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I’m sure I mentioned it before, but this is the year I try to boost my own professionalism because I want to be taken more seriously. This has got me thinking about a few things that have kind of steamrolled, so I’m going to try to cover them as best I can. So bear with me.
When I set out on this adventure of publishing, I thought I should reveal my true persona from the outset. This did attract people and helped me gain a lot of support that I wasn’t getting from other corners. Unfortunately, there was the downside to this. I’m not a 100% positive and happy person, so problems arose when the other side reared up. Only a handful of people can be friends with everyone and I’m not one of those mutants of mankind. I have issues and abrasive parts of my personality, so I have to hold those out of the spotlight. At least until I reach a level of success that means I can be as eccentric and kooky as an escaped lunatic.
Professionalism really is hard to maintain because you want to let people know there’s a living human being behind the books. Yet you don’t want to let the readers so far in that they think they have a decision in the story. Some distance does need to be maintained or one plot twist will cause drama. This is probably why so many authors have PR people since these incidents spill into the public arena and can take a chunk out of your professionalism. Those of us inside the indie author world know how these things work, but an outsider (most readers) won’t have any clue beyond the author’s public actions or those taken toward the author. That brings me to:
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This train of thought immediately brought me to the ‘joy’ of social media and how we’re no longer private creatures. Our lives are out for the world to see thanks to these sites and this happens whether we’re on there or not. All you need is a friend who loves posting pictures and you’re on there. Whether it’s a family gathering, a friend’s birthday party, or the background of a kegger that someone posted on Throwback Thursday, you’re probably on Facebook. You can demand it gets taken down or make a rule, but I’m finding that most people who do this are rather unwilling to agree.
I’m singling the big one out here because that’s where most of my grief has come from. I have several things set for privacy and ‘friends only’, but someone can share those things to make them public. People post things to my wall to be funny, but some of them are rather crude and awkward. I’m not always given a choice if this thing goes live or not. I’ve had friends tag me in embarrassing pictures that I’m not even in, but they think someone looks like me. There have been so many public fights on there that I’m starting to believe that the only purpose of Facebook is to tear friendships apart. Disturbing thing is that I’m seeing people claim that fights on social media can’t be held against them off-line. So they get into a vicious political debate with a sibling and believe that conversation cannot be used against them during the next face-to-face.
There are many days that I think social media is a hindrance to professionalism. People get fired for what they do on there even if it doesn’t have to do with their job. Sad thing is that without Facebook, I wouldn’t know about pregnancies, weddings, engagements, divorces, graduations, and most big events for friends and family. I would drop it if I didn’t have that, a few people I chat with on there, and the author page. So I have to make rules for myself to keep it clean:
- Keep things basic and use friends only for personal stuff.
- Avoid all fights. Block and unfriend anyone that decides to start such fights with me.
- Act with professionalism even on there because one never knows who is watching.
- I cannot control the actions of other people.
Do you have any social media rules?
Legends of Windemere 
Rule #1 Set Facebook so that no one can tag you without your consent. The picture may still be there but it will not have you tagged in it.
Rule #2 Don’t do anything you would be ashamed to have your mother (or other close family member) know about. If you don’t do anything questionable, then it won’t matter.
Rule #3 Have fun – be social. But have a real life outside of social media
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I always thought I had it set to #1. One of the issues I have with Facebook is that changing of the security measures seems to undo one’s settings. #2 isn’t easy if you combine it with #3. All you need is one wild night out with friends and the one with no sense of propriety will cause trouble.
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There has never been a time when so much of what used to be our private life is out there. As bloggers, particularly, we do put a lot of ourselves on the page. I suppose the ‘old’ adage of, ‘if you don’t want everyone to know, don’t publish it’ is the big thing here.
Facebook particularly seems to have degenerated over the past year… a lot to do with the last few changes applied to visibility and I can only see it getting worse as charging for business pages comes in. I personally don’t spend a lot of time there these days except to use the messaging service to stay in touch with friends.
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A disturbing thing is that one doesn’t even to be the person who published it. Now the adage seems to be ‘if you don’t want everyone to know then don’t write/photograph/do it to begin with’. All you need is one person to put out something you would keep secret and it’s out there forever. Kind of makes the Internet a really scary place.
I’m not really sure what Facebook is about any more. I try to interact with friends, but then I have to go hunting for their posts a few days later because FB doesn’t want to show them to me.
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I suppose the moral of that is to not do anything you could possibly not be happy to go public… but as we are human that is unlikely to happen.
I know… pain in the backside I have to say.
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Funny how it’s in our nature to do such things, but most seem unable to forgive or understand that. Very quick to judge and condemn as of we’re infallible.
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I think a lot has to do with the guilt complexes inbuilt into society… most of them a hangover from a previous age too.
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You just mentioned the other thing about FB that I’ve come to hate. The posts I really want to see disappear too quickly. When I first got on FB, the feed was a lot different, it was easier to keep on top of things. Once they changed that interface, FB just went south.
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I know. I barely remember what the old one is like and it’s horrific on my phone. I’ll go on and be like ‘oh that one is interesting’, but it will suddenly update itself and I’ll lose the post. The thing might not even be in the feed any more.
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Happens to me all the time on my iPad and even my desktop. And I have to keep resetting my feed to Most Recent Stories. Seems to me I should only have to set it once, but, FB thinks it knows better 😉
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I do that and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Just wondering how much longer FB can last. Though there’s nothing that can compete these days.
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Yeah, I’ve tried some others like Google+ and Tumbler, but I think their feeds are just as bad as FB. I do like how I can select who sees my posts in G+, though. That’s a nice feature. I don’t get Tumblr at all and I’m thinking of dropping out of LinkedIn. I’m tired of people I don’t know wanting to “join” my “network.”
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Google+ always confuses me in terms of navigation and Tumblr is rather boring. Not sure how to really interact with people on Tumblr since it’s all about picture posting. Barely touch LinkedIn, but it seems people keep following me.
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Facebook is a scary place, and I for one really don’t like it much. It’s the first site that I joined online and it’s got a mix of family, friends, and absolute strangers on it. I’ve had some really horrendous troll things happen there, and I very, very seldom open it now – which probably is really bad from a scribbler looking for readers point of view. Just a really hard to get into mishmash for me these days.
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I have a like-hate relationship with FB. I’ve never loved it. The like part is all those things you mention: keeping up with news of family and friends far and wide. The hate part is the fact that I see more nasty fights and ad hominem attacks than civil discussions and open-minded disagreements. As far as rules, I try to check my privacy settings every so often “just in case.” I don’t censor myself as much as just try to consider the possible fallout from posting “Je suis Charlie” or some other statement. There are some topics I simply won’t touch (e.g., guns) because I know my responses will be emotional and I don’t want to be guilty of starting a war. I’m also pretty restrictive about who I accept as friends these days. If I had to do it over again, I probably wouldn’t be “friends” with so many of my cousins. I’d only be friends with the ones I’m really friends with 😉
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I’m trying to be more restrictive or keep things with lists. My lack of real activity on there seems to minimize the requests I get though. I’ve also started ‘blocking’ posts and items that I simply don’t want to get involved in. I think one of the annoying things is that there’s no easy way to block a person’s posts without unfriending them, which seems to bring in its own issues. Just can’t win on there unless you leave entirely.
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You can unfollow their posts without unfriending them. They will then never hit your timeline again.
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I remember being able to do that, but it hasn’t been giving me the option for a few months. It only asks if I want to unfriend the person.
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Great post, Charles. I know what you mean. So many people put important announcements on Facebook. I’m constantly asked, “Did you see so and so’s news on Facebook?” But I try to limit my time on it. I haven’t been on Facebook in a good week or so. Maybe two. I’m amazed at the things people do on social media–embarrassing photos that will come back to haunt them someday.
Employers and college admissions staff routinely check Facebook to see what their candidates have been up to. My former boss used to look at my timeline.
Facebook has changed so much. I joined ages ago. It used to be fun.
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I wonder if people realize that not everyone catches their posts. Facebook is the only reason I learned of some friends having kids, which I found oddly impersonal. Almost like I was getting private information by accident. Amazing how we just throw such events up there.
Not a fan of employers and college staff checking those things out. What if you had something set to private and a family member/friend shared it, which made it public? That happened to me a few times.
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I tried to keep a separate personal (in Greek) and an author page (in English) on Facebook at first. It didn’t work. Things from one kept spilling into the other. Not that I ever fought with anyone, just that information that wouldn’t interest most followers kept appearing on the wrong account. Also, politics can be lethal on FB.
In the end, I gave up. Now I only post information on books and photos of cute animals there. That took care of that problem. 🙂
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I’ve seen the author/personal bleed too. People will friend me on the personal one instead of the author one, which gets me confused. I try to keep things civil, but I see a lot of battling from some people. I noticed this morning that FB tends to post more of the controversial stuff on my feed than the friend stuff. I’m not even interacting with the former, so I don’t know why it does that.
I think I’m just going along until the one or two reasons to be on FB disappears. Once that happens, I’ll just step away. I forgot to post on the writer groups the last few days and saw that it made no sales difference. So I’m really only there for a few friends.
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I’ve researched fb in order to understand how their timeline works. I agree with the other comments that fb currently is not what it used to be. I found a technical article a few months ago and shared it. It went into explaining how fb’s timeline works. Bare bones explanation: When a user posts a status, fb only distributes it to a small sampling of your friends. If there’s a response of some kind, a like, a comment, fb then releases the status to other friends on their timeline. From there, if the status keeps pulling in more likes and comments, fb will keep the momentum going by releasing the status until all your friends eventually see it. The other side of the coin is posting something and it quickly dies with a few people because a handful saw it, but no one liked or commented it on. That’s why my wife saw the post “How to Make the Perfect Turkey Dinner” three days after Christmas. It was kind of useless to have that recipe right after Christmas. I read this logic is set as a means to deploy status posts in an efficient manner to alleviate fb server loads. In layman’s terms, it’s entirely set up to benefit fb.
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That’s ridiculous, but I see what you mean by it benefiting FB. Definitely explains why I start seeing posts from several days ago and feel like I missed something. Honestly, something about that seems so wrong for social media.
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Yep. And that’s to start. Here’s a great article you might want to digest slowly and with lots of antacids on hand:
http://blog.bufferapp.com/facebook-news-feed-algorithm
Fun, eh?
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My social media policy is to only engage in positive interactions even if others are not like minded.
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Great policy. Wish everyone did that.
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What do you mean by that? (kidding)
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I mean what I mean, which is whatever I meant to mean even if you thought I meant something else. 😛
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This is a great one too!
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I actually don’t do a lot of posting (manually) on social media. Like you, if it wasn’t for posts on facebook, I wouldn’t really know what is going on with my friends and family. If it wasn’t for that, I would close my account in a heartbeat.
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Yup. Wondering if more and more people are on the verge of leaving it.
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I agree with your rules, and they are basically mine too. I also use Pamela’s rules – her #1 is particularly helpful in addressing the things you are talking about.
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Thanks. Gotta have some rules to survive in the Internet jungle.
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Absolutely!
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Eh, social media is over-rated.
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And a half-truth. Not as social as one would think.
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Happy new year and best wishes to you and yours for health, happiness, peace & prosperity in 2015!
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Thanks. Happy and healthy new year to you too.
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I finally took a dive and made an FB last year. It has its’ ups and downs. I keep it very private though and don’t add anyone I don’t know. I also don’t link my wordpress to it. I like to keep my writing and personal life away from each other. Too much ammo to use against me if they were to collide.
So would it be strange to you if I suggest the idea to have one profile for personal reasons and another for professional?
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I only have my blog going to my author page. Not that it seems to do any good. So I already have a personal and professional page. I’ve found that it doesn’t make much of a difference for me. Most of my friends/family don’t follow my author page and I rarely get reactions to anything I do on the other page. I don’t even think I do anything interesting enough to get attention there. From what I can tell, the popular things politics, animals, and kids.
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I loathe facebook. It’s a morally bankrupt vile interface. Where else would it be ok to video putting a kitten in a bucket of petrol and setting fire to it but ‘tasteless’ for a veteran of the Afghanistan war who lost his legs in a bomb attack to post a picture of his healing leg stumps. They threatened to ban the veteran unless he removed the picture but despite massive protests refused to ban the kids who torched the kitten, or take down the vid because they say people are all different and all like different things.
They put my mobile number on my profile – I don’t know how, facebook app on my phone maybe – even though my settings are private. I use facebook to keep in touch with friends and relations but I, too, find that it’s almost impossible to find a post again once I’ve ‘seen’ it. It’s useless for marketing and totally pointless. Unfortunately said friends and relies who live their lives on there and if I don’t keep on I’ll lose tough with many people, who communicate no other way, for ever.
I do Twitter, ello and blog on WordPress which ‘tells’ most places automatically.
Cheers
MTM
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You can tell I typed that on the stupid iPad with rubbish auto correct can’t you? because it’s totally nonsensical. Grrr.
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I think I heard of the video or something like it with pictures. People were posting something with a message for the men to be identified. I’ve noticed that FB standards make no sense long ago. The only quick action you’ll get is if it’s pornographic while violence tends to be left alone. I’m still managing to keep my cellphone off as far as I know.
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😉 I can’t wait until something else takes its place. I preferred Myspace but had to give up on it because everyone went to facebook.But presumably, just as facebook supplanted myspace so something will supplant facebook before long. Here’s hoping.
I use an app called social fixer which makes it a little better. Posts still disappear when you’ve read them, which is really annoying, but at least you do get to see everything.
Cheers
MTM
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I got fed up with Myspace when all I was getting was game requests. My friends weren’t doing anything else on there. That and musicians bombarding me with invites. Not sure if anything can replace FB due it entrenching itself pretty well. I won’t move on to the next thing though and I’ll just drop FB if it becomes a ghost town. I simply assume the next will be identical or worse in terms of standards/interface.
I’m of the mind that if the universe wants me to see the post then I will. After all, very few people react when I do something so I’m not going to bend over backwards to clean up the wall. Sounds like the algorithm behind that is designed to limit your exposure anyway.
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Social media is a difficult thing to navigate. I think professionalism is good, but also that potential readers would like to know more about you and what you’re like as a person. But then, revealing too much can be just as bad as you say! I like to keep my work and personal life separate.
Some brilliant tips on social media use. Good luck with it! 🙂
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Yeah. It’s definitely a balancing act with people trying to push you too far to one side. Gets really tiring some days.
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Good rules. That’s a great quote, too. 🙂
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Thanks and it took me a while to stumble onto that one. Kind of need it some days when it feels like I’m not going anywhere. Wondering if all authors get that sensation.
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I expect most do.
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I have avoided FB up until I became an author. Then I created an author page and have a FB guru (my best friend) run it for me. FB has always been a nightmare to navigate and their privacy settings are a joke. I keep my work life and personal life separate on all social media. It’s okay to share some things with readers (the public) but there is far too much over-sharing going on.
My social media rules are simple: Share/Speak in a way that is not combative and whatever I say, I would be okay if my grandmother saw. I try to be nice to all but those trolls make it hard. So, I say nothing to them and eventually they leave me alone.
My favorite social media sites are Twitter and Triberr. Google + is great too but I don’t have time for much of anything beyond that. Too busy writing the next book and enjoying life. 🙂
Charles, just keep on being yourself and ignore the trolls. They better watch out, anyway, because they will probably wind up in your next book. Dying in horrible ways, no less. 😉
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It wasn’t this bad when I started years ago, but it has steadily worn out its welcome with me. I decided to try promoing on it last night and had my worst sales period in a month. Nice to know it’s utterly useless for me.
I’ve been lucky to avoid most trolls on FB, but I’m barely active. I ran into them more on Myspace, which is why I’m not there anymore. I do prefer Twitter right now due to its simplicity yet I have trouble calling it a social media place. Mostly because it’s severely limited.
I’m actually not a fan of putting people I hate in my books to kill them off. Kind of figured being put in Windemere is an honor, so I just never put the person in there. Might even ban the name unless I used it already.
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I think your thought process is very wise. I have never been a great sharer on facebook for the reasons that you mention and, now that I am hoping to go down the traditional publishing route, I have become much more aware of the online persona that a potential agent may see. I think you summed it up when you said, be professional. Nothing wrong with having friends and interacting but when we are relying on social media to earn our keep, then we need to have limits.
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Very well said. I think our social media persona is getting used to define us more than how we act outside of the computer. That’s a little unnerving to me because in face-to-face situations, we naturally have more awareness of how we come off. The computer removes that because we don’t see everyone we’re reacting to. Kind of like making a spontaneous speech with a blindfold and ear plugs. Does one assume everyone is paying attention or only the audience/friends that they expect?
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It’s a tough one. And I read with interest your commenter who said about the way that the Facebook timelines work. I had no idea that the status updates were only shared with a few people. No wonder no one ever makes a comment on mine! But seriously, how do we know who is seeing what, if that is the case? Can be a bit worrying.
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We can put it on privacy, but one share by someone who doesn’t have the security is up ruins that. A rather harsh social media platform in some ways.
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