As it’s November 1st, today is the first day of my theme: Walk the Talk.
Before diving into today’s Walk the Talk task, I suppose I should briefly detail what my overall goals are with the theme. They are, in brief:
(1) Focus on, while hopefully educating and entertaining, getting away from practices and purveyors that do not cast social media, social business and social marketing in the best light.
(2) Refocus on connecting with individuals and businesses that share that core focus.
(3) Clean up my social accounts so that they benefit me, my business and my fans/followers.
With those goals in mind, I embarked on day one of Walk the Talk with a focus on removing my “likes” from pages that have become dormant or post less frequently than I feel prudent to making and keeping a connection. It’s not an easy task. While there are several tools that allow Twitter users to monitor dormant accounts, the only way to check Facebook pages for activity is to visit. So, I’ve been at it off and on all morning and I’m about halfway through my 2011 likes. I have yet to start on my 2012 likes. This is not a process I will necessarily complete today.
So far, as I’ve checked all the paves I’ve liked in all my time on Facebook…they dated back to 2008, I’ve unliked 28 that appear to have been largely abandoned. Why? What were those 28 likes hurting? Perhaps nothing. But as I grow my business I am aware that there are only so many pages I can like. Facebook states that number is 5,000 – but several colleagues have mentioned that the actual number is much lower, somewhere around 2,200-2,300. I will, eventually want to use all of my page likes. I want those likes to be as valuable as possible. There’s no value in liking a page that is no longer functioning.
But, even more so, I like pages with the intent to share good content with my own audiences, across a variety of platforms. When a page isn’t sharing any content they take up a like and don’t provide me with any value for that like. So, I’m cleaning them up. While Facebook has mentioned an intent to clean up dormant accounts, it’s never made mention of dormant pages (not to my knowledge). Meaning I have to handle the situation on my own.
I hope you’ll continue to follow my Walk the Talk journey which will focus on Twitter, Google+ and even Linkedin over the course of the next 30 days.
I just unfollowed 50 inactive Twitter accounts and need to unlike many pages as well. You are an inspiration, Mallie. I definitely need to do a bit of clean up, and doing a bit at a time is not too bad. I wish Facebook had a tool, too… does anybody want to invent an app for that?
It’s nice to have it so much easier to manage on Twitter, isn’t it Dorien! I wish I was a savvy app developer, I bet I’d make bank on a FB unfollower program!
You are on a great mission Mallie! I too have been working on cleaning up the pages I like. Some pages are dormant, others no longer interest me and others have moved in a direction that disappoints me. Either way, a clean up is in order. I look forward to more of your posts on this topic!
Inactive accounts are just one of the areas I’ll be focusing on, Jen. You mentioned two that are also on my list! Brilliant minds and all that.
I’ve been going through this same process on Facebook and about to do the same on Twitter myself! Going back through the old pages has helped me see how my business focus has changed over the years. I’ve grown up socially!
That’s great, Shannon. Isn’t it cool to be a business grown-up! Let us know how your process goes!
I could read your content all day Mallie. Always straightforward and informative with a story.
I wasn’t aware of the Facebook like limit. Good to know.
Wow! Thanks, DJ. That means a lot coming from you. We found out about the like limit when a colleague had to go through and cull a lot of bad likes out of her history to allow her to make new and valuable connections!
This is so great! I’ve set an intention to declutter my news feed also. I cannot say that I am so organized as you are, Mallie
but lately, when I go through my feed and see posts, I ask myself: are the posts on this page really serve me? If not, I just unlike them.
And on a side note, I no longer mind seeing people unliking my page. If they decide the info that I provide no longer helps them, I respect that 100%!
Delia,
Sorry for taking so long to comment. I got a little behind. What a spot on comment! If we all took a little time each day to maintain our connections, we’d not have to do so much hard work!
[...] should a business routinely review both Fan likes and personal account likes? Check out Media Barista’s blog series “Walk The Talk”, but for now, I hope this quick method of using a word [...]
[...] Page about this topic. Her introduction to the theme of ‘Walk the Talk’ can be found here. In another great article, she shared some of the more oft witnessed “not” walking the talk [...]