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Facebook At 15: A Positive Or Negative?
February 5, 2019
No doubt social media has turned our moments that matter into shared experiences, giving us the opportunity to react online to the highs of our friends and families lives, and offer comfort during the lows. It has connected us. It has divided us. It has also been linked to declining mental health when used excessively. So as we celebrate 15 years with the social platform to forever change how we communicate, as well as how brands get to build fun personas, giving fans a sense of belonging - it would be good to revisit the social media moderation conversation
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Facebook turned 15 this week.
Later this year, Twitter will turn 13 (Mar. 2006), Instagram turns 9 (Oct. 2010) and Snapchat will turn 8 (Sept. 2011).
No doubt social media has turned our moments that matter into shared experiences, giving us the opportunity to react online to the highs of our friends and families lives, and offer comfort during the lows.
It has connected us.
It has divided us.
It has also been linked to declining mental health when used excessively.
So as we celebrate 15 years with the social platform to forever change how we communicate, as well as how brands get to build fun personas, giving fans a sense of belonging - it would be good to revisit the social media moderation conversation.
Professionally: If you are a brand demanding incessant use of social by your people, ask how healthy it really is to demand constant and unending posting and tweeting?
After all, the end in mind is to resonate, not just to be seen.
And how impactful is ceaseless content anyway?
Do your people a favor, consider the following:
Create Cadence
Cadence is a necessary pattern to ensure brands look publicly focused and consistent; zeroed in on the content the audience wants.
It helps us create one great piece of content each day, rather than that forgettable stuff.
(And the natural growth + interactions which generate from following the right cadence is a way to show impact made on social.)
Content Buckets
Posts and tweets must do one or both:
Breakthrough - meaning remembered/re-called.
Respond - trigger reaction and/or action.Focus on content buckets to achieve that.
For example:
Is it Useful? Meaning does it teach, entertain or inspire?
Is it Empowering? Meaning does it make people feel included, confident and/or relatable?If content is not doing one or the other, time spent is wasted.
Study What Works
Watch what drives sharing and conversation and do more of that. Equally pay attention to what does not trigger reaction and stop doing that.
Place greater focus on what's valuable to the audience; not our agenda.
And a side note, if you are still heavily using social media personally - find balance.
Your mental health is more important than the feeling of being "liked."
Turn off superficial notifications, and consider spending less time posting
Insignificant stuff.
Believe it or not, it's OK to not post for a day - or even longer. (And you don't even have to announce you're not going to post. You just don't post.)
Effective use of social greatly benefits our brands (and can be beneficial to our own relationships); so long as there's balance.
We win when we invest in our people and ourselves.
Reach out to me anytime on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.
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