Why It Sucks To Have 4,999 Facebook Friends

As a digital marketer over the past 20 years, I have met lots of people both online and in person. A great deal of this is from being the founder and fearless leader of GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest & largest online community of female musicians. And it’s from being a popular social media marketer. I have traveled far and wide since 1996 so it should come as no surprise that I would easily rack up 5K Facebook friends. But unfortunately Facebook has its limits. They don’t think anyone personally knows 5K people. Ahem. They don’t know me. [insert my big grin here]

So… several times a year I make the dreaded announcement that I have to purge my Facebook account to make room for some of the cool, new people I’ve met that I would like to follow. It’s tough because I don’t want to “unfriend” someone I know. I seek out accounts that have no profile image (that’s a social media “no-no,” you should always have a profile photo) and remove them. Most times I find enough to lower my friend count for awhile.

Some people tell me to open another profile. While that sounds logical, it would actually create double work. It’s hard enough to keep up with all the various social media sites. I do not want to manage another personal profile. The other option is my Madalyn Sklar business page. Uh, no. Once upon a time all the hard work we put into our pages and grew organically went on a rapid decline so that even though you “opt-In” to see my posts, about 1% of you will. Some days it’s .01%. If I pay Facebook my hard earned money they will let some of you see it. I’m not a fan of that. I’m a fan of organically growing my networks. So I go to where I can be seen and heard.

Today I’m getting heard best on my personal Facebook profile, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. That’s where you will find me. My username on every platform is madalynsklar because I was lucky enough to have an unusual name. Thank you Mom & Dad!

Yes, I still post on my Madalyn Sklar Facebook page. But when you have 6.7K fans and your posts get seen by 71 people and sometimes 500, it’s frustrating. On a good day I might get 1K. Woo hoo!

Thank you all for listening. You all rock my world and make “social” what it is. Social. And for that I thank you.