Why Facebook is a Joke (And various social media/smartphone insanity)

[jon.a]

Not too long ago there was this chick on my newsfeed talking about how she's pregnant again. Later she was posting about a tough "decision" she has to make. Then she posted about how she made the "decision" and feels good. I'm sure you guys know what that decision was.

Sloots love them some Facebook.

I'm guessin she's not gluing her knees together?

 

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[Unknown]

I'm guessin she's not gluing her knees together?

The "pregnant again" part makes me think that even that wouldn't stop her.

 

[ddall]

Lot's of hate for Facebook, but I fear many readers here have NO IDEA how tame that is compared to the onslaught of new social media, apps that most of you here if you are over 25 have likely never heard of. In my present experience Facebook has been abandoned by young people, however moms, aunts, etc, ( middle-elderly age women) live for Facebook . Young people CANNOT be reached via Facebook in terms of marketing. They are blind to it. But Instagram, wow, now you are playing with fire if you want to market to teens an 20 somethings. SkinnyTea anyone? Social proof is huge on this medium. Especially for girls. Anything targeting young women this is YOUR medium.

Talking about fastlane, I'll give people here a hint, you WANT to learn these new apps for business purposes. I know a younger guy related to my spouse's side of the family who has over a million followers on Vine. That is REACH. He is famous now to young people, and get paid tens of thousands to do a 5 second video wearing a simple product or talking about an app. Paid 1000's to retweet something. He get's approached by Microsoft, Justin Beiber, you name it. Blew up overnight by figuring out how to game Twitter followers, he learned the system and when Vine came out he started on it the first day.

But Vine, Instagram, are also 'old', there are newer apps that even younger generations are using, most marketers arnt on that level yet, older people are kept out and dont know about them, which is why the apps are cool. But there is serious untapped marketing potential in these areas. If you grow with the ecosystem, as my spouses friend did.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Lot's of hate for Facebook, but I fear many readers here have NO IDEA how tame that is compared to the onslaught of new social media, apps that most of you here if you are over 25 have likely never heard of. In my present experience Facebook has been abandoned by young people, however moms, aunts, etc, ( middle-elderly age women) live for Facebook . Young people CANNOT be reached via Facebook in terms of marketing. They are blind to it. But Instagram, wow, now you are playing with fire if you want to market to teens an 20 somethings. SkinnyTea anyone? Social proof is huge on this medium. Especially for girls. Anything targeting young women this is YOUR medium.

Talking about fastlane, I'll give people here a hint, you WANT to learn these new apps for business purposes. I know a younger guy related to my spouse's side of the family who has over a million followers on Vine. That is REACH. He is famous now to young people, and get paid tens of thousands to do a 5 second video wearing a simple product or talking about an app. Paid 1000's to retweet something. He get's approached by Microsoft, Justin Beiber, you name it. Blew up overnight by figuring out how to game Twitter followers, he learned the system and when Vine came out he started on it the first day.

But Vine, Instagram, are also 'old', there are newer apps that even younger generations are using, most marketers arnt on that level yet, older people are kept out and dont know about them, which is why the apps are cool. But there is serious untapped marketing potential in these areas. If you grow with the ecosystem, as my spouses friend did.

Rep transferred+. Awesome post with awesome Fastlane implications. Neglecting these tools out of spite will hurt your business. Kind of makes their use a necessary evil.

 

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[jkkkjkhk]

I use it for what it is - a simple way to keep informed and idly communicate with those I may otherwise rarely ever call or get to visit. And of course to advertise and such for business purposes.

And I absolutely click the "hide all from" button at the drop of a hat. I can only take so many posts fishing for likes and comments (aka "vaguebooking") before I just never want to see a post from them again.

It seems like facebook use is going down across the board though. This time 2 years ago my facebook account was exploding with every detail of everyone's lives. These days I may not see a single personal update from a friend or family member for days (and I only personally post a small handful of times a year, if that).

This is pretty much how I am, don't think I've ever posted a status update.
I've un-followed more people than I can count, including many of my immediate family, can't stand seeing "duck face" pics and these stupid

"Only 90s kids will remember these"

Which is another thing, heard this one going around, some girl making a comment about seeing an "old" corded phone and wondering why there's # symbol, saying twitter wasn't even around then. Natural selection needs to speed up.

 

[csalvato]

I set up my router to block facebook, actually...everything aside from /ads/manage

 

[jon.a]

Natural selection needs to speed up.

this

 

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[royalflush]

So much BS now on Facebook. People are just oversharing unimportant things.

My main use for FB is the ads, and the fb groups.

 

[Red]

 

[LOYD]

The ironic thing about social media is that it has made most people less social than before. I completely abandoned Facebook just purely out of boredom and came to find out there were people who used it to keep tabs on me rather than ask me directly how I'm doing. We're talking family members and friends who live near me who would rather just get info on my life online than pick up the phone and say "hey".

Outside of that, it's just hard to take anything posted on social media seriously. The women who pose in their underwear in their dirty bathrooms and then call themselves "models" (booking info and all). The person that commits a crime and then posts pics of it online. I saw a guy on Vine eat poop straight out of the toilet for some likes and re-vines. Saw another guy attempt (key word attempt) to jump over a moving car only to end up eating the pavement. Then you have beefs that start on Twitter that lead to real life violence.

But hey, let them do them. At this point, I watch all of this mess like...

 

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[Ashten]

I deleted my facebook a while back and feel I have much more time on my hands free for productivity.

I like to model what top executives do. I dont see them having facebook accounts worrying about other people's lives, their #gymflow or their #foodporn. Self-approval is better than the approval of others in my opinion, but sidewalkers and slowlaners seem to crave the opposite. #Live&Learn

 

[CommonCents]

I see FB as neutral, another medium that can be positive or negative depending on how you use itt. It's a great way to organize events with friends, keeping in touch w/ friends/family, reconnecting w/ old friends.

I have become more social w/ FB, sending and receiving invites to various get togethers.

I get better insight on various 'friends' (more like acquaintances). It lets me weed out acquaintances who are attention seekers and drama prone. I then avoid them and don't waste my "in person" time around them.

I say if you are a loser, you still are whether you are on or off FB. On FB, its just more apparent

But as FB becomes more intrusive, there will be a big oppty for an open source social network to knock it off quickly. Especially w/ automated network import tools so you wouldn't have to rebuild your network manually.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Proof that Facebook is a joke...

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/07...cal-experiment-on-its-unsuspecting-users.html

The results of a secret psychological experiment conducted on nearly 700 thousand Facebook users without their consent recently came to light. The fact that the experiment was aimed at studying the emotions of the members of the social network without them knowing it has caused online outrage.

The study’s authors came to the conclusion that the emotions experienced by users online are influenced by the posts they read, which can also affect their behavior in real life. As they said,“Emotions expressed by friends, via online social networks, influence our own moods, constituting, to our knowledge, the first experimental evidence for massive-scale emotional contagion via social networks, and providing support for previously contested claims that emotions spread via contagion through a network.”

And now they are doing studies to prove it.

 

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[Michael Raphael]

I love the top comment...

I check fb every month or so to see if anyone has died

 

[rcdlopez]

On a side unrelated note, I know a guy who met Leonardo DiCaprio.

I also know a guy who knows a guy who once took a picture... with a guy who once shook the hand of Leonardo DiCaprio.

 

[tminch55]

My biggest claim to fame on Facebook was when it was strictly for College students, I was the first Gary Busey imposter. Living life as the Buse was pretty sweet until my account was deleted.

 

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[NicoleMarie]

I also know a guy who knows a guy who once took a picture... with a guy who once shook the hand of Leonardo DiCaprio.

Shaking hands eh? You got me beat. The guy I know is the art director/lead photographer for Kohler, probably should've mentioned that lol. He also is an example of the "slowlane exit" exception that MJ mentioned in the book. Went to college, became indispensable, got high paying job, travels everywhere, etc. Leo mentions Kohler at 0:40-:55. Ok I'm done.

 

[rcdlopez]

I've used facebook to do a "character analysis" on the people I hire. I recently was looking for a personal assistant and one of my requirements was to hire someone who I can trust with my confidential information. Trust is something that takes time to build and you can't tell how trust worthy someone is simply by asking them in an interview.

I looked up several candidates on facebook and I tested them to see if they would accept my friend request from my fake facebook profile. One young lady who I interviewed posted how bored she was at work and how she was going to just "youtube all day". I found it funny that she would keep that post up while she is job hunting and extra funny she was laid off a few weeks later.

Everyone puts on a nice attitude when they meet someone for the first time; which is one reason some waiters and waitresses are overly nice to the the point they are awkwardly nice. I try to find out how much BS the candidates are giving me by comparing the attitudes they gave me when they met me, to their attitudes in real life.

 

[nzerinto]

New idea for a website.. a Private idea facebook which works similar to WhatsApp linking use up between phones, emails, web updates twitter etc.
The niche ; you are only allowed 25 friends.

Sounds like you are describing Path. Someone already did this.

For those that comment about not using Facebook, or having deleted it etc, I'll mirror @ddall 's comment - you are not seeing the bigger picture, or opportunities that are available. Take more control over your feed, and start subscribing to pages that provide value....

 

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[sportf190]

DELETE

 

[Thiago Machado]

I fear for young folks who use Facebook / Instagram / et. al. as a gauge to compare their lives to others. Expectation and comparison is path to perpetual misery. If I spend one hour on Facebook, even I would end up feeling inadequate, not fit enough, not well-traveled enough, not successful enough, and not liked enough, blah blah.

Whats sad is that I am actually hearing that youngsters are making decisions based upon how certain activities will look when posted to social media. They're more concerned with having people *think* they're having fun than actually having it.

Be aware people.

And that my friend, is the reason why I left facebook.
Not only that, but it has become highly addictive. People have the urge to check their news feeds all day long.
To top it off, I won't even get into the negative impacts it has on productivity.

 

[Stubbers]

I would like to invite you all to play with this crushed candy! Unbelievable how many people mindlessly ask you to play their tedious time wasting games!

 

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[Silverhawk851]

To anyone that has problems that resemble a crack addiction with facebook, you can use this to actually "only check what your ads/business partners/competition is doing:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en

Stayfocusd - app tool that allows you to easily limit access to any websites to a certain number of minutes/ times of day, etc.
Can be good for parental control also.

Even if you an adult and need parental control...
Lol


(link is For chrome, just search for your browser...or install chrome you should be using it anyway )

 

[sportf190]

DELETE

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Copyblogger just killed their FB page.

http://www.copyblogger.com/bye-facebook

 

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[theag]

I unfollowed everybody's personal profile. Only stuff in my news feed are a couple of big brands in my industry and posts from fb groups, which are both paid and unpaid masterminds. And ads manager/power editor of course.

Sometimes when I'm weak willed I check out some chick profiles or those luxury lifestyle sites for a few minutes :embarrased:

 

[Deleted21704]

Most ad-based businesses turn out scummy. Google 'yelp fraud' and behold the hundreds upon hundreds of business owners screaming for help out of disgust.

 

[Writer]

Getting "rid" of facebook is one of the best decisions I ever made.
I couldn't stand spending hours on useless crap anymore. Anniversaries, marriages, vacations and so on. It' cool if you see one or two a week, but when it's EVERY f-in' day...
There is this guy that actually celebrates his marriage month-niversary on FB every month. Every SINGLE month. On that day, he publishes pics of where he went, what he's cooking, what's ready to eat and what has been eaten, plus pictures of the month-niversary present. I am sincerely happy about his happiness and I hope his marriage will last forever, but I wonder why can't people be happy in private anymore.

One IMPORTANT side note. Do NOT cancel your facebook account. Keep an official personal account, as empty as you want, just to protect your identity and to avoid that someone steals your account. I have seen it happening, it started as a joke and it ended up being ugly.

 

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[Writer]

Copyblogger just killed their FB page.

http://www.copyblogger.com/bye-facebook

Don't you think it's overkill? they could've kept an official FB page, and updated it just once every two weeks or so.
I understand avoiding FB obsession - either for personal stuff or business - but I don't see anything wrong with keeping an account with just a few posts. It might be true that 95% of the "Likes" are junk, but you're still spreading the brand around... for free.

 

[nzerinto]

Don't you think it's overkill? they could've kept an official FB page, and updated it just once every two weeks or so.
I understand avoiding FB obsession - either for personal stuff or business - but I don't see anything wrong with keeping an account with just a few posts. It might be true that 95% of the "Likes" are junk, but you're still spreading the brand around... for free.

Except they get more press and media by publicizing the fact, and they don't have to worry about monitoring the page and not not responding to someone's inquiry/post etc...