Don’t laugh!
OK, laugh a little. I love laughing!
But this metaphor actually works. Read on. I’ll show you!
The metaphor popped into my head in the car, as I was moseying along between the grocery store and the mall. It sprouted from a conversation with a fellow blogger this week about what kind of reach you get for different kinds of Facebook posts. Reach is strongly effected by post type. You can read about it in many places – here’s Buffer’s take.
To summarize, value on Facebook, as in all social media, is determined by reach, and the type of post you create will directly impact its reach. Live video is the sparkly platinum, top-tier post type on Facebook. Video uploaded directly to Facebook, but not created live on Facebook, is a close second. Posts with images come next, significantly below video, and the lowest form of post, with reach often not discernible to the naked eye, is a post sharing a link to content on another site.
What about text-only posts? (Text only? Is that even a thing anymore?) If I were guessing, they’d fall just above posts sharing a link. Nothing is below a post sharing a link.
Having read the above, you will now easily follow my metaphor. Facebook is a stalker boyfriend.
Stalker boyfriends, also known as the possessive type, creepers, and abusers, love one thing more than any other. They love control. They don’t want you talking to anyone else. They don’t want you spending time with anyone else. They don’t want you thinking or feeling anything outside their control.
Yikes. Yikes!
So what does stalker Facebook like best? Facebook live! That’s right! It’s created on Facebook, by Facebook, for Facebook. It’s you devoting your whole attention to Facebook. Stalker algorithm will reward that behavior all. day. long.
Video posts that aren’t live, and picture posts, are the next best thing. Not really best….I mean, if you can’t do live video, an image post will do. True, it wasn’t created BY Facebook, but it is posted on Facebook, and nobody can see it without Facebook. You neeeeed Facebook for these posts. Facebook will half-heartedly ensure those posts get a response, so you’ll keep making more of them. On Facebook. For Facebook. So that maybe you’ll get excited. And make a video.
What about that lowest form of post? A post sharing a link? You can probably guess what’s wrong with that. A link post is designed to take the reader AWAY FROM FACEBOOK!
No.
We obviously can’t have that.
So, stalker Facebook will prove to you that you should have stayed with stalker Facebook. Go ahead and post your link post. No one will see it. Facebook will make sure of that. You’ll have to stay with Facebook. You should make a meme, or post a video. Your reach will go back up. Seriously. It will be better this time. Just come back. Maybe you’d like to make a live video?
Yikes.
Melinda Johnson, Writing 
I detest Facebook and would really love to be completely off it. I keep having people convince me to stay because I need that additional exposure for the shop. I guess. How worth it is it though?
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I’m asking myself some version of this question almost daily.
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It’s so evil. No one sees my blog posts on Facebook. I think they might read them if they did, but when I log on Facebook now all I receive on my blog page is “If you pay us, we’ll boost your post.” It’s the only notifications I get now. So, posting on Facebook has become pointless for me and since it is pointless, I just don’t go on there anymore. Guess they shot themselves in the foot this time. I’m not desperate enough to pay them for attention. Sort of stinks because I’ve been writing books and I can’t get the word out about them, but … oh well.
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We’ve done a few paid posts at work, and even those don’t get colossal results. Try human-to-human networking if you can.
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Once I have actual print copies of my next book I’m going to try that at local craft shows etc.
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The reality is that Facebook is a business and we are their product (despite what they say). As products, we need to stay “on-brand” so they can effectively sell us to their customers. If I owned a store I would take measures to keep people from stealing my products. So, really, it’s a place we go to be sold so they can make a profit which really is creepy since they market themselves as something different entirely.
One thing that has remained fairly consistent, however, is that the higher the engagement on a post, the further its reach. I’ve received a lot of referrals from Facebook on some of my WordPress posts but mostly for those that both my husband and I each posted our accounts.
It really is a shady place to spend one’s time. Thank you for your article!
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You’re absolutely correct. It is a business and we are the product. The disparity between the claimed and actual identities of Facebook (and Instagram and….) is one good reason to stay aware of the psychology involved in the experience.
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I read this passage this morning in “St. Silouan the Athonite” by St. Sophrony. He’s talking about newspapers, because social media hadn’t been invented yet: “He who would pray freely and untroubled must keep himself in ignorance of the news in newspapers; nor should he read shoddy books or be curious to know details of other people’s lives. All this fills the mind with thoughts that stain, and when one would sort them out, they further and further entangle and weary the soul.” (p. 443)
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“…fills the mind with thoughts that stain…” That’s such a good description.
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“Curious to know details of other people’s lives” is what got me. That’s social media in a nutshell. I love celebrating my friends’ and acquaintances’ achievements, but so much of [FB] is details! I don’t need or want to know what somebody ate for dinner, or saw on the highway, or . . .
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I think the details are both a spur and a result of the compulsiveness of social posting. You need to post and post and post. Sooner or later, you’re going to run out of big things to post.
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Thoughtful obseevation!
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