Saturday, April 02, 2011

Everything is business


I have always said using Facebook successfully is not about the size of your community – anyone can pay for Facebook ads and rent a crowd – but it is first and foremost about engaging your community and providing a platform for conversations.

Facebook insights are a really valuable tool, and if you’re ignoring them, you may as well be ignoring your community.
Facebook isn't fun; its your brand. You must nurture it. You must cultivate your community. You must ruin everything for everybody else by being ambitious and calculating. It is all about insights:
To access insights, you must have a branded page on Facebook – not a profile. You shouldn’t use your brand as a profile for several reasons: It limits you to 5,000 connections, people think it’s naff, it is against Facebook’s terms and conditions, and most importantly, you can’t access the insights unless you have a branded page.
No, that's wrong. Most importantly, people who use Facebook to promote their tawdry little money-making schemes are annoying, insincere and untrustworthy. Everybody else is enjoying themselves, sharing their lives, helping one another; but you and your brand are there to make money. You are like a real estate agent at a funeral. You never stop, you never let go. For you, everything is an opportunity; the slightest acquaintance, the chance conversation, the introduction to a friend of a friend: all are potential for new business.

And you are there 24/7. You are always posting links, just so that everyone will notice you. You pretend to be interested in other people as people, when all you want is their money. Of course, you cannot bring yourself to mention money, not because that would be impolite, but because it would be bad for business: people would realise what you are about. You cannot talk about selling stuff either, so you talk about your community and about providing a platform for conversations.

The worst thing about you is that you believe this crap. People like you really believe that you are doing good, that the world is a better place for your brands and your conversations. You are wrong. It is not. Go away.

While others talk of LCD Soundststem, I shall play Sneaky Sound System. That's the way I roll:

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