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Showing posts from November, 2014

Update: The day after abandoning my Facebook page

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My first full day without my Facebook page is going well and the experience feels differently than I'd imagined, which I'll explain in a moment. I heard from many fellow journalists yesterday after posting my detailed reasoning for shrugging off the "Pages" system Facebook wants us to use-- in favor of simply creating a second account , wanting to know how this goes. READ: WHY I KISSED MY FACEBOOK PAGE GOODBYE It's a proposition that puts me at risk of being found in violation of Facebook's terms of service, though I sincerely hope not. FIRST, THE NUMBERS! As I write this, my new account is up to 275 friends and a handful of subscribers. Which means on just the first day, I'm at 71 percent of the total connections (386) I had on my fledgling page before I abandoned it. I've had a steady flow of friend requests since then, and Facebook made it pretty easy to grow my audience by suggesting all kinds of friends for me. I was giddy to dis

Why I kissed my Facebook page goodbye

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I tried. I REALLY tried... to do Facebook the way Facebook wanted me to do it. But after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I've decided that as a journalist, Facebook's current system just isn't for me in my professional life. I'm not leaving Facebook outright, (unless the social network giant decides to TOS me... more on this below) but I am kissing my reporter page goodbye... in favor of a second personal profile for work. Why? It's simple: Facebook has consistently rewarded all of my friends in the news business who broke the rules-- while punishing those of us who foolishly chose to abide by them. If you're short on time, I can show you my motivation in one chart, prefaced with the fact that my Twitter account and my professional Facebook page have both been active since 2011: I earned more followers on my Twitter account in the past month than I have in several years of posting highly-relevant news content to my Facebook page. And, final