Thursdays with Amanda: Social Media Overload

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

When I first started using Facebook, it was really a member’s only type of site. It was a site for you and your friends and others like you. You had to be a college student with a college email address in order to register. I mean THAT’s how closed-off it was. Eventually, it opened up to high school students. And then in what I imagine was an attempt to not exclude homeschoolers, and other less traditional students, it opened up even more, allowing people to register using any old email account.

And now…

I log in to my Facebook account, stare at my news feed and realize that I don’t know half of the people showing up in it. I check my number of friends: 726. …and I can’t help but feel that I haven’t even met that many people on earth, let alone that I feel close enough to them to consider them “friends.”

I’ve noticed that numerous Facebook “Friends” have gone on Facebook sabbaticals lately. What used to be a thing that would happen maybe once a year to one of my “friends” now seems to be a monthly occurrence. There always seems to be someone who is announcing a FB break-up. Someone who has decided to take a day, a week, a month off. Someone who has had it with the weird sense of responsibility and addiction that social media can cause in a person’s life.

I’m not gonna lie: I used to think this was a bit silly. I mean who lets Facebook–FACEBOOK–spiral so out of control that they actually need to take a scheduled break?

And now…as I scan the pictures of faces I don’t recognize and read the statuses from people I’ve never met, I GET IT.

The core of the problem isn’t that Facebook is bad or that it takes too much of our time or that it makes it painful to communicate with friends. The core of the problem is that we have over-friended. We have over-connected. We have over-networked. And the result is a meaningless Facebook existence that leaves us feeling empty and drained despite our 726 (now 727) friends, when its original intent was to leave us feeling full and loved. It’s original intent was to give us a place to connect with our real-life friends.

If this isn’t strong enough of a reason to keep your professional online presence separate from you personal one, then I don’t know what is. Maybe you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself. Maybe like me, you’ll think everything is fine and then SEVEN YEARS later, you realize that your account is unwieldy, un-fun, and even a bit unwanted.

So before you become me…before you end up with the problem of figuring out how to backtrack without getting under anyone’s skin or coming across like a jerk, I have THREE MUST’S FOR KEEPING THINGS STRAIGHT ONLINE:

1. Keep your Facebook profile for FRIENDS and FAMILY. These are people that you actually care knowing what they ate for dinner and where they vacationed and what their babies look like (over and over). Keep a Facebook Page for fans, industry contacts, etc. Do the same, if you must, for Twitter. Maintain a private account where you can be yourself to friends and family, and then maintain a professional one where you adopt your author/writer persona.

2. Become a user of LinkedIn. Because a Facebook page doesn’t quite cut it in terms of professional networking, you’ll soon find that LinkedIn provides the perfect Facebook-like experience, except that it promotes an attitude of professionalism.

3. Recognize that taking a break is not as big of a deal as you may think. I get the feeling that when people announce their break from Facebook, they’re expecting some kind of response. Some kind of plea for them to hurry back. Or maybe a bunch of frowny faces. They’re expecting in some way, that Facebook just won’t be the same without them, and so it’s their responsibility to prepare everyone for this catastrophe. And yet…everyone else’s friend lists tend to be just as bloated. Just as time-consuming. Just as ridiculous. So you end up with people taking breaks and no one noticing (which is a shame, considering Facebook should

be a place for real friends and not replaceable acquaintances). While your statuses may be SUPER ENTERTAINING, I guarantee there are twelve more that are equally awesome, ready to take your place. So, let this be your Get Out of Jail Free card:  TAKE BREAKS MORE OFTEN. Don’t always announce it. Don’t make it a big deal. But do what you need to do to recharge and don’t overthink it. Maybe pop into your professional page every so often to make sure it doesn’t go dark, but other than that, sign off, and feel no regret.

I realize this may tick some people off. You may be thinking “Hey, I’M AMANDA’S FACEBOOK FRIEND! Does she hate ME?!”

It’s not a matter of hate. It’s just a matter of me realizing that I didn’t set boundaries when I should have. And now, I’d say it may be too late…and to be honest, my profile is so full of history, I don’t really feel like starting a new one! So this is what I’m left with, and it’s okay. But you…you can be saved.

For more marketing tips, check out The Extroverted Writer.