My Life Without Facebook: IS OVER!!

In case you missed it – I gave up Facebook for Lent.

It’s official – Lent’s over and so is this experiment. Which is good because I’m TOTALLY OVER this whole no Facebook thing! I’ve enjoyed the increase in face-to-face and phone conversations that I’ve had with my friends and family, but those conversations could have been even more fun with a little help from Facebook on current events.

I was an early adopter of Facebook and other social media outlets, so it’s been nice being able to take a step back to remind myself, and others, how this tool can really be utilized. By doing so I was able to be reminded of how Social Media can affect us, not just personally but professionally. So I hope through my step back we have all began to think of social media as a compliment to your traditional marketing plan. Here are a few other things I hope you’ve began to think more about in regards to your business:

• Social Media is a way to engage with your customers – but should not replace in-person or personal communication.

• You can’t communication with your audience if you’re not using the same communication tools that your audience is using.

• You might be trying to communicate, but if you’re not where your audience is then business can get pretty lonely pretty fast!

• Social networks aren’t the ONLY place your audience is at so it should not be the ONLY place your business advertises. It should compliment your other advertising efforts.

So what did I do first on Facebook?

•   Looked at pictures of all my friend’s newborn babies
•   Became a fan of my bank’s Fan Page
•   Went through all my friend requests (15), messages (56) and event invites (I stopped counting!)
•   Followed up on the happenings in my friends, family, co-workers and client’s lives – we’ve got LOTS to cover this week!!!
•   Updated my calendar with several of my client’s events as well as local non-profit and chamber events.
•   Uploaded all the pictures I’ve taken the last month and a half
•   Went through my news feed (no not from the last 6 weeks – just the last day)

I’ve CLEARLY got lots more to catch up on but that’s kept me busy for a little while. I hope you enjoyed relentlessly torturing me with stories about facebook gossip. I also hope you’ve enjoyed following the things I’ve learned from this experiment, but mostly I hope that you’ve taken something away about how communication channels are evolving.

Next year I’m totally giving up cookies or maybe chocolate – but definitely NOT Facebook! Until then, thanks again for following and I’ll see you on Facebook.