When we think about social media, it is important to remember how much the internet, and the ways we interact with it, are evolving. The rate of change is fairly rapid, and because of this, it is easy for conventional wisdom regarding best practices to fall behind.
Think about it: the internet is still fairly new. Some of us might have trouble imagining life without it, and yet the first commercial service providers didn’t start up until the late 1980s, just a bit more than twenty years ago. Google got started in 1996-1997 (about 15 years ago); Livejournal began in 1999 (12 years ago); MySpace was founded in 2003 (about 8 years ago); and Facebook launched in 2004 (7 years ago). All of these services took time to develop and find their audiences. So even experts in social media haven’t been doing it for very long, because not long ago, nothing existed to do.
What this means is that there’s still a lot of space for experimenting, being creative, and developing your own unique way of using social media. Take, for example, the author Tobias Buckell. A year ago, contrary to all advice, he decided to shut down the comments on his blog. Experts told him that this was crazy talk, that he needed to enable comments on his blog to encourage conversation and engagement with his audience. Some people went as far as to say that without comments, it wasn’t even a real blog any longer. But Tobias was feeling drained from all the time and energy he had to spend moderating the comments, and he was censoring what he allowed himself to talk about as a result.
He recently published the results of his experiment: he went from 20,000 unique visitors/month when he shut off comments to 100,000 unique visitors/month a year later, which is the highest traffic he’s had in the seven years he’s run the blog. And he sounds happier because of it too, saying: “It’s really been a lot more fun since I starting letting myself be myself.”
So obviously the conventional wisdom that a blog has to have a commenting option, and that you can judge a blog’s impact and degree of engagement by looking at how many comments are being made on it, is flat-out wrong in this case. Yes, the experts were wrong. Would the no-comments approach work for everyone? No, probably not. But apparently it’s not the deal breaker everyone thought it was.
When considering my own use of social media, I find this distinctly comforting. It’s human to hit a wall sometimes. I’m sure many of us have a social media tactic that we’re “supposed to do” but makes us cringe. I’ll tell you mine, although maybe you can already guess. I’m supposed to write blog posts that are less complete and leave more room for all of you to respond. (And I love it when you respond, really I do.) But right now, it’s hard for me to even consider being less than complete–the thought makes my inner perfectionist rear up and ululate in horror. I imagine a blogging horror story in which I deliberately delete something I really wanted to say in order to leave it for someone else to say, and then…NO ONE SAYS IT.
An example of ululation.
So, time to dish. I told you my social media cringe-point; what’s yours? Is there a service that you just can’t get into? Is there common advice that makes you want to throw your laptop across the room? Is there something that, if you allowed yourself not to do it, would make you enjoy social media more or allow you to be more authentic to yourself? Let loose below.
The Practical Free Spirit 
I’m struggling to use Google Plus. I know it’s the “latest and greatest” and many of my friends do post incredibly interesting things, but alas more friends are on facebook and I don’t like the way that g+ handles the chronological order of it’s posts (i.e. No, I do not care what someone said about a two week old picture of a friend of a friend’s). I also don’t like the blatant lack of anonymity. I’m working on starting my own business so I don’t want all of my thoughts out for public consumption – there are likely several instances of things that I and a potential client would disagree on ontologically, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t get along swimmingly as business partners.
I think if your main use of social media is to keep in touch with old friends & family, then Facebook probably makes the most sense right now. Don’t know what you mean by blatant lack of anonymity, though. The terms of service aren’t any different than Facebook’s, at least not that I’m aware of. On both services you have the choice of whether or not to post publicly or to a more select group of friends.
What you say is true regarding the actual TOS except for one key thing… on g+ you *have* to use your real name (although I guess I could create a fake name that sounds real). On facebook you don’t and there were times that I didn’t use my real name or severely locked down my profile so that only my direct friends even knew I had a profile (i.e. not searchable in any way, unless someone had a very obscure email address that I used to use). Also, I worry about 3rd parties that may or may not be legally accessing information (one of the current nasties is something called “pipl”) and sharing it wide.
Perhaps I’m mistaken, then. It was my understanding that on Facebook you “have” to use a real name as well, and that sometimes they crack down on such things (I heard of a crackdown in the last few months, even). It’s just that not all people actually *do* use their real names.
Even if you do use your real name on Google+, it’s possible to lock everything else down so that hardly any information comes out. But I guess if you wanted a secret account, it would still be problematic. I don’t try to do anything secret on the internet because it seems to me that no matter what, the potential for anything coming out on the internet is just too high. But it’s possible that I’m paranoid…says the girl who uses a separate incognito window to log into Facebook.
I do agree that the internet comes with no true expectation of privacy, but I try my best. I guess some of my thoughts on the whole g+ thing might be colored by the various friends I have that wanted total name anonymity (like twitter provides) and couldn’t get it through g+. Your use of an incognito window is actually pretty brilliant… does that cut down on all the auto-login and tracking that facebook does?
Yes, I think it prevents most of the tracking (except if you open a new tab by clicking on something someone’s shared with Facebook, of course). The only trick is that you can’t use the incognito window for anything else while you’re doing Facebook, and then after you log out you have to close the entire window and then re-open it if you have anything else you want to do incognito….the hoops I jump through! 🙂 I guess you can also go in after every visit and delete all the cookies, but that sounds even worse.
Twitter is probably the best bet for anonymity. But I don’t know, after hearing so much about all the different ways to track people’s internet activity, I don’t think anything is foolproof. If nothing else, AT&T or Comcast will know what you’re doing… oh yeah, and the NSA.
I’m a compulsive/impulsive person, with an opinion on everything. Wisdom says that a blogger should post every single day, preferably with photos. I’ve been doing this, but it leaves me unsatisfied. There have been days when I could have posted a dozen new entries on my blog, and there have been days when I could barely get one post completed (ok, only in the beginning, I admit). I have more ideas and posts ready to go than I will ever catch up with…I write them all down on my computer, in a file, as they happen. Now I have to edit them down, because there is just way too many of them:) Oh well, maybe when I have less computer time available to me I will be thankful for that huge file LOL
I’d love to have a file like that!! All I have is a list of ideas. 🙂
I feel like the advice to post every single day is a bit out-dated at this point, on an internet that is inundated with content. Personally I feel like the most important thing is to provide value to your readers, however you define value, and if your posting schedule is getting in the way of that, then maybe it’s time for a change.
I dunno about the “incomplete” blog post idea. I think that there are ways to say everything you want to say, but still create space for reader response. For example, by winding up your blog post with an interesting question for the reader, which is something I notice you do very well.
Ah, the interesting question tactic! Yes, that sometimes works. 🙂
I’m reassured by your opinion. I’d certainly like to think there is a way to do both.
My pet peeve: blogging about writing. I mean, I’m guilty of doing that, but come on! There are gazillion writers out there blogging about writing that it saturates the market. It seems to me that most people are following the herd. Is writing all that we writers are passionate about? And besides, our writings–regardless of its imperfections–are our own unique style. If we keep following things a certain way, it would look unnatural–beautiful but unnatural.
Completely agree with you, Marilag. Of course I blog about writing too sometimes, but certainly not exclusively. I enjoy having a more well-rounded picture of the writers whose blogs I read.