Facebook in a nutshell

Facebook gets stagnant quick : It doesn’t matter if you have 20 or 400 friends, your feed is heading in one direction and it aint up.

It’s initially engaging: Sure it is, while the general populous get loaded up. There will be a ton of interesting photos and posts, stuff from their childhood and other treats.

That content dries up: Yup most normal folk exhaust their hidden gems quick, and so what follows? Remember FB is about content creation. “What’s on your mind posts” and “Daily wall posts” are all FB mechanisms to get you (the digital sharecropper) to create new content, along side this content ads get posted and that’s their business model.

So what the hell does the average person do once they’ve uploaded all their photos and shared their story of their annual holiday to Greece?

User classifications form: Check your feed right now and you’ll see that the people who post on a regular basis tend to follow a certain theme and continue to post in the style of that theme.

For example I have someone in my feed who posts aviation pictures, literally every single day. Another posts news about her kids.

Check it out, the content creators in your feed can be divided into 2 categories:

1. Original content creators
2. Reposters

Original content creators usually post along a certain theme and don’t deviate and usually have a defining hobby or interest.

Some examples:

• Look I’m a mommy. Look at our normal, complete family, blah blah blah
• I’m a skydiver or an adrenaline junky.
• I do something you will never be able to do and am proud of it (make furniture, fly, surf)
• I’m a musician (Self promoting)
• I’m a party girl / student / hipster and I do these social events at least once a week

Original content creators will never run out of new material because as part of their life cycle, they’re either obsessed with that one thing, or they’re very proud of it, and you totally need to have this shoved down your throat.

Reposters

These are people who have a busy life. Usually the work they do might be considered “standard” work such as an office job or something not worth bragging about.

Reposters want a piece of the FB pie, they too want inclusion, love and acceptance but they have no new content of their own that they would consider posting.

They then, without original content post all kinds of crap that they’ve manged to find on the internet, stuff they think a) Defines their identify b) Stuff you might find interesting – worth noting that A is the primary objective.

Some examples:

• Motivational images
• Famous speeches
• Funny stuff / Daily humor
• Shocking content
• News

That’s nearly it, and we could leave it at that, but there are still 2 other types to cover which fall into the original content creation category.

Poor old wretched me: Poor old wretched me shares pitty stories with you. These might not even be totally dramatic and their updates can be one liners in an attempt to find acceptance and worth. 

Poor old wretched me might make posts like:

• Cars they only break down when you need them
• It’s Tuesday and I’ve already had it up to here
• Would someone explain to my boss that overtime should be paid

The list goes on, usually they rope you in with blanket statements that could apply to many people and this generates likes which makes them feel valued.

Good guy Greg: He might not have original content, and he might live a mundane life but he doesn’t bitch about it, instead his posts are all about exposing some hidden enthusiasm towards life.

These people will post stuff like:

• Sorry to say Goodbye weekend, see you again this coming Friday.
• Monday we try really hard to love you too
• I’m typing this then shutting down my computer and off to have a Bacardi with the boys
• As the holiday season approaches I hope you all get a good break and see you all soon.

That’s it, Facebook in a nutshell.