Flummoxed on the Social Media hamster wheel......

During my Facebook hiatus I had time to deliver the dinner set for 8, finish the website, take 50 billion pictures of pots, delete 49 billion pictures from my camera, update the layout for the blog, set up an Etsy site, get the gardens sorted out, plant some peas and lettuce and get a couple plants in the wheel barrow for a Spring side out rotate and.....  wait for it, re-activate my facebook account.  I think I've just about linked everything together and my bank account numbers are painted on a bathroom wall in LA with yellow neon highlighter ...... Ha and I thought facebook was a time suck!  Still working on getting the html social media icons on the blog and website.  And have yet to get Bing search engines to recognize the new website.  Google is pretty easy, Pinterest is pretty easy but Bing...... I think I only had two eye bleeds while figuring out my meta code! Code Blue, that would be my heart stopping but meta code....   I didn't even know what meta code was two weeks ago...... but here is the astonishing thing; I kind of got it!  Talk about a dog with a bone, although I think I would prefer tenacious.  See those nice new headers on the sidebar?  LOOK AT IT!

Before I deleted my Facebook account I read a too much, rolled it around in my head more than needed, listened to the Pope of Facebook and his high holy cardinals, and decided to go forth into the wildness alone.  I didn't delete on whim, I really did my homework or thought I did. 

By week two in the wilderness, I decided to host a studio sale this June 15th and 16th.  Now, how to get the word out?  The blog, instagram, new website, Etsy announcement...... high five myself and go plant peas.  But while planting peas I wondered just how many people do I really reach without the facebook platform?  While I sipped my 3 o'clock coffee I started looking at numbers on all those other time suck platforms.  My blog post went from 300 - 350 readers per blog post to 20 readers.  Instagram stayed about the same.  New website had about 100 hits and as I gulped the last of the coffee grounds on the bottom of cup, it was becoming clear; cross posting on Facebook had made a huge difference in the getting the word out about "stuff".  If you are a small business this is gold and last time I counted I have a workforce of 1 and one free loader who holds the floor down and sheds like it's his job.

Listening to NPR and reading several articles written by young kids and adults (age 15 - 29) who had deleted their facebook account and raved that they were more creative, had more time to work out, read books, drop out of the cool kids club and they were never going back to facebook.  One young man reported he'd opened his facebook account when he was 13 and deleted his account when he was 17.5;  he spent an average of 3 hours a day on social media per day and came up with this equation:

(he gets an A++ for math!)

17.5 -13 = 14.5 x 365 = 1642 x 3 hours = 4927 hours wasted.  

Epiphany #2

Socia media allowed me to surround myself with so many like minded "friends" from politics to gardening to pottery and on and on.  It kind of creates a false illusion.  I don't work a regular job where I need to go interact with people on a daily basis.  I interact with a dog, an obnoxious neighborhood cat and lately a couple rows of peas.  None of them knows or cares about Trump or pottery or ..... well maybe the yard because they are all going to eat it or pee on it.  I live in Trump country and have completely and totally withdrawn from local life as I once knew it.  I live next door to a guy who plays the Star Spangled Banner out his front window at 10 am.  I live in town with no grocery stores, a jail and 4 gun shops.  I think I just discovered why the country has is so divided;  social media!  What happened to the days when neighbors really did need each other.  Remember; Timmy's in the well and Lassie ran to the neighbors for help?  Ya those days are gone; Timmy's in the well!!  Did he vote for Trump?  OMG just toss him in anchor and nail the lid shut!  Did I mention I live across the street from a cemetery?  I have friends hosting studio sales in the bucolic hills or pastoral acres.... substitute bubonic and perpetual care acres .....  welcome to my studio sale. 

While discussing the idea for a studio sale with the dog, I asked how shall we advertise this studio sale?  The dog just wanted to know if there would be cookies?  Not many read the paper anymore, bill boards seem to be a bit of overkill.......... crap back to social media and facebook or the dog and I will be eating all the cookies and switching out the lemonade for bourbon. 

And in other news....... Daughter #2 is graduating next Saturday from Western Colorado University in Gunnison.  I am packing up the dog, camping equipment, oxygen tanks, large bottle of aspirin and husband of 36 years; who is down right giddy over the prospects that the last kid made it.  My house looks like the FBI flipped an REI store.  Next Saturday morning at 9 am we will be sitting on cold metal bleachers in an outdoor stadium, dressed in long johns and battery powered socks, in the mountains of Colorado freezing our pa-tooties off and grinning from ear to ear.......  yup, she made it!

Congratulations Abby!