Learning to Like Facebook

May 20, 2010 · by Joanna Paterson · in

I’ve never been a fan of Facebook.  Twitter has always been my social media drug of choice.

I have however tried to persist with it and have learned more about how it works (and doesn’t work) in recent months by setting up and running a Facebook page for those interested in writing (more on the page below).

This has led me to reflect a bit more on the things I like about Facebook (and the things I don’t.)

Things I Don’t Like

Over and above privacy concerns, I’ve always found it fiddly and counter-intuitive to use.  There are too many settings that you can adjust or that FB changes so you have to waste time trying to figure things out again.

I have always found the ‘friending’ aspect hard to fathom.  I started using FB as an extension to blogging, so most of the people I’m ‘friends’ with there are bloggers I’ve never met.  Do they go in the same category as friends I know very well, old work colleagues, members of my family?

(This doesn’t come up in the same way with Twitter… a connection is a connection.  The relationships build up over time through conversation – they’re not labelled as such from the outset.)

I’ve tried to get round this by using lists – so status updates about something bloggy would go to blogging friends but not offline friends who’d wonder what I was going on about, and more personal updates only go to friends and / or family. (Though nothing is ever that personal with me, see below…)

Privacy Concerns

There’s a lot of noise just now about the changes Facebook has made to its settings, and the implications this has for the information that it shares about you and what you like.

A lot of high profile social media users are talking about leaving FB as a result.  I’m not going to add to that debate here but you should be aware of it if you’re a FB user, and you should adjust  your settings so you are deciding what’s shared and what’s not (and keep up to date with changes that require you to change them again – yes, how annoying is that?).

This article talks you through how to do an audit of your privacy settings.

You can also run a quick check of your profile and what you’re sharing here: Profile Check

I have to confess: I’ve always been nervous of FB and privacy settings.  I don’t share anything really personal on FB – no information on family members, no personal photos.

Although you get a good idea of what I’m about from my Twitter stream, I don’t share much personal information there either… I’m a private person.

I also work on the basis that technology is as likely to go wrong as right.  I work on the principle that if there’s anything you’re writing, posting, sharing that you wouldn’t like to be more publicly available… don’t write it, post it, share it.

Time Wasting

I know a lot of people say they don’t like Facebook because of the time it wastes.  (I’m not sure if they’re the people who don’t waste time there but still fear that’s what happens, or those that do and enjoy both wasting the time and complaining about it ;-) )

I’ve never found it a great time suck – maybe that’s because I’ve never really ‘got’ it, and never really liked it.  If you want to just dip in and out once a day to check on a few things and say hello to a few people… you can, easily.

(I find Twitter soaks up a lot more time, though I wouldn’t call it wasted.)

Changes

Changes tend to come along without warning, and are not generally welcome.  Having spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to set up a welcome tab for the Writing Space page, I wasn’t that pleased to find out it’s not allowed any more unless you’re ‘authenticated’ (which requires 10k fans… and I thought I was doing well with 300…!)

Some Facebook Positives

A lot of people use it.  A lot of people who aren’t generally that into technology, geekdom, blogging, or other forms of social media… use it, are there, and will continue to be so.

I can’t help thinking a lot of those who are leaving or talking about leaving just now will drift back for this reason alone.

You can reach people through it.  I ran an ad there recently for the writing retreats I’m running in Scotland.  It was easy to target those who might be interested (by age, location, having expressed an interest in writing) and the ad led to a lot of valuable leads.

Conversations and Connections

I mentioned earlier that I’ve set up a page for people interested in writing.  It started off as a way to spread the word about the writing retreats, but now it’s really a FB offshoot of Confident Writing.

I’m not sure I’m using it the ‘right’ way… I tend to ask questions, share a few writing ideas and prompts, and throw in some (hopefully interesting) quotes on writing, stories, poetry, language, authenticity… that kind of thing.

The aim is to create a bit of space for people to share their responses: experience, things that work, thoughtful ideas, useful links, some short quips and one liners, plus of course a few simple thumbs up.

I like the pace of the responses – it seems less pressured somehow than blogging (where there’s always too much to read) or tweeting (where the pace can be a bit fast (though I do personally like that) ).

Slower, and somehow more languid.

(Does anyone else notice that or have a way to describe / explain it?)

I also very much like getting to know some of the people who share words, thoughts and ideas there.  Thanks to all of you who’ve joined in so far :-)

The Writing Space

Promote Your Page Too
If you’re on FB and you’d like to join in, you can do so from the picture above.

In Conclusion: To Like or Unlike?

I think this post wins the prize for the most brackets ever used – and I guess that reflects my ambivalent attitude towards Facebook.  But in the end it’s pretty much like any other medium you use.  What you get out of it depends on what you put into it, what you expect from it, and how it fits with the other things you’re doing too.

I’m not sure I’ve quite learned how to like Facebook, but there are aspects of it I’ve learned to like.

I don’t think I’ll ever trust it… but to be honest I’m not sure that we should.

What about you…? Do you have a love / hate relationship with FB?  Are you a recent convert or someone who’s planning to leave?