The Underachiever Life

This is a draft of the PDF Report I'm putting out in a day or so - I'd love to get your comments...

Why am I deleting my facebook account and starting again?

It’s true. In the next few days I’m going to delete all my friends and start facebook all over again.

Why?

While I was traveling in the US in January, I read a Stat which truly “smacked me upside the head”!

You know I like twitter.

Twitter has had extraordinary growth this past 12 months. It’s very much the hot thing.

Then I read this...

If you add up all the users of twitter, every single last one of them! Facebook is growing this many users every 10 days!

What???

I then started asking “real people” about how they use the Internet. I was particularly interested in talking to people that had high disposable incomes (for very obvious reasons!)... They were all using Facebook.

You see, we are not “real people”. People who study Internet marketing intensely as we do, use facebook completely the wrong way. Actually let me rephrase that, we do not use it the way “real people” use it.

I’ll come back to this.

More interesting facts, I had the honor of being in the USA during the inauguration of President Barak Obama. Regardless of your political affiliations, his use of social networking, Web 2.0, and internet technologies was stunning.

Having “wasted” much of my college experience heavily involved in politics, you soon understand that cash is king and fund raising to fuel your next campaign is all consuming. I’m not sure if you know any politicians, but I really do admire their sacrifice. It’s hardly a single night of the week where they’re not at some community meeting, fundraiser or special interest group function.

It’s really hideous (that’s why I admire their stamina!) - While it’s strange to think now - this time 12 months ago Barack was very much the long shot! But by March he had pegged everything back. How did he do it?

Simple - he did not have to attend ONE fundraiser in February 08 (unheard of in the US primary season) because he received thousands upon thousands of $10 donations direct from the Internet. By the end, the fund raising figures where astronomical and in my opinion this would not have happened without the extraordinary campaign presence put together by Barack Obama’s Dirctor for online campaigning Chris Hughes.

This campaign has redefined elections and how they are run. If you take the politics out of it and think of Barack as a product - Chris Hughes and his team totally schooled the biggest internet marketing launches of all time.

If Chirs decides to speak about this campaign - I will be front and Centre and will pay any amount of money to listen. Pure Genius (Please, get off the Politics - his political affiliation is immaterial - this dude manufactured a “product launch” MANY orders of magnitude larger than anything we have ever seen).

I’m going to be all over it like a rash - The way Chris understands social media and it’s capabilities is frighting.....

By The Way...

Did I mention that Chris Hughes was one of the three co-founders of... wait for it....

Facebook.

Hmmmm.

More Ticklers - Gary Halbert repeatedly told the marketing story of the Hamburger Stand/Restaurant ( I wont repeat it here - go and read every single Gary Halbert letter at http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com)

The upshot of it was that while others talked about traffic and demographics in who to target - Gary simply said “I want to find the HUNGRY CROWD”

Anytime I see that many people flooding to a service like facebook - you have to take notice. HAVE TO...

But doesn’t Facebook SUCK FOR MARKETING?

Unless they have Facebook product most marketers will tell you Facebook sucks for marketing a product or service. “facebook has cut their nose to spite their face” is the common theme.

I have 5000 friends and Facebook is just unusable they cry. “Why is Facebook so stupid about not making number of friends unlimited!!!!”

Why wont they let me talk to all of my “friends” at once. Just stupid...

FACEBOOK ARE FREAKING GENIUS!

You know what, they got it. Facebook is about friends - REAL FRIENDS. I have been intently studying how REAL people use Facebook (Remember, we are not real!)

Facebook keeps real friends in touch by seamlessly keeping everyone updated without you going to the effort of contacting everyone individually.

It’s that simple...and that brilliant

Another Fascinating Facebook Fact...

Did you know that Facebook DWARFS flickr in the number of photo’s it has (Five Times as Many to be exact). Video numbers are sky rocketing....

Sadly, when I log into Facebook - I don’t get any of this, because I have thousands of “Friends” that I really don’t know clogging up my Facebook News feed. I missed out on what my Brother and recently re-discovered step-sister are up to. I get none of it.

That would be OK if it was an excellent vehicle for marketing to my friends - but it’s not. Facebook shut down accounts that are too active. As Joel Comm (excellent marketer that he is) responds to all his friend requests - he got his account axed for overuse ( Fortunately it got re-instated but not everyone has access to Joels clout!!) !!

Ipso Facto - Facebook Sux

But hang on - if it sucks so hard it could kick start a harley davidson - why does it grow at the rate of a twitter every 10 days (or put another cool way - If facebook stopped growing right this very second and twitter continued it’s stratospheric growth - it would catch up with Facebook in a mere 36 YEARS!!!!)

Could I be wrong (I Know, I Know, It’s hard to believe.)

In Fact, I got it very,very wrong...

Fortunately, I can make good and really use Facebook the way it was so brilliantly designed...

This is what I’m going to do...

ITS NOT YOU - IT’S ME

I should say that I love every single one of you reading this report very much. I am one of the people who happily urged people to be my friend. It’s my fault, not yours.

Facebook got the friend thing spot on. In the “real world’ a friend is someone you have talked to face to face at least once! Actually when you think about it when I used to hang out with Tony Ellis, Mal Downs, David Miles and David Boyd at High School - we used to you know - Hang Out, do stuff together, Played D&D (you get the drift)

Facebook ROCKS , when you catch up with friends you knew from High School, your brother in London, an awesome step-sister you wasted years not being involved with it is a constant delight....

Trouble is I can’t.

IT”S THE NOISE!

Go and ask a real person about Facebook - they will typically have 30 friends or so and there mini-feed is a constant source of delight, juicy gossip and fashionable feuds - just like any good friendship! Facebook allows you to form a better, more informed relationship with those you have an interest in. This is why it’s growing a twitter every ten days.
It’s also a safe environment - you can only communicate to people you have give express permission too. The preached marketing gospel of accepting every friend request defeats this purpose and you end up getting an inbox full of turgid “events’ and even more turgid, stupid applications. Luckily “Real People” are pretty choosey because they have fled to facebook to avoid the nigerian money scamming, large penised, virus carrying predators that roam email and the world wide web.

This safety element cannot be underestimated and their is no way facebook would have grown like it did without providing those alternatives.

Great Apps (as opposed to the turgid ones) build a sence of community and fun that is cute and harmless. You know Facebook and there “shoot first ask questions later” app police have got your back. Getting a sheep chucked at you by a few of the thirty true friends on Facebook is fun. When you have 5000 friends, it’s ummm, not cute.

I could go on but really my arguments are worthless in the face of this simple fact.

The audience, our potential customers, have spoken.

And my fellow marketers, they have taken their discussion behind closed doors so that they can avoid the real world equivalent of the signboard wearing dudes advertising equally desperate businesses (Seriously, your marketing team needs a “refresh” when it gets to the level of homeless guy waving a sign stage)

But do I see any of this, do I get any of this - nope. My Facebook page looks like the Circuit City closing down on Van Ness in San Francisco. Homeless dudes with handwritten signs advertising their going out of business sale....

So Sadly, As it currently stands, Facebook is dead to me.

It’s Just noise, I have as we speak 2232 requests, my inbox is filled with conversations I have no interest in and sadly there is so many of them (1125 to be precise) - I miss the messages that I SHOULD see.

It has to stop. It stops now.

In someways the remedy is simple - my fear is people take this personally and it destroys my online reputation...

I’m prepared to take that risk, I have a little neice/nephew coming on the other side of the globe and I don’t want to miss a second of their Facebook chronicled lives.

Side Note: Apple has just provide incredible integration with Facebook in it’s iLife application - Even Steve thinks Facebook is a keeper. Back to the story....

It’s worth the risk.

Actually it’s an interesting question - how do you “pull the plug” in Facebook. Deleting 5000 people is not an option plus I don’t want to risk the groups and facebook pages (superbly legit ways of communicating as a group on Facebook)

I would really love to start completely fresh - but a second account (quiet rightly) is a big no-no.

If your interested in seeing the carnage and hilarity ensue as I divorce 5000 friends - I promise i’ll post updates on my facebook Page.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=610093588#/pages/Ed-Dale/7299288734

You can also track the hate mail and blowback by following me on Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/ed_dale

I’m pretty sure I’m right...

Ed

PS Things move fast on the Internet, in an unusual move for me - I have been coming back to this article for a couple of weeks and just as I’m about to publish. Facebook announces that they are going to remove the limits to the number of friends you can have!!

Just Great.

Does this change my view, Lets work this through together.

If i had 15,000 friends - like i do on twitter - and the facebook feature set stayed as it is. Would my experience be any different - umm, let me think about it...

If they made no other changes to the tools available it would be 300% worse!!!!

Now I could put up with this if I could return the favor by marketing the heck (with a lot of love, I hasten to add!!!) out of them - well that would be interesting but I cant imagine Facebook policy on communicating (let alone spamming!) will change.

As a marketer I know the frustration of people opting into your list, with their own freewill, only weeks or months later mark you as spam because they are to lazy to hit unsubscribe (which , for your information is at the bottom of every email sent out by any legit marketer - it’s required by US Law!)

Imagine, the gumption of your new “friend” on facebook hitting the spam button, instead of going to the much more complex and hard to find de-freinding option. Combine that with the Facebook “shoot first - ask questions later (if you have a high profile , they will ask questions, if your not “digerati” your screwed) you have a recipie for disaster!

My completely uniformed view is that Facebook are doing this in a “You did not join us, so we are going to crush you move on Twitter”...How very last century...

Given what I said above pre-limit announcement, where I thought they had a pretty clever strategy on this. This would seem to be insane (They could of course be readying some incredible new tools that will insert my fancy nikes even further into my mouth - but I’m not so sure)

Let me illustrate, with the CORE function of Twitter (it’s also the reason Twitter has become THE marketing tool).

The best thing about twitter - is with one 140 character text message, iPhone App post or click from a browser address bar - I send a message to every person who follow/friended me. Way Cool, why then hasn’t Twitter decended into a cess pit of spam.

Simple, Twitter made it much easier to de-friend/un-follow people - it’s a click and your gone, spamers and people with bad taste are punted without fuss or trauma.

To report someone for Spam takes just a little bit of effort ( a message to @spam for your info)

On Facebook it’s much easier to hit the spam button first,instead of taking a modicom of responsiabillity that your ego made you add everyone as a friend rather than actually like, umm, knowing them...

As I started this article a couple of weeks ago - I thought Facebook knew what they were doing. The created the “Facebook Page” system for peope like Barak Obama and David Hasselhoff that were likely to have more than 5000 friends...

Now, I’m just confused.

So - at the end of what is the longest PS in history, what’s a country boy from Beechworth going to do...

I want to experience Facebook like a REAL person. The world is moving there, as a marketer I need to be where the people are. I just want to use the right tools, the right way and currently it’s to hard for me to hear.

(Note to the “It’s evil to make money crowd” , I like to make my money by being informative, entertaining and adding massive value to whatever niche I attempt to be successful in - I don’t want to speak with anyone who is not interested in what I do - everything I do is permission based. I’ll pay good money using Facebook Demographic PPC to reach a new audience that “might” be interested in what I have to say. Life is to short for sneaky stuff)

I’m going to pull the plug and start again, friend (if they’ll still have me) family, work collegues and people I have met and know.

I’m not recommending this course of action for anyone else, it could be a total bonehead move. I’m just a huge believer of not jamming a square peg into a round hole. Twitter is perfect for me to communicate with people who have a vauge interest in what I have to say, Facebook PAGES is also good for this.

Facebook, as it stands, is not, and thank bloody goodness for that.