Thinking About Facebook

A Thinking Place, 11×14″, colored pencil

In the fast-paced, always-changing high-tech world we occupy,  there are decisions that need to be made. By not making a decision, a decision is still made. (And some people think I just stand around painting all day, lah-lah-lah, happy little idyllic pastoral groovy life!?)

I’m trying to decide if Facebook is a good idea or a bad one in terms of business promotion. If you are on my email list, you received a request for your opinion on the subject. The number of responses was wonderful – honest, helpful, informative and abundant! And I was able to respond privately to everyone of you with real gratitude in my heart.

I love the personal and immediate nature of email. In snooping around Facebook (some of the pages are visible even without an account), it seems as if the nature of communication is quite shallow. Of course that could be due to the fact that the pages I saw are not private!

Here are some of my conclusions from the feedback you provided.

  1. The correct term is to “be on” Facebook, not to “use” it.
  2. I am an ICG, not a DBO, and the correct spelling is “Okie” because “oakie” is a little tree. ICG means “Ivanhoe Country Girl”.
  3. About half of you are on FB
  4. Most of you are on FB just to stay current with family, particularly newly grown children or grandchildren.
  5. The staying current consists of seeing photographs rather than having conversations.
  6. More women than men are on FB.
  7. They are not “sites”; they are “pages”. (It IS called “faceBOOK”)
  8. Very few have ever visited a business’s FB page; if so, it was for coupons and freebies.
  9. A business page has “fans”; a personal page has “friends”.
  10. There are many privacy options to be learned and used.
  11. If the page isn’t updated daily, people lose interest.
  12. Many of you offered the help of your sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, all of whom are quite good at this sort of stuff. I thank you!!
  13. A participant can quit any time. (like smoking or drinking??)

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2 Comments

  1. This post makes me feel young! I didn’t check your blog before I sent my email today, oops. It seems you have lots of feedback which is good. Your collective network of friends described Facebook pretty well! I guess I should offer my help as well, if you need it.

    All of this info seems pretty accurate. However, I don’t think people will lose interest if your page isn’t updated daily. I’ll explain. When you post something it will show up on your ‘Fans’ Wall’s’ (the wall is the list of info that is gathered and displayed for user pages such as friends comments, pictures, event, band info, businesses that post, etc.). This could be once a week or whenever you want. I will note that Facebook uses an advanced algorithm to compute what stuff is displayed for individual uses based on their individual preferences. That is probably more than you want to know but I say it just to say this…if people don’t click on your Posts when they show up on their Page…Facebook computers will deem it not as important as the things they do click on.

    Let me know what happens 🙂

    • Thank you, Chris! You ARE young, compared to me. That is a tremendous asset when it comes to fearlessly charging ahead with new technology. I appreciate your help and explanations (and really enjoy your blog too!)

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