If you had asked me this question a year ago, I'd have said Facebook, because I didn't ever use my Twitter or G+ Account.
Nowadays though, I think I've got a fine balance between the three.
How I use Facebook
Facebook is still the place to go to connect with friends and family - especially people who I don't see that often. I keep in touch with all my former classmates and social acquaintances via the platform.
Using Twitter to stalk celebs and keep "in the conversation"
I've only started using Twitter fairly recently, and the kind of people I follow or connect with are completely different to those in my other social networks.
One benefit of Twitter is that you can easily get a window into the daily lives of people you wouldn't ordinarily know much about.
For example, I follow a few celebs and am constantly seeing tweets in my feed about what they're having for lunch, pictures of their pugs and other photos of their daily life. It's hard to think of another social network that has so successfully enabled fans to connect with their idols in such an intimate and "real" way.
Twitter is also great for keeping tabs on information and discussions going on in various professional fields. Being new to the industry I currently work in, I think Twitter is great for connecting and learning from people who have more experience than me - I follow a few people who are constantly tweeting articles and blog posts that have helped me hone in on what is relevant and useful, in a way that many tutorials or textbooks wouldn't.
In the field of social media, people often refer to Twitter as a way for brands and companies to keep themselves "in the conversation". I guess what this means is that big companies use Twitter to tap into what the average Joe is saying on the streets - and this helps them know how to remain relevant and engaging.
I think this last point highlights just how powerful Twitter actually is. There are so many media outlets that filter and angle peoples' voices towards their own agenda, but Twitter provides a platform for unadulterated and raw expression - essentially a place for the truth to actually come out.
For example, I've got relatives who are living in Syria at the moment, and I rely on Twitter for information about what's actually going on in the country, because media access is restricted due to the violent conflict going on there.
In fact, Twitter has become a voice of the people in various states where the incumbent regime has managed to stifle those voices for decades.
My discovery of G+
Before I actually started using G+ properly, I'd read a lot about it. What I read sounded great, but my initial experience of the platform led to disappointment.
I felt as if there was no-one I knew on there, that there was "too much" going on, and that not much of it was relevant to what I wanted to know about.
Since then, I've realised that there are plenty of things that Google Plus is pretty good at.
Firstly, I use it to join "hangouts" which are like live video-chats with other people from around the world.
This has allowed me to join in fascinating real-time group conversations with people in San Francisco, from my living room in Norwich, UK!
The second cool thing about G+ was actually what deterred me from it in the first place. I didn't know many people using it.
I've come to realise that that's exactly what makes it a good platform to start using now. Facebook is over-saturated in my opinion:
"Too many people I'm obliged to be friends with, posting too much stuff I'm not really interested in." This is a common complaint I hear amongst users of Facebook.
I suspect that, despite all the modification and customisation that Facebook introduces, the very nature of social media will mean that users will continuously migrate from one network to another once one network has become stale and saturated.
The benefit of G+ is that people who have made the effort to maintain their profiles and continue using the platform despite not having 600+ personal friends on there, usually have a genuine motive or desire to connect with other people.
I find that users on G+ are a lot more open to connecting and sharing information with fellow users - whilst the reaction that most Facebook users have towards a stranger reaching out and "friend requesting" them is suspicion.
I think this is partly because people are wary of being spammed on Facebook (something that doesn't seem to be as much of an issue on G+).
But I also think it's because people have made Facebook their "personal" network - where they share intimate details about their lives that they only want close friends to know about.
G+ users don't seem to have the same "attachment and privacy anxiety" - which makes the "social" part of the social network seem more viable.
I think this is also an interesting situation for social media to be in because, if there's any company that collects and holds a significant amount of personal information about users, it's Google!
