Monday, November 14
I Heart Faces Photo Challenge - Autumn Splendor
Every now and then I get my act together to enter the I Heart Faces Photo Challenge. This week's theme is Autumn Splendor, and I thought immediately of a fun shoot I did in the mountains last weekend.
Sunday, November 6
How To Do: The Facebook Edition
(Good Southern girls will probably totally get this post title. The rest of you think it's a typo.)
I'm emerging from an unintentional semi-retirement from blogging, basically to toss a rant at you about Facebook. And not in the way you think.
(BTW, in the last couple of weeks I've gotten several +K Klout thingies for blogging, which cracks me up considering my delinquency. I don't fully understand Klout, but both the irony and the crushing guilt are not lost on me.)
I know we all love to hate Facebook. We complain about the changes without looking for positives. We complain about the complainers, because change is inevitable. But we keep on using it, because we just. can't. help. it. We use it to see pictures of our friends and their cute kids, to keep up with birthdays better than any calendar ever could, to stalk exes and crushes, to keep track of musicians and performers we admire, to spread the word about events and causes, and--let's face it--for sympathy when things aren't going our way. We've all used it for one or more of these things.
Facebook is not going away.
Personally, I run the majority of my photography side business on Facebook. It's easy to access a lot of people, I've undeniably gained business from the exposure of tagging friends and clients in photos their friends like, and I can interact with people easily and on the go. Plus, it will never get old to get the notification that someone is using one of my photos as a profile picture - I confess to loving it. It's no wonder the photography website I started (and this site) have gone neglected; it's all I can do to keep up with shooting and editing, and then the social media side of the business.
So yeah, I'm on there a lot; and I frequently (like right now) reach a point of utter frustration with the clueless lack of basic online etiquette on Facebook. I think I keep hoping people will figure it out, or someone will tell them, but I remain disappointed. So, since I have my own soapbox here on the internet, I decided to tackle it here. I suppose we can call this:
My Top 5 Facebook Pet Peeves
1. Caps lock does not make you more emphatic. It makes you be ignored. This is an issue that I thought was all but eliminated by the evolution of email etiquette, but clearly I was wrong. WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS ANNOYING. See? And that's just one sentence, not an entire post. It comes across as yelling, it's actually harder to read, and I've actually hidden people because of it. Stop it.
2. Just because you have a digital camera or camera phone does not mean you have to upload every single photo on it. Using Facebook as your personal photo dumping ground is obnoxious. Uploading every blurry, indistinguishable photo from every event/activity you're a part of and tagging God and everybody is unnecessary and ticks off people. I'm not saying you have to do extensive photo editing - just cull out the ones that are bad. You wouldn't believe how many photos I delete to keep the good ones when I'm editing my sessions. Basic rule of thumb that I use: if it's not the type of photo you'd want to see of yourself online, leave it out. Yes, that includes: people making weird faces, otherwise great photos of people that are too blurry to see, and those incredibly dark and grainy stage photos. I'm really not trying to be a snob; online pics don't have to be perfect, but use some common sense.
3. I live in NC. As much as I would love to attend your fundraiser in North Dakota, it's just not likely. Be conscious of your audience. At any given time I have literally 15-20 events hanging out in my events list that I'm basically ignoring because they don't apply to me at all. And if I've gotten 15 irrelevant invitations in a row from you, I start hitting "ignore" whenever your name pops up with an invitation...so that means I'll miss it if something appears that's actually local. This also goes for: inviting me to your Pampered Chef party, even though we haven't spoken in person in 15 years; asking me to vote for your adorable kid that I didn't even know you had in some online photo contest; posting photo after photo of heart-breaking animals waiting to be adopted...500 miles from where I live.
4. If you are a business, organization, or band, I should not have to send you a friend request. Facebook has Pages for a reason - use them! They are ridiculously easy to create and manage, you can have multiple administrators, and you don't have to log into a separate account to run it. You are losing a a huge potential audience: most people want to keep up with you and quickly hit that "like" button to do so; having to send a friend request is an undesirable extra step. Additionally, following a business does not necessarily mean I want them following me, which they would be as a friend. I have definitely gotten to a business' page and found the "Add friend" and just clicked off of it, deciding I don't care THAT much about a business.
5. Shared Facebook accounts are unnecessary. Facebook is free. It will always be free. There is no reason for a couple to have a joint account, e.g. "JohnandJane Smith." It's annoying to never know who is posting or who you're talking to. And/or it's annoying that you have to clarify "This is Jane now! I totally agree with you!" If you're really that worried about who your significant other is communicating with, you have larger issues than Facebook.
Okay, that's all I have. For now. I'd love to hear your own pet peeves, on Facebook or other social media platforms.
I'm emerging from an unintentional semi-retirement from blogging, basically to toss a rant at you about Facebook. And not in the way you think.
(BTW, in the last couple of weeks I've gotten several +K Klout thingies for blogging, which cracks me up considering my delinquency. I don't fully understand Klout, but both the irony and the crushing guilt are not lost on me.)
I know we all love to hate Facebook. We complain about the changes without looking for positives. We complain about the complainers, because change is inevitable. But we keep on using it, because we just. can't. help. it. We use it to see pictures of our friends and their cute kids, to keep up with birthdays better than any calendar ever could, to stalk exes and crushes, to keep track of musicians and performers we admire, to spread the word about events and causes, and--let's face it--for sympathy when things aren't going our way. We've all used it for one or more of these things.
Facebook is not going away.
Personally, I run the majority of my photography side business on Facebook. It's easy to access a lot of people, I've undeniably gained business from the exposure of tagging friends and clients in photos their friends like, and I can interact with people easily and on the go. Plus, it will never get old to get the notification that someone is using one of my photos as a profile picture - I confess to loving it. It's no wonder the photography website I started (and this site) have gone neglected; it's all I can do to keep up with shooting and editing, and then the social media side of the business.
So yeah, I'm on there a lot; and I frequently (like right now) reach a point of utter frustration with the clueless lack of basic online etiquette on Facebook. I think I keep hoping people will figure it out, or someone will tell them, but I remain disappointed. So, since I have my own soapbox here on the internet, I decided to tackle it here. I suppose we can call this:
My Top 5 Facebook Pet Peeves
1. Caps lock does not make you more emphatic. It makes you be ignored. This is an issue that I thought was all but eliminated by the evolution of email etiquette, but clearly I was wrong. WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS ANNOYING. See? And that's just one sentence, not an entire post. It comes across as yelling, it's actually harder to read, and I've actually hidden people because of it. Stop it.
2. Just because you have a digital camera or camera phone does not mean you have to upload every single photo on it. Using Facebook as your personal photo dumping ground is obnoxious. Uploading every blurry, indistinguishable photo from every event/activity you're a part of and tagging God and everybody is unnecessary and ticks off people. I'm not saying you have to do extensive photo editing - just cull out the ones that are bad. You wouldn't believe how many photos I delete to keep the good ones when I'm editing my sessions. Basic rule of thumb that I use: if it's not the type of photo you'd want to see of yourself online, leave it out. Yes, that includes: people making weird faces, otherwise great photos of people that are too blurry to see, and those incredibly dark and grainy stage photos. I'm really not trying to be a snob; online pics don't have to be perfect, but use some common sense.
3. I live in NC. As much as I would love to attend your fundraiser in North Dakota, it's just not likely. Be conscious of your audience. At any given time I have literally 15-20 events hanging out in my events list that I'm basically ignoring because they don't apply to me at all. And if I've gotten 15 irrelevant invitations in a row from you, I start hitting "ignore" whenever your name pops up with an invitation...so that means I'll miss it if something appears that's actually local. This also goes for: inviting me to your Pampered Chef party, even though we haven't spoken in person in 15 years; asking me to vote for your adorable kid that I didn't even know you had in some online photo contest; posting photo after photo of heart-breaking animals waiting to be adopted...500 miles from where I live.
4. If you are a business, organization, or band, I should not have to send you a friend request. Facebook has Pages for a reason - use them! They are ridiculously easy to create and manage, you can have multiple administrators, and you don't have to log into a separate account to run it. You are losing a a huge potential audience: most people want to keep up with you and quickly hit that "like" button to do so; having to send a friend request is an undesirable extra step. Additionally, following a business does not necessarily mean I want them following me, which they would be as a friend. I have definitely gotten to a business' page and found the "Add friend" and just clicked off of it, deciding I don't care THAT much about a business.
5. Shared Facebook accounts are unnecessary. Facebook is free. It will always be free. There is no reason for a couple to have a joint account, e.g. "JohnandJane Smith." It's annoying to never know who is posting or who you're talking to. And/or it's annoying that you have to clarify "This is Jane now! I totally agree with you!" If you're really that worried about who your significant other is communicating with, you have larger issues than Facebook.
Okay, that's all I have. For now. I'd love to hear your own pet peeves, on Facebook or other social media platforms.
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