How To Be A Fantastic Facebooker

I use this picture for lots of things (obviously, look around). It epitomizes what I want you to think about me: relaxed, adventurous, hammock-owning, water-loving, hat-wearing. Etc. 

     I start off a lot of my blog posts with a lie. A statement along the lines of "All of you ask me all the time, how are you so great at knitting?!" and then I dive into my blog post on knitting. Of course no one has ever actually said anything like that to me.

     This one, however is not a lie. I have had a fair amount of people comment that I am a great facebooker. A friend recently told me that, by commenting on her status update, I had validated her status. Another friend, who I consider a terrific facebooker, once told me he reads everything I put on the book (Wow! What a great feeling. This must be what it feels like when you are following someone on twitter and they follow you back!!).

     I tell you this not (entirely) to boast, but to establish my credentials: I am a good facebooker. You can be a good facebooker too. Follow these important rules:

     1) This is the most important facebook rule of all time. NEVER EVER EVER POST SOLELY ABOUT THE WEATHER. Is it snowing outside? Everyone knows. Everyone else is posting about the snow. The cool kids don't have time to post about the snow because they are out playing in the snow. You look like an idiot. You can post about something you are doing in the weather. If it is sunny out, and the sun inspired you to write a classic rock song, awesome. Tell the world. If the sun is out and that is the entirety of your day, make something up.

     2) You are allowed to be too cool for punctuation. No one is too cool for proper spelling. This isn't twitter. You don't have a tight character limit, you have a keyboard or a smartphone, take the time to re-read your post. If you misspelled a word, that becomes the focus of your post instead of what a great time you had with the grils last night! Wooo! It's not worth it.

     3) Post things that make you look like a loser as well as things that make you look awesome. Too much of either is very transparent. We all know you have a lot of loser in you (how do we know this, you might ask? Because you have a facebook and you check it.) So your profile picture can be you on top of a mountain or in hawaii or something, but you can also explain that you are afraid to dive head-first into water. Find the balance.

    4) Don't use facebook primarily to promote your band or your blog or you art or your photography. Sure, let it seep through, because it's who you are, but when you turn the book into your personal advertising platform, your "friends" start to think they are your "demographic" and will unsubscribe.

     5) In general, don't "share" links often. Instead, go to the source, copy and paste the link and place it as your status update. People will think you found it on your own, and for some reason they think that's cool. I stumbled onto this recently. In the picture above, a friend (and sucker) credited me for sharing something "first," when really I originally saw this video on someone else's page. (Also, the video is really worth watching if you haven't already). This ties in with the next one:

     6) Don't participate in a meme unless you personally started that meme. It's just too risky. Those things have a shelf life of about 42 minutes before everyone realizes it's about to be cool to be sick of them.

     7) I will never judge anybody for the games they play. If you want to Farmville, feel free to Farmville away. But for the love of my feed do not have the game you play send me requests and invites. I don't care how many baby cows you raised today or that if I click a link I can earn you 5 gold coins. I don't care. No one cares.

     8) Limit your status updates. Maybe one or two a day. And take a day off frequently. You need to have people clamoring for more. I am constantly in a state of trying to decide which status update to post (as I always have like five floating around my brain. That's normal, right?), because some are time-sensitive and some are gold whenever. The above Coscto post? I've wanted to share it for months. (I've really been crushing it there for months, to be honest). I've let some gold updates fall through the cracks, just because I don't want to overwhelm the world.

     I'll be the first to admit that when Wyatt was born I was facebooking like crazy. Had to tone it down. It'll happen.

     9)  Comment rarely. The stuff you have to say is not very profound or important. It's just not. If you only say your unprofound thoughts rarely, they might seem a bit more important. I struggle with this one. I can't tell you how many times I have typed something and promptly deleted it. If a comment survives you thinking it over, it's worth commenting.

     10)  Follow facebook etiquette. There are a few basic rules:
            - If your post or comment is one sentence, you don't need to punctuate. If it is more, general grammar rules apply.
            - Know when to post to someone's wall and when to send them a message. If you want the world to see it, send it to their wall. If you are saying "let's hang out" or "how you doin?" then make it a message. Otherwise you look desperate.
            - If one person you know is in a conversation that comes up on your feed, and you are not a part of the conversation but want to be, check who first started the topic. If you know that person, feel free to chime in. If not, take a moment to introduce yourself and then chime in.
            - Just stop and think about who and what you are tagging before you tag it, okay?

     You see, having a facebook is all about projecting the illusion that you have a life, and important thoughts and ideas. You do have a life and important ideas, but your life and ideas aren't that cool or unique. You are not LeBron James or Mel Gibson. You certainly aren't Daniel Tosh. (In fact, since you are still reading this I can pretty safely assume you are my mom, or at least related to me. Hi mom and/or aunts!!). The illusion of cool can come from some simple, tactful facebook techniques. It's simply about supply and creating demand. If you limit the supply, over time people will find your facebooking more valuable and gravitate towards it more. Thus, you seem cool when in fact we are not.

     Not at all.