The Best Thing You Can Do TODAY
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| Hard to ignore, isn’t it? |
I hate Facebook personally*. Never liked it. I abhor their privacy policies; the burden is placed on the user and one has to be vigilant about checking changes made to their settings on a regular basis. They know too much about us too. Plus there’s the fact that it’s so tempting to kids, who later regret their posts and wish they could take their page down (I know someone who recently didn’t get hired because of a FB photo showing her with a drink at a college party). And, frankly,
I just don’t want to take the time.
I recommend Facebook professionally. If you’re a business – profit or nonprofit – you need it.
Why? Because it’s the elephant in the room. It’s the largest social media platform out there, and it’s likely one of the places your audience is. As marketing guru Scott Stratten reminds us:
“You can’t ignore what you hate” (See 9 UnMarketing Tips For Online Audience Engagement).
If you’re a hypocrite, you pay the price. I happen to love underground fashion. I used to know everything that was happening locally. I was invited to fairs, festivals, open studios and even individual designer’s birthday parties. I was “in the know” and super connected. That was B.F.B. (Before Facebook). A.F.B. (After Facebook) I’m out of the loop. I no longer learn about things, because no one uses email or snail mail or tribe.net anymore. Everyone uses Facebook.
I miss a lot.
I’ve decided I can live with it personally. But can your organization live with it professionally?
What are youmissing out on? Caveat: Having an account/page on a site doesn’t count. You’ve got to work it. You get out of it what you put in. Social media doesn’t change the fact that relationships take time.
Make a conscious decision about what you can/can’t work. For ideas, see:
* To all you Facebook lovers out there, that’s why there’s chocolate and vanilla. I’m not the only one who hates it. I “googled” ‘I hate facebook’ and got over one billion results!
Are you a marketing hypocrite?
Like me, do you know what you shouldbe doing, but just don’t want to put in the time? Is that okay with you?
I’m not judging; just asking.
We all make trade-offs – and things change over time.
It’s just good to make these trade-offs consciously — knowing what the consequences may be.
4 Comments
Another excellent post! We can't do it all, and it is okay to play favorites, strategically. I am trying to break myself of the FB habit and spend more time with Pinterest and blogging. I am working on my Web site, and I will be relying more on blogging, LinkedIn, and Pinterest than FB. I am okay with that. 🙂
Thanks Lori!
It's encouraging to know others ( like you!) Are making thoughtful decisions and are no longer in the mode of chasing every shiny object. It takes courage to make trade-offs. The important thing is not to miss any boats that would actually take YOU to where you want to go ( not every boat is the right choice for every person or business; some need a kayak to agilely travel a narrow, windy stream, while others need an oceanliner to cross a major body of water). We need to at least look at all the boats and know what they can / cannot do for us. We don't want to blindly get on board and then go aground in the stream because we code the wrong medium/ conveyance.
This is SUCH a brilliant post. I hate the privacy settings on Facebook. In fact the only safe thing to do is assume – as with Twitter – that anything you put on FB is in the public domain, seeing as most of the time you're at the mercy of the privacy settings of anyone you are friends with. I use it, but am using it less and not for photo sharing or anything I wouldn't want in public.
I love blogging though and think Twitter is fantabulous. I'm on LinkedIn and just starting to engage with the Forums on there – they've had some really interesting debates.
Thanks for your kind words Margaret. And clearly brilliant minds think alike. 😉
I do recognize, however, that some folks can't live w/o their FB (and it's the first thing they check every a.m.). If a business/organization knows that a preponderance of their constituents are these FB folks, then they probably need to be there. What they don't need to be doing, however, is simply slapping up a page and asking folks to "like" them.
Social media is about being 'social' with folks. It's about engagement. It's about listening. It's about dialogue. For these reasons, I tend to like other media than FB because they're more direct and less distracting (plus, there's that privacy thing…).
Thanks for commenting!