Facebook: to quit or not to quit

I’m sure you’ve heard of folks who have quit Facebook. You may have even quit yourself. (Have you? If so please leave a comment as to why you were motivated to quit.)

I have noticed a steady increase in the conversation on quitting. Some have quit over the Terms of Service, some over the fact that the news feed has become useless to them and the friends and pages they hope to keep up with, some after learning that Facebook manipulated users moods. After reading this post by Daylan Pearce : Why I’m Quitting Facebook & Why I Think You Will Too it got me thinking about whether or not Facebook is relevant to me personally and if I could/would consider quitting.

If you’re a friend of mine then you know how I’ve been bitching about having two day old posts show up in “most recent”. Most recent my ass. I get maybe 1-5 “most recent” posts and the rest are ads or updates from brands. Even with this frustration I kept logging in and sharing. Over the weekend I began to question whether or not being on Facebook is something I want to continue to invest in. It’s a tough decision. There are some great folks that I’ve friended over the years that I learn from every day . . . but then I remember that those same folks are also on Twitter, Google+, Pinterest etc. so even if i do decide to leave – there will be other ways for us to stay in touch.

I think Daylan had it right in his post when he said “Now, I’m not a Facebook engineer, but to me it sounds like that algorithm is either severely broken or has a different agenda than keeping me in touch with my friends.” Amen. Not only that but he goes on to say “The industry gets so caught up on the fact that something needs to replace the incumbent in order for a platform to die, they forget that if something is just a shitty experience, then people will stop using it.”

So I’ve asked myself if my experience on Facebook is worth it and encourage you to do the same (and not just for Facebook either, ALL social media sites you are currently active on). I’ve been researching the reasons why I shouldn’t trust Facebook. I’ve been considering the advice I give to clients who have invested into the platform which is this: remember that you don’t own anything on Facebook. You DO own your own website and the content you create there. Don’t be so entangled with a social media site that if you quit or if your page gets shut down it negatively impacts your business. (there are some businesses that ONLY have a Facebook page and no website. Eeek!) And always ALWAYS have an alternative plan. If you can, be active on a few social sites that make sense for your business. Why? because social media sites will come and go. Remember what happened to Myspace?

If you haven’t seen clever video by YouTube funny man Matthias yet – go ahead and watch it . . . I’ll wait.