Social Media: A Diary of Our Lives

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I’m amazed by how differently we each use social media. There is no true right or wrong about it; yes, there are certain courtesies involved, however that’s not what this post is about. I wanted to focus in on how we project and share our personal lives.

Did you keep a diary when you were a kid? I didn’t. I did have an autograph book though and a lot of my junior high friends wrote in it. Still have it (see photo).

Whether you like it or not, if you’re sharing on a social network with a personal account, you’re keeping a diary. Facebook even encourages you to keep a “timeline” of your life’s events: Once in awhile I see friends posting past events; “backfilling” if you will. And that’s wonderful (as long as Facebook is still with us!).

Some folks lean towards sharing life’s little celebrations; maybe a photo of themselves enjoying their 21st birthday party or an outing with their kids. 

Others, it’s a place to let off steam about frustrations and annoyances; haven’t we all had those sort of days when we just have to get our thoughts out and release something that’s absurd, ludicrous, perplexing, stupid or baffling to us?

And others may need caring, friendly support from time to time and they reach out to us. Perhaps you have a friend battling an illness that needs your help to stay positive while they fight the battle. 

Are we going to look back at some time and review those memories? That’s something to think about. It’s a legacy of sorts; a documentation of our time spent here both in word and visually.

Hmmm…it’s great information to pull from when that bio is ready to be written! Oh…too bad it’s only for the last couple of years; imagine in the future for kids growing up now! They are going to have their entire lives documented on social media; first by their parents (as they see it) and then they themselves will be telling the story when they’re old enough to do so. And from their parent's memories they’ll immediately learn about all those events they were too young to have remembered.

Wow…pretty mind blowing, huh?

Bread sang their song "Diary" (see below) in the 1970’s long before social media became a major platform of communication for us all. If you’d like to improve communication for your business, visit our website, or stop by on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.    

   

What's Up With Timeline, Facebook?

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When Robert Plant sang about being Dazed and Confused, he wasn't talking about Facebook. However, Timeline is causing just that.

First things first. I embrace change. Let’s make that clear.

Switched over to Timeline for my personal profile not too long after the announcement; why not? It seemed okay; it’s cool if you post a lot of photos like I do, except that it does crop them so your friends need to open them up to enjoy the complete picture. The left, right, left, right style works, but since everything is larger, you need to scroll more. Can live with that.

More recently I switched my MODern Marketing 4 U page on Facebook to Timeline. Since Facebook really isn’t central to my overall business and I only post three to four times a day there, it’s just fine and dandy with me.

Then, my other page, Groovy Reflections, made the giant leap. That’s when all heck broke loose. A drop-off in fans like there’s never been before; not a lot mind you, but for this page, it was more than usual. But that’s not the issue. Neither is the fact that the page takes forever to load up; we’ll let that slide for now.

Seems something is causing Facebook to selectively choose which posts show up in fan’s new feeds. And interestingly enough, it happens mainly when I include a link to the Groovy Reflections website.

You’re thinking…how do I know this? The page usually gets 5 to 50+ likes on any given post, so when you’re getting ZERO likes on a post, one can safely assume something is wrong.

Threw a question out twice about a half hour after no likes on a post to the 4400+ fans and asked them what was the last post they saw. Their responses clinched it; some were not seeing the last post, while others weren’t seeing the last TWO posts.

Businesses, beware. Facebook’s Timeline just made more challenging to have a successful Facebook page.

After a Google search and exploring Facebook’s help for a solution, I come up empty handed.  Then I reported a bug to Facebook. This auto reply installed showed up in my mailbox:

Thank you for submitting this bug report and taking time to help us improve the site. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to every bug report individually, but we are reading them.

Great. Sounds like I won't be hearing from them. So, Facebook, tell me, as a business, how do I continue to create awareness for my brand? I have no control over the algorithm that picks and chooses what my fans can see. Is that fair to my business? Google+ doesn’t do this. Each post should bear the same weight and same opportunity to be seen.

Should I not post at certain times of the day? Should I not use certain words that you may deem as spammy? Would appreciate some clues here so that I can continue to connect with and engage my fans.  Sounds reasonable, no?

In turn, you, Facebook, will be privileged with my on-going presence on your social network. Oh, and if someone knows the solution, please DO share it.

I dedicate this tune to all the fans on my Facebook pages that are Dazed and Confused. Click here.

Change is Good. Facebook Makes Changes. Users Not Pleased. What Happens Next?

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Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes…everyone is posting about "it"; been two days now. Most of the comments are negative. Facebook, knock knock; open up your complaint department door. A mini-me time line or “ticker” whizzing by at an alarming rate with only a few posts visible at a time? The “main” timeline, “top stories” containing only what Facebook think you’d be interested in? Your smiling mug glaring at you from the upper right side of the page?

What’s going on here?

Facebook is trying to be Facebook, Google+ and Twitter all at once. With Wednesday’s changes plus the other recent revisions, including making the list feature easier to use and the new “subscribe” feature, Facebook has managed to baffle more people than please them.

Think about who a typical user is. A lot of folks who are a part of the (rumored) 750 million that are on Facebook know little about computers and the technology that makes them tick. They merely want to meet up with friends, see what’s new, and extend a little loyalty to some of their favorite brands. They are not there to eagerly go through a learning curve every couple of days so that they can get to do what matters to them.

Many Facebook users have never been on Twitter or Google+. In fact, many of them haven’t even HEARD of Google+. This is your core group, Facebook, the social media challenged.
So Facebook, why are you ignoring the heart and soul of your “people” and making changes that only a person with some technical background would easily be able to figure out and work with?

Heck, I’ve even written computer programs and conducted boatloads of analytical work in my past, and I’m baffled too! Change is okay; don’t get me wrong. But why make it so complicated?
Are these changes about the users? No.

Surprise; it’s about revenue. It’s about having advertisers on the site. But hey, that’s not all of it. It’s a cry for power, to be the biggest, to attack the competition and keep them at bay; you listening Google? Google+, with users somewhere between 25 and 32 million (depending on source), is a mosquito, yet Facebook already feels stung. Will they admit that? No and I wouldn’t either. But observe Facebook’s behavior over the past few weeks; it is reactive, not proactive.

Oh, and did you know? Just announced on The Forbes annual “Richest People in America” list: Zuckerberg is wealthier than Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page with 17.5 billion in his net worth coffers. Sweet.

Here’s a thought: Wouldn’t it be nice if Facebook created a group of say 100 users that would be representative of all Facebook users? They can use this group to test new ideas with instead of just assuming that users will understand the changes. Perhaps they already have some internal personnel testing the changes. People that are likely below the age of 35 and grew up with a computer in their cribs…not representative of the U.S. Population!

On the Facebook page on Facebook, there are currently over 60,000 comments about the changes. Facebook, your users are trying to talk to you. Facebook, you have an opportunity to prevent abandonment by connecting with and engaging the users you already have. Talk to them. Listen to them. Announce changes before they happen. Provide videos that will take users through the changes in advance. Stop shutting out the users.

As Google+ continues to streamline and improve their social network, and it appears that they’ve put a lot of thought into it in regards to ease of use. As they become more known to the public at large, expect Facebook users to test the waters. One of my friends declared she was leaving Facebook on Wednesday, and guess what? She deactivated this morning.

Jimmy Buffet sang:

It’s these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane 

Conclusion: Expect change. And try to move along with it. Have a laugh while you’re experiencing it.

Wonder if anyone will see my post on Facebook?

How to Make Facebook Look “Old” Again

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It’s obvious. Most of us are not happy campers with the new, improved Facebook; in particular, the ticker and top stories features. Yeah, I understand it’s hard to leave your comfort zone but I’m siding with all of you; they’ve overdone it this time.

So some of us are frantically trying every suggestion that comes our way. Including me. I’ve found what I think may be the best one.

I created a list called “Whole Wide World”. You may want to call yours “News Feed”. I have included EVERYONE. I took each and every friend and added them to it. Painful because it can take a while to do. If you want to create a list with all or most of your friends here’s how:

• On the home page, place your cursor just to the right of where it says Lists on the left.

When the word more appears in blue, click on it.

• Select “Create a List”
• Add a bunch of friends to it
• Click done. Now click on the name of the new list of the left side. Suggestions of who to add should appear over on the right. Go through all those friends and add them to the list. This is a much quicker way to add them! When that’s exhausted…
• Click on the upper right where it says “Manage Lists” and add a few more friends by clicking on them. If they initially turn blue, just click on them again.
• Click done, click on the list name on the left and add the suggestions
• Working back and forth like this will get the list created a bit faster, especially if you have a lot of friends (say 300 or more).
• Under Manage Lists, you can control which updates you’d like to see. This is where you can unclick games if you’re not interested in them. The choices are:

o Status Updates
o Photos
o Games
o Comments and Likes
o Other Activity (this includes announcements of friends making new friends)

Now that the list is created with all of your friend feeds, it’s important to add favorite pages as well.
• Under Manage Lists, select Add/Remove Friends.
• Once the window opens with your friends, click on the down arrow in the upper left and switch to pages.
• Add pages you want to include in your list. Perhaps you want all of them? Hmmm…could be a good time to clean up all those lists you are on!
• Click done when you are done. This time, you really can’t do the go back and forth with suggestions. Sorry, it only works with friends.

Now you are done!

For now, this seems to be the way to control what you want to see. I also suggest that going to the wall of your favorite friends and under Subscribe, click on the option for all updates. Again, you have control here. Facebook assumes that you want “most updates” and has made that the default.

One thing I’ve noticed since I created my “Whole Wide World” list. I’m getting emails with additional comments from everyone else that has commented after me on a post. Not certain this is caused by the new list though. More work to be done!
One more thing. If you want to remove the ticker click here for Chrome users and here for Firefox. The Firefox addon requires a reboot after installing.