Hello all! As a few of you already know, I’ve a love-hate relationship with Fb. I like that it allows me to keep up a correspondence with a few of my mates, teams and on-line communities I care about, join with individuals I meet at varied conferences and meet-ups. Nevertheless, I’m discovering it an increasing number of troublesome to maintain up with everybody I’m linked with on this Private account as a result of I’ve been utilizing my Private FB feed as my most important feed.
It’s my fault, I do know! A few of you solely settle for FB mates from individuals you already know nicely personally and have met in individual. I attempted to try this to start with, however then I began to go to extra work-related conferences and started to fulfill individuals I actually appreciated and wished to keep up a correspondence with. Both they might ship a FB pal request or I might. I’d additionally get FB pal requests from individuals who have been following my blogs or comics on-line for a few years, earlier than Fb, with whom I had corresponded however have by no means met. Typically I’d get requests from individuals whose names sounded vaguely acquainted however I couldn’t fairly keep in mind (I’m very very unhealthy with names) so I’d message them to attempt to determine the context with out insulting them (“May you please remind me how we’ve met?”) and that always spun into conversations which, although they may be pleasing, started taking on an increasing number of time. So I began accepting FB pal requests from anybody so long as we had some mutual FB mates; trying on the listing of those mutual mates robotically informed me whether or not they had been from the kidlit/YA neighborhood, board gaming neighborhood, filker neighborhood, my previous school mates, my previous Inkspot days after I was a contract author, and many others.
Rethink how I’m utilizing social media. Fb is the largest time suck and most detrimental expertise for me, primarily as a result of I all the time really feel like I’m behind, by no means capable of sustain with posts from nearer family and friends, and my feed is stuffed with posts from individuals I don’t know personally. My message inbox (IT DRIVES ME CRAZY THAT FB DOESN’T LET US TURN OFF OR FILTER OUR MESSAGE INBOXES) is all the time overflowing with group messages and folks I don’t actually know asking me for favours, or mass promo mailings. Extra private messages get misplaced, which is why I discourage my mates from counting on FB messages as a method to attain me.
I used to all the time submit a cheerful birthday message to anybody on my mates’ listing who had a birthday and got here up in my “these are your pals who’ve a birthday” feed. It was straightforward, only a brief message. BUT then someday earlier than I did my standard “completely satisfied birthday, xxx” submit, I noticed that the identify sounded acquainted as a result of I had seen unhappy information about that individual on Twitter. I did extra investigating and positive sufficient, the individual (whom I didn’t know however was aware of due to his posts) had DIED a number of days earlier than. But individuals had been nonetheless posting “Blissful birthday, xxx!” messages on his FB wall, however these had been interspersed with condolence messages from those that truly knew this individual.
I used to be horrified.
I finished my automated birthday message posting after that, and tried to solely submit if I knew the individual and after I checked their FB wall to seek out out what was occurring their life and see if my message was acceptable or not.
I additionally began pondering laborious about how I used to be utilizing FB.
I’m going to regularly undergo my Pals listing on my private account and prune. If we interacted a very long time in the past however don’t anymore, you most likely gained’t even discover that we’re not FB mates. My posts on my private account are all public, so you continue to have the choice of studying them. I’m most likely not studying yours proper now anyway as a result of I’ve too many strangers on my FB Pals listing (therefore the necessity to prune). Simply being on one another’s FB Pals listing just isn’t networking, if we by no means work together or learn one another’s posts.
I’m going to make use of my Creator/Illustrator account extra usually for posting artwork, writing, my mini ebook opinions, giveaways and comics. When you and I are inclined to solely work together at conferences, I’ll doubtless decide to observe your Web page as a substitute of being FB mates. If you’re somebody who makes use of FB messaging so as to add me to group lists with out my permission or sends me promo mailings by way of FB messages, I’ll most likely additionally take away you from my private connections.
Proper now my private FB Pals listing is at 4832. Which is CRAZY, for a private account. The restrict on private FB accounts is 5000. As soon as I hit that restrict, individuals will not be capable of ship me FB pal requests. I hate the concept of private mates not having the ability to join with me on FB whereas I do know there are millions of individuals on my listing who don’t know me besides that I’m a pal of <insert kidlit individual right here>. Or possibly they met me as soon as at a convention years in the past, however we not often work together anymore. Connections and friendships change; there’s a pure ebb and circulate.
My final purpose is to have the ability to get my private FB feed again to what it must be, and utilizing my FB Creator/Illustrator Web page for sharing content material with and connecting primarily with these involved in my artwork, writing and book-related posts. It should NOT simply be for promo or business-related content material. I can be posting my doodles, discovered object artwork, writing about my workplace stationery obsessions, what I’m studying and having fun with, highlighting kids’s ebook writers and illustrators, doing ebook and doodle giveaways, speaking about inventive course of and extra.
I initially posted this on Fb however have additionally posted it right here so I can consult with it occasionally. If I get questions on why I’m altering the best way I exploit FB, I’ll level them to that submit. There can be ruffled feathers and awkwardness, I’m positive, which is why I’ve postponed doing this for therefore lengthy.
Thanks prematurely for understanding, and for studying this far.
p.s. I’m NOT saying that is what everybody ought to do. As I point out in my social media workshops, I strongly imagine there may be NO ONE RIGHT WAY to make use of social media. I additionally don’t imagine everybody HAS to make use of social media. It’s important to discover out what works for you. If you end up repeatedly spending an hour or extra on FB simply to really feel drained or annoyed or demoralized by the tip, I encourage YOU to rethink how you employ social media. Even simply chopping again your social media time (generally I truly set a timer) will help. Talking of which, I’m shutting down FB now so I can do some writing….