Apr 24
Yes. I know that title's taken. But, the ever-changing landscape of social media ALWAYS makes me feel like a dummy.......AND I KEEP UP WITH IT. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who don't, yet still rely on it for everything. I was at an event yesterday morning, and I asked a Facebook connection a question, and her first response was, "Didn't you see what I posted on Facebook?"
Another post that will qualify for the Laziest Blogger of All Time Award.........
Several people forgot my birthday. I'm not mad about it. But, when a couple of them mentioned it to me, they blamed Facebook for not reminding them. (Incidentally, I removed my birthday from every public service several months ago when I got the word that my social security number was stolen in the hack on the idiotic State Government of South Carolina. But, that is another story for a day when I don't feel fuzzy.)
Nov 14
Right now, life for me is a series of wait-and-see. Hurry-up-and-stop. Sit on my hands to keep from chewing my nails.
You get the idea.
My novel-in-progress is out with my A readers, and I’m at loose ends. It’s hard to give up a child for two weeks without wondering how she’s faring. Especially when one knows that child is far from perfect. I still have at least one more revision before giving it to my editor in January, but new eyes help my eyes work better.
So, I’ve spent this week doing all sorts of things I put off. Because the things I procrastinate tend to have to do with technology, I have been on a slow descent into hell. A sample, and you may laugh AT me, because there’s no laughing WITH me:
Will anyone declare it Sippy Time? Is it Five O’Clock somewhere? Have I finally learned my lesson that keeping up with this stuff a little at a time beats days-long bouts of torture??????
May 31
This week, Facebook rolled out a heap of additional changes to their Facebook Pages platform. In the midst of writing my heart out in honor of my Dad, and with all my Facebook page growth indicators UP, they took away 15% of my reach in one day.
I learned back in September that relying on Facebook for ANY exposure was stupid, and I diversified. Yet, I still get traffic from Facebook right now, and when they make changes, it is demoralizing to someone who blogs from the heart and makes no money for it.
Thanks to Tricia Driscoll at Critters & Crayons, I found the skinny on a possible workaround FOR NOW. I’ve copied her verbiage below and added some of my own. If you have a Facebook page and have been pulling your hair out, I hope this helps you recapture some of your hard-earned Likers without paying Facebook. If you like my page, following the instructions in the link below will help you see my individual posts, at least in the short-term.
New Changes To What You’ll See In Your Facebook News Feed…If you’ve liked a page, you may not see it unless the page administrator pays to promote each individual post. (And, within six months, you WILL NOT SEE IT EVER unless they pay – that’s my prediction.)
This is a helpful article about how to create lists of pages you would like to include in your newsfeed. I just created mine. If you already Like Andra Watkins – Author #1 THANK YOU, and #2 Please consider adding my page to a list. Here are excellent directions on how to not miss data from your favorite sites (even if mine is not one of them :) http://www.iheartfaces.com/2012/05/facebook-list-pages/
Regardless of what Facebook does in the future, you can help me and other hard working bloggers who are generating content you enjoy by doing any or all of the following:
Whatever you do, I want you to know that I appreciate your reading my blog. It is a daily honor that so many people choose to spend time here, to share their stories, to make a community that adds so much to my life. Thank you for being here.
Mar 7
If you use Facebook, and you believe that your identity is YOURS, then please read this post.
You may have heard that Facebook is preparing an initial stock offering. All those changes you’ve been noticing in recent months? The ones that make it impossible for you to decipher your own profile page? To find anyone you care about? To read anything that interests you?
Or, what about all the upgrades? Like, the ads you see EVERYWHERE? Or, the messages that tell you your friend so-and-so likes such-and-such, and why don’t you like it, too? Or, the ‘recent updates’ button in the newsfeed, that somehow converts itself to ‘top stories’ at random, inexplicable intervals?
According to this article in TechCrunch, your average personal Facebook profile post only reaches 12% of your friends. Wonder why you posted how you had herpes, and nobody cared?
You got engaged, and nobody congratulated you?
You were having a VERY BAD DAY and vented on Facebook, and most of your friends said…….nothing?
Business pages do not fare any better. Over the past year or so, businesses have been encouraged to have as many Likers (formerly Fans) as possible. Now, Facebook has downgraded their admission of viewership of business pages from 16% to the same 12% number as personal profile pages.
All those things you gave away to get people to like your page?
All that time you spent begging your friends to click the Like button?
All that money you paid to companies to help you build a base of Likers?
We need to take back ownership of our own identities, people. Facebook has made a business decision, for the benefit themselves and their pending shareholders, to become FLEECEBOOK, the Advertising Platform Formerly Known as Facebook. They are no longer a social network.
If you do not want them to know the varying size and color of your underwear, or the contents of your stomach without the benefit of an autopsy, or the color of your pubic hair, you need to change the way you use their platform. Because, let me tell you right now, they are mining EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY THING you click, you share, you read, you join, you play and you download, and they are connecting dots with EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY THING the people you interact with most do, and they are selling that information to EVERYBODY WHO WILL PAY FOR IT.
We have all agreed to have casual, unprotected sex with a very, very bad partner.
So, here’s what I propose.
Click on things you don’t really like at all just to screw with them. Share things you’d never read in a million years just because. Edit your ‘close friends’ list to be a random assortment of those friends you really hate, just to mess up the research they’re selling to advertisers about you. Only 12% of your friends will see any of this nonsense anyway, so why does accuracy really matter so much to you?
If we’re not sharing anything meaningful, Facebook is worthless to the very people who are about to become billionaires by selling the information we flippantly give away: information about ourselves, what we like, what we buy, what we do, where we go.
Take action to stop Facebook from Fleecebooking you.
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