Dear Facebook
I’ve done my best, I truly have.
- You wanted good notes–I gave them.
- You wanted memes–I created them.
- Pictures
- Videos
- Links
- Interaction
I did them all. I followed your dictated trends. And I grew a garden author page to 5000 likes and 5000 followers. (Yes, 10,000 gardeners!) But you’ve claimed those readers as your own, so you can advertise to them.
You’ve made it clear you’ll only share my posts with 300-ish of those folks. (Yes, 300 out of 10,000.)
- If I want to give more readers free garden information, I have to pay you.
- If I tell them how to grow a plant, I have to pay you.
- I have to pay you to give away free advice. Seriously?
There’s no win-win here so it’s goodbye Facebook
It’s a win-lose.
Yes, I know a lot of readers think this is just fine because they prefer Facebook over other options. But here’s the thing, moving forward I’ll treat Facebook as it wants to be treated – as an advertising function.
Note it’s better for me to advertise on Amazon where my books are sold (one click to a sale) then on Facebook (where it’s two clicks to a sale.)
You may ask, “How can I go against the advice of thousands of marketers and say Goodbye Facebook?”
1) I hate being exploited.
2) Amazon ads work better to help me sell books.
3) Facebook is not one of my top-3 traffic sources.
4) I’m making a big project–my best and last garden in the real world – so I’m taking the time to do that.
5) I no longer GAF. I’m retired so I can write what I want, share what I want, and follow whatever online direction I want. I’m doing that.
6) Readers can make the same decision. They can subscribe to my garden updates or not – their choice.
Postscripts
WordPress has a feature to post my gardening notes on DougGreensGarden to Facebook. I’ve deleted it.
If readers prefer Facebook to my newsletter, website and they don’t purchase my e-books–they are not really a “true” fan of mine. (They are a Facebook fan.)
It is absolutely wonderful how liberating this is.
Yeah, being retired means I have time. Time to create an awesome garden and I can share it in any way I want regardless of how others behave or what Facebook wants.
Stay tuned: I believe my inner curmudgeon has finally slipped the “surly bonds of earth” and both my gardener and writer self are delighted.
Doug
p.s. And finally, if you want updates to this blog, click here