Blah Facebook – I Don’t Have to Like You

photo credit: mobology

Truth time? I never truly, deeply loved Facebook like I love, say, Sphinn. You could take Facebook out of my life and I’d be pissed at first, but I’d adjust, and life on the planet would continue. Take away my Sphinn and furniture is going to move around in here.

Yes, I love Sphinn, but I’m not an SEO specialist anymore, haven’t been for years. Why not is another story I’ll tell you later. Let’s get back to the point…

The point is this: all these articles about whether anyone “likes” Facebook or their policies or if it’s doomed, or whether or not it’s a waste of time, etc. bore me to tears.

Ship? SAILED!

The point really isn’t whether social media is the new black. It’s whether it will benefit your audience, it’s whether that’s where they congregate these days, it’s whether or not you can find utility in it in your life. So what if it’s in vogue or not? Are we budding fashion designers on Project Runway or are we business people? We’ve done this song and dance last summer. Let’s move forward and talk reality.

The reality is, I don’t love the telephone, but I use it to make calls. I vehemently hate cell phones. I feel they hinder more than they help and that unplanned phone calls are a hinderance to my day not a help. But I can no longer get along without it, so I got one.

I hate email. I refuse to use it anymore if I can help it. I now have an assistant whose main job is to skim my business email accounts, discard the 75% that are trash, or spam, summarize nuisance and important mail, and forward me things that are personal or that only I can deal with. Clients get special account addresses to email me directly — and in less than 60 days, that’s going to be hooked up to a ticketing system so that they can send me email but I can answer via a forum style interface.

But does that mean I’m not going to use email if it can help my business? Hell no. As long as sending newsletter updates via email is free or low cost, unobtrusive to my audience, is some subscribers’ preferred form of contact and doesn’t take an inordinate amount of my time, I’ll be sending out my newsletter via email as long as the contact method results in a profit that makes sense.

The same goes for Facebook. The difference is, I can get along without it specifically, but my business will die without customers.

Anything that eventually brings me more customers at no cost with little time investment that can be automated in some cases? Is for me.

The shine on it may be duller – it’s not new anymore. Fine. But as long as it’s free or low cost, unobtrusive to my audience, is some subscribers’ preferred from of contact and doesn’t take an inordinate, I’ll be, bare minimum, updating my blog posts to Facebook, using Facebook ads and/or FB pages, as well as participating in groups to meet people and for other purposes that bring traffic and sales to my business. That is, as long as the contact method results in a profit that makes sense.

So you don’t know how to do that last part? So learn. You don’t have to buy my book, or our package on Social Media if you’re not ready for that. Got get some of the free information and do some basic research yourself.

It takes 15 minutes to set up a page, an hour if you’re not internet savvy. You can spend two hours every day on Facebook generating traffic, or install some of their applications that will draw attention to you in an automated fashion, and only log in once a week for 15 minutes to half an hour. If you have a bigger company, you can make an application.

Of course, Facebook isn’t for everyone. Nor are laptop computers, but many of us find them useful and more efficient for our lifestyles and the way we spend our time. Can it, or social media in general help you? If it can, is it worth it?

I’ll repeat the key element – is it profitable given the time expenditure? Here’s another – if growth slows, will there still be enough of a population engaged to put it to good use? Or try this on: if it half the population just up and left, never to return, do you stay with it or jump on the next bandwagon?

What say we spend the weekend figuring all that out. Next up will be an article that will help you find out if your business is a good fit for Facebook, and we’ll go from there.