UPDATE: After reading the following, I’ve edited the very bottom.
Two hours after posting a status update on my Facebook wall and reading the replies from people I know very well and others I hardly know at all, I’ve decided to walk the talk. I’m about to sever over 50% of my connections.
I wrote:
Thinking about overhauling my Facebook usage and unfriending every person (some 500+ or so) who I’ve never met and frankly care less about what they’re doing. Need to brood on this. Thoughts?
While Kim and Maureen reminded me about tweaking Facebook friend lists and hiding selected updates from appearing on my home page if I don’t want to see them, that’s easier said than done. See, I have 1,025 Facebook friends right now. Wanna guess how long it would take to hide 500 of them, one by one?
Josh, Kendra, and Mollie commented that they don’t befriend anyone on Facebook they don’t know. Liz wrote she’d be disappointed if she couldn’t see future updates. Teri wrote I was “on to something.”
Here’s the kicker: If I didn’t have a Twitter account and if I wasn’t blogging, there wouldn’t be any decision to make. Which begs the question why do we use Facebook?
If I had to guess, I’ve physically met or spoken on the phone to 600 of those so-called friends; and probably really know about 300. Cognizant that Facebook friendships require mutuality, it is frankly the developer’s problem if you can’t see future updates if I, uhh, unfollow you.
So…
In the spirit of reincarnating my Twitter account five weeks ago and both overhauling and slaying a smaller list of LinkedIn connections in recent days (who I didn’t remember why I connected to them in the first place), now it’s time to act on Facebook and try to bring my use of the social network back to the early days when I only shared information with people I knew (or wanted to share with).
If you would like to follow my business thoughts on Facebook, inclusive of blog posts here and other elements I choose to share, or you choose to add, you may become my fan at http://facebook.com/ariwriter.
If you would like to follow my local thoughts on politics and community as a city councilor, you may become my fan at http://facebook.com/ari4newburyport.
If you would like to follow what I do elsewhere online, there is always my primary Twitter feed and my in-need-of-attention account at FriendFeed.
We each use Facebook for our own reasons. Until Facebook allows following without requiring mutuality, the above outlines what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and what you can do as a result. Make sense?
Because it was too cumbersome deleting one person at a time, I resorted to Plan B and found a Greasemonkey script that enabled me to bulk delete friends. I meant to only delete a single friend list. But, due to either the script or the network acting up, something fizzled. So… the current view is…
…not at all what I intended to do, but what’s done is done. In the coming days, I’ll figure out who I want to befriend on Facebook and engage with. It’s like I have a new account with zero friends — which, I suppose, I do.
Final update: My account is blocked…
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Graduating college I did the same and dropped a lot. Then I got involved with social media and realized those connections could be useful. Majority are absolutely a waste and when I mean majority its more like 99%. But I figured to add more people cause then more people see my stuff and possibly click and read or share although unlikely. I know that’s not the main focus but why not. I don’t blame you.
The slogan for your website is ’social media and online marketing.’ Ironically you have jettisoned thousands of your Twitter followers and now unfriended hundreds from Facebook. I get the message loud and clear: focus on quality, manageable contacts in social media. In the long run this will help you to enrich your brand. Thanks.
New from Paul C: GPS November Theme: Tumbling Walls
The key word to focus on, Paul, in that above slogan is strategies. From the moment I created a Facebook account in 2005, and later a Twitter account in 2008, I let tactics guide what I did when and why I did them. Tactics, not strategies.
For instance, when I decided earlier this year to accept FB friend requests from relative strangers — people who liked my blogging or people who saw I shared mutual friendships with others which led them to reason I had some social capital they should befriend, too — I said yes to each person as a tactic. There was no strategic use to my using Facebook. When I created friend lists and added FB friends to lists, those were tactical decisions.
By reducing (and ultimately, zeroing) my FB friendships, I can start fresh — with a clear objective of how I want to use these tools.
And there’s the rub: tools. If you need to disperse snow from your front porch, you know you need a shovel. If you need to push dirt, you need a broom. Shovels and brooms are tools, no different than social networking sites. You could shovel your entire driveway, or you could hire someone to snow plow it. Both are tactical decisions, but only one of those decisions will help you long-term. And that’s the strategy.