I Was Bullied By Facebook Fans.

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Yes, I was. And I let them do it.

My Groovy Reflections page (my other biz) posts a lot of music videos in celebration of 60’s/70’s music and pop culture.

Among the things we post are birthdays. It was Gary Glitter’s birthday. If you don't know, Mr. Glitter had some major troubles including taking advantage of children (to put it mildly). He was caught (thankfully). He has paid his dues and is still doing so. While I certainly don't endorse his actions, I hope he can live up to his wrongdoing and find peace. Oh yes and he had a big hit with Rock & Roll Part 2 in 1972. My post said: 

“Happy Birthday to Gary Glitter, born in 1944. We celebrate his big hit from 1972. Hey…”

A few likes showed up and then some negative comments including a very irate fan that used very colorful language. That sam fan also sent a message. It read: “gary glitter is a convicted kiddie fiddler please remove this”

Now I admit I have a lot of fight in me. However, the comments and the message hit me at a bad time. So I wimped out and removed the post and posted an apology.

One of my Groovy Reflections team members woke me up. He messaged to me: “You cannot let them bully you.”

Alas. it was already too late. I deleted the post. Shortly afterwards I posted a question to the fans as to whether or not we should continue posting anything related to Phil Spector, since he is a convicted murderer. No one replied. Hmmm.

That GR team member took the issue a step further and made several posts in celebration of those who are “notorious”.

Here are a few examples:

• Jim Morrison exposed himself on stage once but we are posting his 1969 hit anyway.
• This 1965 smash (and many other "Wall of Sound" hits that we love so much), was produced by convicted murderer Phil Spector, but we are posting it anyway.
• Imagine that a fellow was busted in England for drug possession.....then later, that same fellow was being deported from the USA because of Nixon, the FBI and the CIA. Imagine that after five years of court battles, this criminal got to stay in the USA.....Imagine if we posted his music anyway.

Wow! We listen to music by Jim Morrison (The Doors), great tunes produced by Phil Spector, and John Lennon! And they are all bad boys! Imagine that! 

And his final post before handing “the wheel” over to the next GR team member (admin):

• This 1972 hit is played at sporting events all over the world. It was Top 10 in its day and most of us liked or loved it. Unfortunately, Gary Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd) is not that great of a human being. However, he has paid for his crimes. We are posting his song. If you do not like it, do not listen to it. ALSO, walk out of any sporting or other event IMMEDIATELY when you hear it........as you can see from the past six posts, if we only posted stuff by angels we would be pretty limited.

Since I'm not a big sports enthusiast, I had no idea that Gary Glitter’s hit song was played at major events. I can just imagine the crowd screaming out their "hey...eh..hey...eh's" at my local sports arena.

Joe, thank you. You proved your point! To steal a phrase (and title) from a Tom Petty song “I won't back down” in the future. Not sure what happened to my "Jersey"!

So, here we go. I’m posting this song. Here. Right now. If you don't like it don't listen to it! I like the song. It reminds me of a certain period in my life. And as I stated above, I hope Paul Francis Gadd (Gary Glitter) finds peace in his life. And as one fan commented “forgive his soul but not his actions”. Well said.

This is the world of social media. Advice for you? Stick to your convictions. I promise I will stick to mine and I won't let anyone bully me in a social media situation again. 

This tune was a 1972 #2 in the UK and #7 in the U.S. (see below). And tune into great tunes at the brand new radion station, Groovy Reflections Radio! 

Marketing hat just went back on! You are most welcome to make a tuneful stop by the ModlandUSA website, or visit us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.    

Dear Facebook (A Rant)

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Facebook, you just keep doing it to me. I feel like you’re trying to wring some $$s out of me and your tactic is to share the posts from my MODern Marketing 4 U page to less and less of my followers.

Thank GOODNESS for Twitter. I receive more consulting inquiries from there than anywhere else. And thanks to Twitter, I have a healthy blog readership that’s grown by leaps and bounds over the last few months. 

Facebook, I have a lot of faith in you. One of my other pages, Groovy Reflections, now has well over 12,000 fans and incredibly high engagement. So I KNOW some people are seeing that page and that’s great!

I have no intention of using your Pay to Promote feature. Why would I when up to just earlier this year ALL the fans for my pages DID got all the posts from those pages in their news feeds? I even honored you by blogging about this new feature when you introduced it; JUST to let people know about the good and the bad points about it. 

Facebook, it’s not my fault that your stock flopped. Thankfully, I chose not to buy. I KNOW you make money from advertising. And that’s fine; I accept that. But to squeeze “the little guy” (uh, that would be me) for some chump change is unreasonable. I've done my part for you by keeping 12,000+ people coming back to Facebook because they like Groovy Reflections! They may be staying on Facebook even longer because of the success of that page. 


We are not Charmin though you think we are.

Now, about that stock. It’s worth about half of the intro price now. Did you ever think about bestowing credibility by actually showing that you CARE about us users?  An announcement about upcoming changes would definitely make people think that you consider us important? Besides, generating excitement about upcoming changes (provided they are GOOD changes) will also build positive brand imagery. Do you have a marketing department that thinks about this?

So, Mr. Zuckerberg, you should be thanking ME. Why not give me $50 in credit for promotions as a little thank you. Your wealth won’t even be affected.

Bert Kaempfert wrote a little ditty about 50 years ago that describes a good way to be; can we apply this to our thoughts about Facebook in the future? For more smiles, stop by and visit... at the website, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ ...Thanks! 

Don’t Just “Like” My Page.

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Watch out folks, I’m going to rant a little. Some of you know that I have several pages. When I initially started those pages I didn't start plugging them relentlessly on my personal profile nor did I invite all my friends. I DID invite friends, however, ONLY the ones that I thought would be interested in the subject matter.

Pages aren’t about your friends.

They’re all about the folks who have an interest in what’s being presented to them. The point is to make it so darn interesting to them that they comment on the posts. That’s engagement; it’s key to survival for a page.  And yes, its lots of hard work, so if you’re not ready to put in the time, don’t start a page until you’re ready to commit to it.

I work my butt off coming up with original, interesting articles to please the good fans on one of my pages, MODern Marketing 4 U(ModlandUSA). Don't worry; I enjoy the writing! Very few respond and/or comment. For now; that’s okay. Facebook is not the main source of traffic for my blog readership and may never be. Despite that fact, I continue to work hard to keep my audience on Facebook captivated.

And lately I’ve had a flood of folks from Twitter say “like my page and I’ll like yours.” Truth is I’d rather see you display an actual interest in my page and talk to me than just merely “like” it! Honestly, I felt funny liking a B to B biz recently that offered office management services to landscapers, plumbers, and the like. There’s nothing I need there. Sigh.

But back to the friends. I probably get four or five requests a week to join a page and most of them are concerned with products or services that I’m not interested in. Do you please your friend and like their page or blow them off? There have been a few instances when I’ve felt comfortable enough to write to the page owner to tell them WHY I won’t like it.

Does having me there as a number and not as a participant really add any value?

Personally, I’d rather have fewer fans and a higher engagement “talking about this”. Currently, my Groovy Reflections page is at 36%, ModlandUSA is at 10% and Gizmo and His Groovy Friends is at 12%. These are great numbers since the average is 3 to 4%. Thank you fans!

In closing, I just have one request: Talk to me...on my website, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+! I love to yack. 

The Byrds sang about pages long before Facebook had them:

Fans, Facebook, and You.

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Once upon a time, a fan was simply a way to catch a cool breeze. You held it in one hand and fluttered it up and down by your face. Paper, bamboo, plastic, a fashion accessory. 


Spectator sports brought about a whole different kind of fan; loud at times, loyal, swelling with pride and perhaps swigging a brew.


And then there are those “fans” in Social Media, namely Facebook. Remember “fanning” a page? Despite the changeover of terminology, we’re stilling referring to them as our fans (at least I am). “Likers” just sounds too awkward.


Who ARE these people who have indeed “fanned”, oops, “liked” your page? They include: 
Your friends (admit it; you may have strong armed a few however they generally have an interest for your page else they wouldn’t be there in the first place)

• Your friend’s friends (since they may see activity for your page)
• People who searched on Facebook and happened to find you 
• Tweeps or users of other social networks (if you are promoting your page on Twitter or elsewhere)
• Enthusiasts (who will share and promote you if they really dig you.)
• Friends of enthusiasts who are enthusiasts (who found your page via their friends)
• Spammers (they’ll post spam soon after liking your page so they’re not there for long unless you've been ignoring the upkeep of your page)
• Fans who are “Talking About This”: They consist of new fans “liking” the page, clicking like on a post, commenting on, tagging, mentioning or sharing a page, checking in (if you have a location) and those who are coming to an event (if your page offers events). These are important fans!

Note that a fan can fall into more than one of these categories.


Where do YOUR new fans come from? Are they mostly your friends? If so, concentrate on growing that fan base since your friends may not be typical enthusiasts of your product or service, thus skewing the demographic information that Facebook provides. Not a breeze to do but they may catch wind of you via a Facebook ad or via your blog if you have one.


And why did Facebook make the change in the first place? They state: To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we've changed the language for Pages from "Fan" to "Like." We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.


Hello Facebook, this rationale is rather broad in scope. Would have been nice to have asked US first. Or are you planning to use a 1 to 10 scale at some point (see my thoughts on that issue here). 


It’s been over a year and half since the change, Are you stilling calling them “fans”?
Donovan “caught the wind” early on his career. Click here to enjoy his folky sounds.


This blog is part of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Here's E, D and C.