I am going to sound like a bit of a broken record but I still feel that without Facebook my life is more productive. Only 2 more days to go and then I will decide whether to permanently shut down my Facebook or continue using it.

Refocusing my attention on other social platforms

I started using other social media tools a lot more such as Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Delicious, Reddit & others as well as t o continuing to blog. For me, using social media platforms is about being productive, for others it may just be to waste a bit of time, not everyone wants to develop themselves, we all want different things and that is what makes the world interesting.

Facebook is boring

Facebook has become quite boring to me now, after exploring so many different ways of communicating online I personally find Facebook limiting. As previously mentioned there are only two reasons why I really like Facebook…easy log-ins on other websites & gaming. Other than that I am not particularly interested in seeing pictures of what my friends are getting up to ( unless in person ) and I am not really interested in being advertised at. I am though, interested in what the art and design community is doing…but there are better social media platforms for this purpose.

Prefer to be in touch with Family in other ways

I prefer to contact my family the old fashioned way..on the phone or I would like to use skype or such like a bit more than I do. There are so many technological options now that Facebook isn’t the be all and end all…personally I think its time to take back a bit of control  back in our lives, make our personal areas such as holidays, nights out & such like what they should be ..private & make work & interesting things such as art/quotes/articles/music public.

Facebook…is a chapter is closing on my social media use.

I am coming to the end of the “a week without Facebook” experiment with only 2 more days to run on it. It seems as though a life without Facebook is a very positive move in my personal life as each day I seem to putting my time into things that add value to my life.

Spoke to my family more

Since I gave up Facebook last Friday I have spoken to 3 members of my family in just the week I have ran this experiment. Before starting this experiment I would probably have spoken to a family member once a month for a very short time, 5 to 10 minutes each time. Now without Facebook updating my family about what I am doing every 5 minutes there is more to talk about and it allows a good communication to ensue as BT rightly put it, it IS good to talk. Facebook isn’t talking, in my opinion it is simply snooping on others, a bit like a digital peeping tom.

It was nice talking to my younger sister this day, we spoke for half an hour on the phone which wasn’t very common at all before this experiment so is Facebook actually hindering proper communication between people? Possibly…

Added extra security & learnt more

Sorry to make this sound like groundhog day but once again I have been more productive with my time than if I had it active. I have added 2 step verification processes to access my online accounts, making it that little bit more difficult to those with malicious intent on the internet, I created a backup system incase a succesful breach of security is reached and I am feeling better about what I do with my time than spending it all on Facebook.

When Im really bored, I want to Facebook

The only time I start missing Facebook truly is when I want to start gaming to pass some time. I do miss my top eleven game & I do miss tracking how my friends are doing on candy crush. Man its been tempting to reactivate my accounts just for this sole purpose.

My family add me on my works Facebook

I have a separate Facebook account just for work…it doesn’t have any pics , updated status or anything on it, its just simply so i can give my work a facebook page and some presence on the king of social media. My family have ALL added me on this account , desperate to stay connected on Facebook. I may be getting rid of the Facebook glue but my family certianly aren’t. That is the thing about social media, there are so many different options that certain social media platforms work well for others. I love my family to bits but my mother & sisters ( although very caring ) are also very nosey and want to know everything that is going on so I guess that is why they love Facebook so much…for me Facebook is a bit of time wasting and nothing else…I think I may just be shutting the door in the face of facebook…

Another day without Facebook, another day with more done. Is this a coincidence or not ? Is Facebook too time consuming or is it simply the fact there is plenty to do?

Update your status, show approval to your friends comments and likes,play games,update business pages, sharing news feeds, connecting various social media platforms together…Facebook really is the social hub of the world.

Another productive day

On this day I went on another little trip to the V & A Museum in London and learnt a lot about the history and cultural differences in the design industries. It was a beautiful building with really impressive architecture and artifacts, I wouldn’t have seen things like this on Facebook, the virtual world can only offer you so much in terms of knowledge. A lot of the information on Facebook is just noise and I would much prefer to gain some knowledge with my time than waste it being fed information on Facebook like a digital sheep.

Is Facebook unproductive

Each day I have been away from Facebook I seem to be more productive with my time and feed my mind with more beneficial information for an advancement in knowledge or life experience. Of course Facebook allows you to share your experiences with friends and family fairly quickly, it just depends if what your friends and family are doing as well as sharing what you are doing with those you know in your life is an important part of your life.

Choices

Life is all about choice, Facebook may be very beneficial to some, for those who enjoy the social aspects of life and like to be up on the latest gossip in your social circle really quickly but for others Facebook may be less beneficial. My preferred social media tool at the moment is Twitter as I feel it connects me to people who are interested in the same things I am, it can connect me to knowledge that I may not have previously known in my industry & also takes a lot less time than the other tools you can use to do something similair. The experiment continues…

Half way through this experiment I have woke up with quite an urge to reactivate my Facebook account but my partner helped me refrain from taking this step and ending the experiment early. I guess the onset of cold turkey is setting in…

Really starting to miss Facebook

As a regular user of many social media platforms from Twitter to Deviantart, Facebook is what I feel to be the hub of all social media platforms. Many programs and applications such as Flickr even now offer the option of signing in via Facebook which makes it a one click easy sign in. This little feature can make having Facebook improve your web experience that little bit more.

My other thing that I am missing is checking on my family, making sure everything is okay with them back in my home town. I know I can pick up the phone and see if they are doing well if I really want to but I guess what Facebook does is speed up the process of communicating and free up time to do other things.

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Negative impact of social media

As social media tools such as Facebook make information and data arriving at you within a couple of seconds I believe that the use of technology is making a lot of us less patient and dare i say it..lazy? One of the reasons I am missing Facebook is because signing in to websites can take 10 seconds less, so I can check on my family quickly and easily..is that a reason to have a social media tool or should I try to regain my ability to gain patience and take the effort of contacting people “the old fashioned way” by telephone?

Too many thoughts will breed the sheep

I also believe that putting attention into too many different areas can also have a negative impact upon us. We will forget things we are meant to do, reduce our attention span, reduce our patience, clutter our mind, decrease the quality of our work & for the media, become an easy person to manipulate.

Which way am I swinging?

Right now I can say that I am swinging slightly further away from Facebook than towards it, the low attention span & lack of quality time spent on doing things worthwhile out way the use of Facebook to keep in touch with close ones. Whether this will remain so by the end of the week is yet to be seen.

Day 2 is drawing to a close without any activity on my Facebook account and I have probably felt no difference to if I had been actively using it. My partner and I did go for a nice morning stroll in the nearby greenery when the sun was shining which was very nice, but am I missing the app or not?

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Starting to miss it

On day 2, although I don’t like to admit it, I think I am starting to miss Facebook..a little. It is something to do whilst the adverts are on TV. I do use twitter & many other social media tools but I don’t spend half as much time on them as I do on Facebook. Like I mentioned yesterday, I am particularly missing Top Eleven Football Game.

More productive today?

Well my favorite football team had a match televised so I was quite busy watching the game until 3pm …If Facebook would have been active I may have updated my status that I was quite bored as the game was a bit of a stale mate unfortunately..but instead I just said oh well to myself and then continued to help my partner with flat & job hunting.

My Facebook Page

I am not missing my Facebook Page at all, it is lacking in real fans and to be honest for those kind of things it is better to use many other social media platforms for designers such as Behance an online portfolio tool.

Advancing skills

Now I am planning to practice some Photoshop and try and read a bit more about psychology, whether this is because I am not on Facebook as often or simply because I am more aware of the time I am spending doing things and what kind of things I am doing is debatable.

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I guess after day 2 what is quite clear is that people like Facebook because they feel it gives them a voice to the world and keeps them connected to close ones and brands they love. Every human being on the planet wants to feel important or they can offer something of value to the world…no one wants to be the grey noise, everyone wants a purpose in life and connecting with others ,even if it is only friends and family you know, is one way of giving your life, or more specifically, your thoughts more meaning and purpose than if they were just in your own head. A dangerous thing to think about really when the world is so diverse with good and “bad” thinking, for those with both positive feelings to improve the life of all and the others with negative emotions to try and ruin others…my experiment continues…

missed day 1? Read it here

I remember when i first set up my twitter account and put my first couple of tweets together, I was thinking…”what the hell is this?!” and “how is this going to benefit me?”. What I have realized 520 tweets and 537  followers later, the amount of useful information that people share is undeniably brilliant! Not only this but it allows your website content to reach a wider “relevant” audience that are interested in what you have to say!

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In this post I plan to give you a few little tips to make sure you are using twitter as effectively as you possibly can to generate brand awareness, develop your own standing in the profession of your choice  & start generating a buzz around your business.

What to tweet

That first step, your twitter account has no tweets. What do you tweet? What you eat for you dinner? What time you finished work? The hot girl you saw across the street? Of course not!

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Consider your audience, do you really think they want to read about that? If like me you are a designer/artist then I am more likely to find something interesting such as artworks, how to do things on Photoshop or illustrator. Alternatively if you are selling a product like cream that benefits people with eczema I would probably be interested in reading about eczema suffering groups and other relevant content such as that.

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Basically the message here is always keep your audience in mind when tweeting and make it relevant. ( Check my twitter account out for some general ideas ), just be genuinely interested in your industry.

Following people you are truly interested in

So you’ve started tweeting some really relevant industry tweets, best get following others that you are interested in. Don’t just follow people for the sake of it, i mean…when do you need a funeral director? Unless you are part of the Italian mafia with a regular need to dispose of bodies this twitter user is not necessarily going to benefit from your tweets and you certainly won’t benefit from theirs.

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Follow your industry professionals and start linking to tweeters that are going to help build a strong influential twitter following. Remember…not everyone will follow you back but a lot will, particularly if they are industry relevant.

Retweeting

Do you often see something interesting written by someone you follow? It’s more than likely the people following you will also find it interesting. After all they have the same interests as you.

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Sharing is caring, show what is interesting you and it will benefit your little fan base too…plus if you want to look it up again just check your twitter feed out for reference. Double bonus!

Conversation

Twitter is a “social” media platform and to be social is to talk. Try commenting on some of your followings feeds, you might start a conversation and create a stronger bond with them as well as generate business.

#Hashtags

A hash tag makes it easier for people to find your tweets with the “discover” tool. So for instance “hey check out my latest #art piece. here – http://www.url.com” okay so you notice that i put a hash tag next to art? so if anyone types art into the discover tool they may just discover your tweet and wallah! New followers.

Tweet every day

The last tip and one of the most important, tweet regularly or your followers may think you are inactive are unfollow you. Even try and tweet 3 to 5 times a day, throughout the day, juts make sure to keep it relevant.

Useful Twitter Apps

Lastly 2 useful Twitter apps that every Twitter user should be using : –

wefollow

Gather more followers using this great app, see how much influence you have in your particular industry keyword too!

 Justunfollow

Are you noticing your twitter account keeps loosing followers even though you are twittering often ( how rude! :O ) ? Find out who is unfollowing you and return the favor ( unless of course they are highly influential with lots of great tweets that will benefit you! ).

Before we talk about the Twitter profile picture size, I’d like to clarify what  the profile picture is. It’s the image that appears in the top left corner of your Twitter profile page and next to every tweet you make.

Note : If you are looking for the latest 2014 profile sizes and some tips on how to make you Twitter profile stand out then follow the link here.

Having a Twitter Profile Picture helps people take you more seriously, (If someone follows me and they don’t have one I usually block them).  Your profile picture should reflect your brand, both from your website, your corporate stationary and business identity. Continue “Twitter Profile Picture Size”