June 9, 2014

On Further Simplification: First Steps

Life in General

If you read my last post, you probably figured out that I was feeling more than a bit overwhelmed.

Before I get to the meat of this post: Good news IS on the horizon! One thing has been confirmed, another is still pending, and I should have some announcements soon. I’m just sure when soon. Soon.

In the week since my last post, I’ve stepped back and done a lot of thinking, and made some decisions.

Essentially, I am cutting out all social media except Twitter and Facebook for ‘platform building’. I will make the effort to check Twitter once a day, and I’m making changes in how I use Facebook and Twitter.

I was very tempted to just quit Twitter, but it’s sometimes simpler to connect with publishers, editors, and agents (as well as potential readers/friends) there than it is on Facebook. Also, I’d have to decide to completely skip out on any Twitter pitch events in the future if I deleted that account.

I did get a bit aggressive with weeding out some of who I was following on Twitter. Because part of my frustration was the amount of links that were in my feed there, and I just… no. Anyone I clicked on who hadn’t posted anything BUT a link for 2-3 days was taken off. That’s just not interaction. It’s advertising. Which is okay, but not when the purpose of a site is social media.

I have deleted my Google+ account. I ahem hadn’t posted anything BUT links to my blog posts on it for well over a year. I was barely participating in any communities I was in, and… yeah. It was time to axe that one.

I still exist on Pinterest and Goodreads, but those are more for my own enjoyment than anything else. And honestly, Goodreads is just a virtual bookshelf for me. I can’t even remember the last time I posted a status. And I rarely post reviews. Because I forget to. 😀

When it comes to Facebook…

I’ve loved having a fan page exclusively for my writing. But the problem is that Facebook changed how they display pages to those who have liked them.

I used to get so much interaction on my Facebook page. Each post I made would get 50-100 views (which was at least 50% of those who had liked my page), and 5-10 comments on everything.

Now? I’m lucky if I get 30 views on a post there, and I can’t tell you the last time someone commented on a post I made on my Facebook page.

I’ve stalled on the ‘likes’, too. The last new like I had was in April, with the A-Z Challenge, and I don’t think anyone who ‘liked’ my page from that has even interacted there, so I’m still suspecting that no one there is seeing my posts. Not that I’ve made very many of them.

And then comes the fact that probably 2/3 of the people who like my fan page are, well, actual friends on my Facebook account. So if I post the same content twice (IE: like sharing a new blog post) I feel like I’m spamming.

All of that to say:

I’m unpublishing my Facebook fan page. I probably won’t do it until this weekend, because I want to give people plenty of time to go friend my actual Facebook account before I disappear into the void for some of you.

If you don’t want to friend me (for whatever reason, I think I’m awesome at least some of the time), I have enabled ‘following’ on my Facebook account, so you can get everything that I post publicly. Like blog posts, and random snippets, etc. And writing things.

And where is my account, you ask?

You can find it here: Rebekah Loper on Facebook. The badge in the sidebar has been updated as well.

But basically, I’m making an effort to be more involved, but with fewer things. Hopefully it works out well!

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Recent Comments

  • Patricia Lynne (@plynne_writes)
    June 9, 2014 - 7:54 pm · Reply

    I axed my Facebook page too because of the changes they made. Unless I wanted to fork out money, it was pointless, and I wasn’t forking out money to get people who already liked to page to see my posts.

    Good luck with the changes you made. =)

    • Rebekah Loper
      June 9, 2014 - 9:59 pm · Reply

      Thanks!

      I can tell you a bit now already. I changed my ‘cover photo’ on my facebook page at least three days ago. Maybe a week. I’ve had maybe 2 likes on it. I changed it on my personal account to the same cover photo today. I’ve already had 5 likes. There’s obviously more visibility there. 😉

  • jmbauhaus
    June 10, 2014 - 1:09 pm · Reply

    Twitter’s terrible for platform building and marketing. I wish more people would realize that and stop trying to use it that way. Then it would be a much happier place like in the early days when it was just one big ongoing chat party. People need to understand that spamming your Twitter feed with links and never interacting is tantamount to going to a networking event and walking around shoving your business card in everyone’s face without so much as a hello.

    I had to ruthlessly cull my following list to eliminate a lot of noise earlier this year, so I could start enjoying it again. That said, I’ve gotten a lot more relaxed about following people back since Twitter introduced the ability to permanently mute people without unfollowing them.

    I haven’t unpublished my Facebook page (I don’t really see any reason to nuke it), but I stopped updating it months ago and have been doing what you’re planning to do. It’s worked out pretty well so far.

    • Rebekah Loper
      June 10, 2014 - 2:00 pm · Reply

      I didn’t know you could mute people on Twitter now! That’s fantastic… but it also seems to me, at that point, of what’s the point of following them if you’re just going to mute them?

      I usually don’t follow anyone back until they’ve either responded to interaction, or if they are someone I know and was expecting to follow me. I’ve been ‘burned’ too many times by people following me just to get me to ‘follow back’ and them unfollowing me a few days (or hours) later. Me not following back right away at least weeds out who’s actually follow me because they’re interested, even slightly.

      Unpublishing doesn’t delete your Facebook page, it just makes it not visible anymore. I made the decision to do that rather than just stop updating it altogether because, like Michelle commented on my previous post, not having an account is better than having an inactive one.

      And that way, too, if I ever exceed the ‘friend’ limit on Facebook (hah. It’s 5,000. I doubt that will ever happen.) then I still have the page to fall back on, and I know someone won’t take my url there.

      • jmbauhaus
        June 11, 2014 - 12:09 pm · Reply

        Sometimes I’m on the fence about whether to follow someone back, because they meet all my requirements but look like they have the potential to be annoying. Now with the mute feature I can go ahead and give them a chance and if they do get annoying I can just mute them instead of outright unfollowing them (if, that is, I’m concerned about hurting their feelings for some reason).

        I also used JustUnfollow regularly to weed out anyone who’s turned right around and unfollowed me.

  • S.B. Roberts
    June 11, 2014 - 8:49 am · Reply

    I found a way around the Facebook conundrum. If you add the pages you want to hear from to a “list,” their posts show up every time in the newsfeed. I’m not sure how we spread that sort of word around to the world, but it’s at least encouraging to know that there is a way around it. After all, I’m so much more comfortable with Facebook than Twitter, even though I’ve learned this week that the fan pages work rather differently than the personal ones. (Almost makes me wonder if I should switch to having both, too.)

    • Rebekah Loper
      June 11, 2014 - 12:01 pm · Reply

      *nod* the ‘list’ thing does work… but how do you get people to see your post about them NEEDING to do a list? It’s frustrating and I wish Facebook would just go back to how it displayed pages in people’s feeds before.

What do you think?

About Rebekah

Rebekah Loper writes character-driven epic fantasy featuring resilient women in trying and impossible circumstances who just want to save themselves but usually end up saving the world, often while falling in love.
She lives in Tulsa, OK with her husband, dog, two formerly feral cats, a small flock of feathered dragons (...chickens. They're chickens), and an extensive tea collection. When she's not writing, she battles the Oklahoma elements in an effort to create a productive, permaculture urban homestead.

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