Facebook Promoting: OK or Self Whoreing?

“Hey there look at me! I’m great! I’m eating cheese!” - This is basically the gist of Facebook. People giving virtual updates of their lives making us all feel more connected. But what once started out as a simple and addictive social network site has now also blossomed into a promotional weapon.

Success at social media has almost become a requirement for the success of your business and/or projects. I’m no business jockey but I’m pretty sure these graphs I found on the internet are demonstrating this:

 

Ah yes percentages. Percentages are very important.

The arrow is going upwards. Upward arrows are the most desired of all the arrows.

Umm... not sure about this one.

Every company and product now seems to have a Facebook page and more and more people are now using it for promoting their own personal businesses and/or projects. Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook. I like seeing what friends and family are up to and I like “liking” stuff. But I also am concerned about it turning into a constant feed of people promoting things.

So Pat, what are your thoughts on people promoting stuff on Facebook? Is it OK or is it incredibly obnoxious? Oh and by the way, dearest readers, if you haven’t already, we would love it if you went over and checked out our PCPPP Facebook page and “like” us. Here’s a link!

Pat:  I don’t know. I really only use Facebook the way I used the phone from ages 10-14--to prank people. It doesn’t work to do the whole “Hey, did you know your refrigerator is running?” routine, but it IS really fun to send incredibly verbally threatening messages to complete strangers. Then I message them back after a few days and say, “Nah, I was just fucking with you...want to send me a friend request? LOL!”

Are you suggesting that I could do that for money?

Christian: *Sigh* No. And I wish you would stop sending me those friend requests.

I want to know where the fine line between promoting yourself a reasonable amount and promoting yourself way too much on Facebook lies. Speaking of Facebook, we have a Facebook page which you can find right here. You should head over there and “like” our page. It will change your life in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. Or not at all. Definitely one or the other.

Pat: I think you might have just found that line.

I think that line might also lie somewhere between the following two completely fictitious posts:

“Whew...just ran four miles at a PR setting pace. Felt GREAT! Can’t wait to do it again!”

-- or --

“Whew...just ran four miles at a PR setting pace. Felt GREAT! Can’t wait to take a shower...wanna’ join me?”

Clear it up for you?

Christian: I wasn’t so much thinking along the lines of trying to get people to shower with you. I was more thinking along the lines of people that use facebook to promote their own small business or the crafts they are selling or promoting shows that their bands are playing or promoting their blog’s facebook page like the one we have here that people can go to and “like”.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problems with these people. I see Facebook as one big promotion of oneself. Whether you’re promoting your new craft business or letting us know the turkey on your sandwich is too dry, I don’t really see a difference.

But I will admit I do get self concious when promoting something of my own. Like our blog, whose facebook page can be found here, here, here, and here. Or here. And is available for “liking”. I find that I look at facebook a lot but don’t really update my status much except to promote PCPPP even though it has it’s own facebook page here or here.

Part of me feels guilty that often my only communication with my facebook “friends” is just me posting a link to a new post of ours. However if they had just went to our facebook page here and “liked” it, I wouldn’t need to use my personal account to inform them of new posts so maybe they are to blame here. What do you think?

Pat:  Christian, I need help. I now have 12 tabs open on my internet because of all of the underlined things that you mentioned. Can you help me tidy things up before I answer your question. It’s really distracting.

Hey...wait! All of the eleven tabs that just opened all say the same thing. They all show that pegacorn thing from our blog on Facebook. Goddamnit...what the fuck did you do to my computer?

Christian: Sounds like you are having a great time! Right Pat? Something you would recommend every else doing too right? Right. Here’s a link.

So yes there is definitely a thing as too much promoting. But we promise you, our dearest cherished readers, that you won’t regret “liking” our facebook page which you can do here. We don’t even come close to overdoing it with the promotional thing and we periodically give away chances to win free compliments via trivia, which has been hugely popular with the two or three people that have won.

Even if you are one of the many that find our blog after searching for “sexy pictures of Mary Lou Retton” or “nicely cut grass” we recommend liking our facebook page. Granted you must be very disappointed with what you have found here but maybe the silver lining is that you end up “liking” a really great facebook page. Or at least end up making us happy. And really that’s what Mary Lou would want most.

And even if you are one of those sickos that keep finding our blog by searching for “cat on rabbit action” we also recommend liking our facebook page. Just please don’t ever post anything on there.

And while everyone is at it you should all probably follow us on twitter here and do the whole google friend connect thing by clicking on that “Join this site” button off to the right. Again, we highly recommend it.

For those of you that have already “Joined this site” or at least think you have, it should be noted that we were recently informed by the lovely and very funny Robyn from Hallow Tree Ventures that our google friend connect thing hasn’t been consistently working in the past. Apparently it acted as if you had joined but you really hadn’t. Therefore if you think you have done this already or think you have never done it, you should do it again now. We suggest you keep doing it until you see your little icon show up amongst the others. We recommend continuous trying until success or until three days have transpired. Thank you.

Here’s a link to our facebook page.