everything in the stream if you wish.
- Instagram: They will show you things in a mixed up order, per their own magic unknown sauce. If you happen to comment on someone’s photo, Instagram will deluge your stream with that user’s images. There has been so many times where I intentionally have to stop commenting on particular people’s photos, because I didn’t want my stream to be overloaded with their images.
Thumbnail preview
- Tweetdeck: You can customize how large to show images in the tweets. Small, medium, large? Sure! You pick! You can even choose hidden, for a pure texts view.
- Instagram: Sorry, to go through your stream, you have to SCROLL SCROLL SCROLL. FOREVER SCROLLING.
Instagram may be more pretty, but Tweetdeck is MUCH more functional and usable.
In the coming days, I’ll write a blog post about how to use Twitter so it doesn’t drive you crazy.