I’m one of the few people with an actual Fanpage on FB - one of the Asterisk guys set it up, but it’s a huge time committment to keep it current, and so it sits, as inert and outdated as the Bobby Sherman Fan Club. Having had my own business website for over ten years, I’ve always thought of myself as ultimately “reachable” - there have been some business contacts who have approached me with projects by private messaging me through FB - which I suppose is a straighter line (and often less effort) than digging up my URL or e-mail address in their personal contact lists. As for Facebook being an adjunct or a helpful tool for my career: while I do link up with clients and business contacts, for me, it’s really not where deals get made. I have no interest in posting minutae like: “Allison has eaten too much cheese”, purchasing a pig for someone in Farmtown (or receiving same), or add to the clutter with incessant Fitocracy updates. I only post things on my wall which I think will also start similar “intelligent” threads - and lately I’ve been lucky with great, cohesive, level-headed discussions. I have mixed feelings about FB: I stop by every morning for about 15 minutes and check on my “community”‘s updates I send birthday greetings and add to threads only when I feel I have something germaine, pertinent, or comical to add. Everyone’s having a great time, and urging me to jump in.
CEPSTRAL VOICES ALLISON AND DAVID FULL
I actually had the feeling that this must be what it feels like to walk in on an orgy already in full swing. Almost immediately upon sending my information out there, droves of people - business contacts both current and past, friends who have been pestering me to join, people who I watched consuming paste in elementary school, ex boyfriends - people from assorted chapters in my life all converging together in a big, overstuffed party all chatting at once. The day I activated my Facebook account was perhaps one of the most surreal and mind-numbing days of recent history. I was a late and reluctant joiner of Facebook. Let me recount my personal experiences with my attempts at staying perpetually connected and trying to keep an uninterrupted “newsfeed” going: Much like someone without a cell phone now (and there are a few out there who still resist the call of a personal device which makes them always reachable, trackable, and connected) the idea of someone not participating in at least a *couple* of the better-known social networking arenas is completely incomprehensible to most of us. It’s almost a *requirement* in order to do business. The idea of someone not Twittering a few times an hour? Someone who’s not in the habit of checking their Facebook page several times daily? Someone actually walking around amongst us without a website? And someone who doesn’t write a blog.? Career suicide.
CEPSTRAL VOICES ALLISON AND DAVID HOW TO
Everybody feels the pressure - especially us entrepreneurial types, who can only benefit from as many people as possible knowing what we do and just how to get ahold of us: the pressure of social networking.