Facebook

Facebook is a great place for keeping in touch with friends and relatives but it is becoming less and less useful for marketing. The new "Page" layout hides all the followers of the page -- except to the administrator of the page. Visitors to the page can only see the followers who are friends.

The "invite" button, which is only available to administrators, does not work -- invites are sent out but they don't arrive. I have to click on friends' pages and send individual messages with invitations to a page. This takes forever and has a very low success rate because the link to the page is made inactive in the email of the recipient. If the recipient does not view the message on facebook, then the invitation cannot be responded to.

Why is this becoming so difficult? Because Facebook want page administrators to pay to advertise their pages. It's all about money. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Security is a problem also.

3/18/2011


How's about Twitter ?


Cheers..Joe

Twitter is selling "promoted tweets" as explained in this video:



The video does not start automatically after 15 sec. You have to click the stop start button twice (once to stop the video and then click again to restart).

Facebook is largely a useless timesuck, IMO. I haven't been on it that long and have less than 50 friends, but already I'm getting impatient with it. So much drivel. People posting that they're doing laundry or cleaning their house. And it's mostly one-sided; people post reams of this stuff about themselves, but don't post much on each others' walls. And when they do, it's something like "Like." So I find a newstream full of "likes" on photo albums of people I don't know, music I don't care about, obscure websites I care even less about.

Is this how it is for the rest of you, or do I just have really boring "friends?" Speaking of which, I can't imagine what the newstreams of those with 1,000+ "friends" look like. Do they even read anyone's wall except their own? I suspect they have a small group of real "friends" whom they interact with, and everyone else just gets their narcisstic laundry and clean house posts, or their promotional posts.

LC,

It does seem rather childish. Some people tell everything. They are tired etc., SO BORING!

Sorry folks, but I think you're missing the meaning of "social" network.

E.Don,

Great to see you. We like to be deeper than Facebook allows us to be.
I like your posts here and there.

E. Don Harpe wrote:

Sorry folks, but I think you're missing the meaning of "social" network.

I totally agree.

A lot of folk are doing what they would if they briefly met up with friends in a crowded market place, they just have rushed open conversations short and to the point.
Some use it merely for posting family news.
Others are more open and having posted on a daily basis run out of things to say so they just post trivia ( bit like me then!).
Setting aside all the silly games and chain letter style trivia, mainly folk use it to just keep in touch in a less formal fashion.
People tend to forget that they have to set up their acounts in a way that makes their info and posts more private.
Facebook is not so user friendly in the privacy department, a suprising number of users have all their info available to anyone. This is because many open a facebook account just trusting the default settings so they don't bother setting it for security.

You can be the most well spoken highly respected member of society and because of your facebook settings those less respected foul mouthed members of your family and friend circle post obscene things which appear on your wall and your street cred goes A.W.A.L.

I understand social networking and like that I've found long-lost friends. However, I've already de-friended or hidden others, due to their non-stop posting of game updates and YouTube videos. A couple even ignored my private messages and wall posts. Why send or accept a friend request if you don't plan to interact? I think a lot of people must just like collecting "friends" like charms on a bracelet.

LC wrote:

I think a lot of people must just like collecting "friends" like charms on a bracelet.

Maybe FB stands for Friend Bracelet.

We all "defriend" someone now and again, and I'm not real crazy about the constant postings about games and all of the new apps, but it's still a good place to stay in contact with people you might not otherwise talk to on a regular basis.

And I will delete or block a post, from family or friends, if it contains language I don't like or that I think most of my friends won't like.

It may be a great place for advertising new books and things, if you use one of their bought ads. I don't know, because I don't pay them for ad space. But I suppose it's seen by a lot more people. I keep people up to date on my books, and on the material I have available on Kindle, and it seems to generate a few sales. I have been averaging about one download a day on the Kindle stuff, and the best that's going to get us is a dinner every now and then. But I don't think it hurts, and to be honest, without a major publishing house putting our books out there, we're just not going to generate all that much income anyway. It doesn't bother me all that much, because of my years in the songwriting business. I had a lot of songs recorded, but only one that could be considered a hit. The many songs generated very little income, the one hit generated quite a lot, so that's the way I see the book thing. I write, don't make much, but I know that can change in a heartbeat if one gets picked up by a major publisher.

In the meantime, I'll keep using FB to visit with old friends, make a few new ones, and keep my name out there where at least a few people can see it on a daily basis. Might not help much, but it's a small invesment of time that I think if probably worth it overall.

3/21/2011

I agree with Don , my art site posts all my latest photography
and art on it. I don't agree with people posting there every
move which I've read is dangerous because you can be found,
Why would you tell perfect strangers your going out for the
night ? I believe it has it's place in advertising your writing and
art, I think people should keep personal things to themselves..
I also advertise on Twitter...

Cheers..Joe

I agree with everyone! You all have valid points. I even agree with myself!

3/21/2011

Alice..

What did you do to yourself ?
It's not the Alice I know & Love....


Cheers..Joe

If you are talking about her avatar, it has been lurking for some time. I love it when it decides to come out. Who among us does not recognize ourselves in the early mornings of our days?




Besides, I hold in reserve my own depiction of my masculine
side, my Jungian animus. You never know when you might see "him"
again.






Ann