How can he share that on Facebook?!

When was the last time you saw something and said “How can he share that on Facebook?!”

Okay first thing’s first, this blog is a conclusion of certain analysis which was a part of the hashtag activity – #My10SocialYears, to understand what kind of content really works on Facebook coupled with the keen observation of yours truly over the years. Right, I get it, you are probably wondering what the hell is #My10SocialYears, links for your reference below,

• Blog
• Twitter

So when I reshared all kinds of content throughout the month of March 2014, I realized that there were certain posts which were a rage back in the day and picked up once again in terms of engagement while others were a rage back in the day but went unnoticed this time around. Here are my fallout thoughts, but please note that this does not apply to you if you are a celebrity, a socially renowned personality or a beautiful girl, that’s ‘cos in your case the “offline likes” derive most of the Facebook likes 😊

Status Updates

• Audience – It is important to keep in mind who the audience is. If you crack an earth shattering joke about your workplace and have only two office colleagues in the friends list, most likely you’ll end up with two likes because the rest of the audience didn’t get the joke
• Size does matter! – It is the age of twitter, the age of 140 characters and a lot of people out there are checking Facebook on their mobile devices which have smaller screens. Is your status running into paragraphs? Most likely people will not take the pain of reading and it may go unnoticed
• “is feeling sick” – That is absolutely right! People are feeling sick of the “is feeling” status updates. I recently read how the internet community calls the addition of “is XYZing” the worst thing Facebook has done to itself. Now of course, “eating donuts and feeling amazing” is fine but just a vanilla “feeling amazing” is stupid and doesn’t convey anything

via GIPHY

Photos

• Selfies – Selfies are in! But trust me, selfies aren’t worth the hard work it takes to click 15 shots, find the best one and then Instagram or photoshop it before uploading. Reason? It is likely that a selfie will never be the most liked pic in your album. If you post 10 selfies a day, you should consider doing something better
• Photoshop – Adding custom texts or some more effects that Instagram doesn’t offer will not work!
• So what works? – Good question! Below are a few that almost always work,
  • a high quality HD photograph
  • natural pics where you are not trying too hard
  • your marriage day 😜

Randomness

• Checkins are healthy. But if you post 3 checkins everyday, half of your friends will believe that you are into a travel intensive sales job (and that’s okay if you are really into a travel intensive sales job!). Its best to include more content in checkin posts like a photo or supporting text
• Arguments are pointless. Someone who makes a post like, “Modi is the best Prime Minister in the World”, will never, and that’s a NEVER (yes, in caps), agree to you if you feel otherwise. I have never, and that’s a NEVER (in caps again!), seen someone making a post and 5 comments later adding a comment, “I was so wrong, Modi is not even in the Top 20”
• 1 like = 1 respect; Like for SRK, Comment for Salman. Now I don’t really want to demean my blog by talking about such posts so only one word, AVOID!

Conclusion

So why should one really care about the likes? What’s the big deal? Well to be precise, likes are a form of engagement. Likes give a sense of acceptance, praise and happiness. Raise your hand if you don’t want any of the three. That’s what I expected, I don’t see any hands 😃

Cheers 👍