Facebook is NOT worth my time!

You go on the internet and everybody tells you how great Facebook is and that it is a must for individuals and for businesses.  Well, after two years of experimentation I believe that Facebook played a significant role in the 2012 Arab uprising, is great for people who get paid to create Facebook pages, keep bored people occupied, and is a waste of time for me and my business.

By Alain Houle, Alco Web Design LLC

Two years ago it was my 25th year college reunion and I opened a Facebook account to be able to go to my reunion’s Facebook group page.  With Facebook we were able to share pictures and comments but because of the lack of built-in organization tools, our group’s page shortly became like a shoe box over filled with pictures and post-it notes that nobody has the courage to look at.  We also tried to use Facebook as a communication tool to coordinate the reunion but standard emails with a distribution list quickly proved to be far more efficient to communicate within the group.  Overall my Facebook group’s page was not bad but not great either.

Now that I had an account, I looked for Facebook friends.  It was pretty cool to hear about a few high school buddies that I had lost track of but I did not care much about what movie they recently watched or at what restaurant they like.  I did not feel like sharing that kind of information either, so I did not post much stuff and did not come back to my wall too often.  But since then Facebook drove me nuts by sending me emails every time my Facebook friends were doing something.  After a while I was able to close the gate but sneaky Facebook periodically changes the rules and finds new way to send me more unsolicited emails. I come to my wall about once a month and every time I go there I feel that I have lost an hour of my life.  Facebook wastes my time, invades my privacy, and crawls through my personal information like a virus. I have real friends that I talk to and do things with; I don’t need any Facebook friends.

I run a small website design business (www.alcowebdesign.com) and I thought that Facebook might be a great marketing tool that would bring me new business so I created a page for my business.  All my Facebook friends quickly liked it but nobody ever goes there; Millions of people “like” the Coca Cola Facebook page but don’t go there and don’t get thirsty for a Coke every time they go on Facebook.  I thought that my business Facebook page would at least help my Google ranking by adding an incoming link to my website but Google and Facebook are not exactly friends and Google does not index Facebook pages.  Maybe I simply don’t get it but to attract new business, maintaining a Facebook business page is not an efficient use of my time.

All that being said, I conclude that Facebook is not worth my time and I will shortly cancel my personal and business accounts.

Alain Houle, President
Alco Web Design LLC - http://www.alcowebdesign.com
N1337 Westgreen drive, Greenville Wisconsin 54942
920-850-4642