Liking Facebook
When Facebook changed the 'Fan' button to the 'Like' button, I for one was not pleased. 'Like' always seemed far too tepid a word. Inadequate to express one's feelings about the film, book, play, actor or activity that the Facebook page represented.
Now we have a different situation. Social Media Marketing has exploded. Advertising revenue in the traditional places, TV, news media, radio has declined year on year as viewers, readers and listeners get wise to the ways to avoid it. Peer review is deemed more trustworthy. After all if you cannot trust your friends, who can you trust?
Suddenly it seems as though everyone has a page to promote and you feel overwhelmed with the sheer volume of things to 'like'. Having dutifully clicked the like button you add that to your growing list of things you 'like'.
So what happens next? In reality, how many of those 'like' pages do you ever visit again?
Being a fan of something implies that you enjoy doing, watching or reading this something over and over again. "Like" infers a more tenuous attraction. Now we have so many pages to 'like' isn't it time that Facebook finds some way to differentiate between the things you have a passing fancy for and those things that are your favourites?
As social media grows, it would be helpful if you could refine your interests, likes and dislikes, especially for marketing. Finding like minded people is an inexact science at best, but it need not be. The current situation provides the opportunity for the truly energetic to carpet bomb the internet in their quest for sales and self-promotion; whilst the less forward and those with less time at their disposal disappear in the incoming tide.
So you turn your facebook on in the morning and what do you find? Usually at least one request from a friend to 'Like' something, so you dutifully click the like button and so it goes on. Or does it? Are we now all suffering from a degree of 'like' fatigue? I know that in the last couple of months I have been faced with many pages to like. I also know that whereas I would have liked every page sent my way six months ago, now I have become more selective. Not because I don't like things, but because I don't like them enough to add them to a list and dilute my interest in other things.
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