You’ve seen it. A local business is at 4,989 likes so they hold some sort of contest to get to that 5,000 number because… well, they don’t even know for sure.
Ask them.
Why “Copy and Paste” Statuses Make Facebook a Worse Place
You’ve seen them. You’ve probably seen one of them this morning. They are the wonderfully vapid “copy and paste” posts that, while they may seem innocuous and even fun at first, truly only serve to make your social media experience worse for everyone you know.
First, what are we talking about, exactly? A “Copy and Paste” post looks very similar to the picture below and usually has text that read as follows:
If you read this, leave me a GIF comment about your day. Then copy and paste this to your wall so I can leave a GIF for you. Don’t just put a GIF and not copy, that’s no fun. ?
Seems simple and nice enough, right? I mean, you’ve probably even seen or made your own “Copy and Paste” post to honor someone who had cancer or someone who has autism, right? Why would this be a bad thing? Here’s why it is a bad thing.
- “Copy and Paste” posts are hoaxes, even if they contain nice sentiments. They are the chain mail emails of the 2010s. Remember how much you hated those things? Well, you should hate these just as much.
- Copy and pasting a post makes it much easier for the hoax to continue without being deleted. For example, if a popular Facebook page posts something and then asks many people to share and then it’s determined to be a hoax or fake, then all Facebook has to do is delete the original post. After that happens, all of the subsequent shares and posts are also removed. When a “Copy and Paste” post is shared via copying and pasting it becomes an original post over and over again. It makes tracking down the post nearly impossible and deleting all instances of it totally impossible.
- By sharing out innocuous similar posts, such as the ones about honoring those with cancer, etc., you’re getting yourself used to and ready to share a hoax in the future. You’re also grooming those on your friends list to view these types of posts as trustworthy. Then, when an actual hoax post comes along, boom, everyone’s potentially affected.
- It’s not real. This reason is subjective, but by sharing these types of “no effort” posts, are you really doing anything to help someone with autism or truly honoring someone with cancer or are you just completing the copy and paste action to feel as though you have done so? Why not share a fundraising event for someone in need or a picture of someone you love who was actually affected?
Being more savvy online doesn’t require a social media degree, it just requires you to wonder a little bit why someone would want to start one of these “Copy and Paste” posts in the first place. Is it to really get something shared or is it to set you up to share something that may be false in the future?
Five Ways You Can Improve Your Business’ Social Media Right Now
Sometimes, the hard part of social media can be keeping up with it. You, or whoever runs the social media for your business or organization can be hit with a ton of social media “best practices” each and every day. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.
That being said, there are some easy things you can do to take a step back and make sure your social media is up-to-date and chugging along as it should be.
Five Things You’re Probably Doing Wrong on Facebook
Facebook makes it pretty easy for your business or organization to share moments, memories, upcoming events, and more. However, there is still something to be said for having a little bit of Facebook savvy.
Here are a few things that you may be doing on your business or organization’s Facebook page that you should stop doing like, yesterday.
Facebook Unveils Group Video Chats
Ever wanted to video chat with 50 of your closest friends? Well, Facebook is making it even easier to connect and giving users one less reason to use another app. And, yes, it allows for up to 50 people to join at one time.
Facebook recently announced that group video chat would be supported for Facebook Messenger and on the web and it’s stupid easy to do.
Facebook’s New Algorithm to Give Boost to “Best Friends” and Decrease to Pages
Facebook’s changes, whether they include algorithm updates or modifications to your news feed, always cause an initial bit of uproar until people forget about them.
Let’s face it, you’ll be a bit annoyed for awhile, but as long as you’re still able to easily share photos and moments and connect with your friends, most of these changes only result in Facebook page account administrators needing to work a bit harder to get their content noticed.
Has Facebook Removed the 20 Percent Ad Text Rule? Yes, Kinda
A few months ago, we reported that Facebook may have been making changes to their 20 percent ad rule, which states that any images with more than 20 percent text in them are not eligible for boosting.
At that time, a European site had made claims that the rule seemed to be relaxed, allowing for images with more than 20 percent text in them to be boosted, however, with a warning that they may not reach as many people as a photo with less than 20 percent text.
Unfortunately, no one else was able to verify this claim so, it remained that, just a claim.
However, new information directly from the source itself…
Has Facebook Removed the 20 Percent Text Rule? Probably Not
Anyone who has boosted a post on Facebook from a Facebook page knows the frustration that can come from the “20 Percent Rule.” In an effort to keep everyone’s Facebook news feeds looking less cluttered and attractive (among other reasons) Facebook restricts boosted posts to those with images featuring 20 percent or less of text.
The benefit of this rule is that users see less “meme based” advertising and more quality images. In short, the rule forces advertisers to be a bit more creative in their efforts than by simply putting up the latest picture of Grumpy Cat with a sardonic quip in Impact font.
So, is that rule finally going away?
Facebook to Begin Allowing 7 Second Looping Video Profile Pic and More!
Facebook wants to keep you using Facebook as much as possible. One way for them to keep their users spending time logged into their app is to make it as fun and customizable as possible.
A recent update announced by Facebook will allow for 7 second looping profile pictures, temporary profile pictures, a short bio, and a feature to pin featured photos to the top of a profile.
Facebook’s “See First” Feature and Why Your Page Shouldn’t Bother With it Too Much
Whenever Facebook launches a new newsfeed feature, brands with Facebook pages generally clump into two camps:
- They complain that it’s going to limit how many of their followers see their updates or
- They start smothering their users with how to implement said feature so that their pages’ posts reach more of their followers.