Somehow I missed it, but Facebook is making some significant
changes, and they affect me. I received a notice from Buffer telling me that they would no longer
be able to post things to my personal FB profile
because of this policy shift. “Important News: On July
26, you will no longer be able to manage personal Facebook profiles in Buffer.”
The convoluted reasoning behind this move reminds me of the time my 5th-grade
teacher Ms. Roof penalized the whole class because Wayne threw a chalkboard
eraser at her. Because a few bad guys, by some people’s definition, did serial
political posting during the US elections, we all get slapped on the wrist as
if we are in some dire conspiracy to eliminate democracy. Unfortunately, many
misguided politicians, and others who think big government should regulate big
business, wholeheartedly endorse this “guilty until proven innocent” mentality.
Despite the outward appearance of being a responsible and compliant company,
that’s not the primary reason Facebook is making this change. It’s about money.
There are many reasons why Facebook is right.
They are a business first. They have every right to make changes to policy as
long as it doesn’t conflict with their basic agreement with us. We choose to
use their platform based on the terms of service published by them. We have no
right as customers to demand, expect, or even ask for anything we haven’t
bought from them with real money. This argument also holds true for LinkedIn,
Google, Amazon, and any of the myriad of other
internet platforms we have taken for granted to be ours. We blindly accept this
public visibility and even share parts of our selves that should be private information.
There are also many
reasons why Facebook is wrong. There is a dimension of branding not
included in their shortsighted decision. Building another online job board is
not the wave of the future. Creating an
interactive platform for individuals as well as companies to brand themselves
would have been an enormous leap in the
right direction. Offering the ability to build a personal brand with staged
responses to questions, displays of coordinated interactions with others, and insight into the “white space” in the resume
would paint a better picture of the total person and make collaboration between
individuals a reality. LinkedIn should have been that platform, and now Facebook is missing out.
How does this impact
me and my “branding” with my personal
profile? I already manage one business page and am co-owner of others. I believe that my brand should be of my
choosing, and that means consciously choosing what
information to share, when to share it, and to whom. Can this be
accomplished on a personal profile? Of course,
it can, but without the necessary tools to allow this to be a well thought out campaign, there is a lot of heavy lifting
involved. That’s why most personal posts on Facebook have degraded themselves
to a spur-of-the-moment response or emotional outcry. It may also be just my opinion, but it seems to degrade the entire product when chaos ensues. That seems
to confirm the theory that they don’t care about
individuals, who expect it for free and choose instead to focus on businesses
that are willing to pay for that privilege.
Many of my family, friends, and followers think I spend 24/7
on social media. The truth is that I’m a geek and lazy. If I am doing this
right, my brand shows me to be an intelligent, witty, and generous person.
There are subtle shades of politics, science, and technology that I also want
to blend into my profile because they are a part of me. Planning and staging
these ideas are not cheating the system. If you have ever seen my morning
greetings with an animal tongue and the caption, “Good morning phfffffft!” it should be evident that it has been staged in Buffer to
launch every morning at the same time. I’ve also had a lot of fun exploring the
creativity and humorous mindset of my friends by posting obscure pictures and
featuring it as, “Caption this picture.” If
there is such a thing as planned spontaneity, mine happens on Sunday
evening when I think about what images, quotes, and humor I want to share
during the coming week. It also affords the flexibility to insert my comments in
real time on my profile to keep it alive. A wise person once said this, “Work smarter,
not harder,” but I pretend I said it first.
I will have to change how I do things now. I will adopt a
new methodology, pay them for a new page, or
just give up. I’m not under any delusion that I have crowds of people following my every move, but for me, it has been a way to cultivate my
professional network and keep in touch with all who I have met in real life and
online. After all, Facebook does call them “friends.”
Stay tuned… more to
come.
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