Friday, February 5, 2010

Facebook

Hey all,

Will you be my "friend"?

Facebook, it is so crazy.
I go on Facebook and I see what is on my Homepage.

"don't go to sleep with a frown in your pocket"

Gavin became a fan of We can find 1,000,000 people who DO believe in Evolution before June.

Tony G and Emerson T are now friends

Paula D became a fan of 4 Rivers Smokehouse.

Johannes G "There is no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man with human flesh." Frank Herbert

I just became a fan of Angulo Dental who....

We are a small dental office committed to making dentistry not scary anymore. Serving metro Orlando since fall of 2001. Many smiles and lives have been changed over the last 8 years. It's what we do.

This is my friend Jorge who started a fan page for his office.

Facebook is becoming sooooo huge that this is the way people are communicating.
Friends are reuniting. People can find groups that they can support. Old flings are rekindled. Marriages are breaking up. All the good stuff. People are spending precious time (and most people are doing it at WORK) updating and redoing and putting pictures on their Facebook account.

Julia W became a fan of Nancy's Italian Ice.


I have to admit I rarely go to my facebook page. I rarely update anything and when I do go on there I am so surprised at all the crap I find.
I am just going to come out and say it.
I have to tell you that I think Facebook is soooo stupid. I am sorry to all the students and people under 30 that I have just wickedly offended.
I just don't get it. Now I know I am old. I know you might have a tough time teaching this dog new tricks. Someone please tell me what they see in Facebook.
Have I seen pictures of people I haven't seen in awhile? Yes
Have I talked to my old high school classmates? Yes
But when I say "yes", I am talking like 3 sentences, and then I go back to my busy life.
I have a hard enough time talking to the friends I have now. When I say friends, I mean real friends...not virtual Facebook friends.
And what the hell is this farm thing. People keep talking about building their farm, and "I can't wait to get home to my farm". I didn't even bother to look it up. I don't care.

Teresa D became a fan of Hu-Friedy Mfg. Co., Inc.

I also think Facebook is kind of dangerous for us middle-aged people.
We are in our lives and we think back on all the "Golden" years. So when was that? High School and college and dental school.
We had no cares in the world. We could study and party like rock stars. Man I will tell you I was so cool in those days. I was living it up on daddy's dime (dad, if you happen to come across this somehow, I love you and I was at the library all those times, I swear).
LIFE WAS VERY GOOD. I didn't have a care in the world. I didn't have this extra tire around my waist, and I for sure didn't have all this back hair.
But now when you really look at your life, it is much different because we didn't have kids to feed, bills to pay, soccer games, baseball games, church, doctors appointments, car payments, PTA meetings, Parent/teacher conferences, dental conferences....real exciting (can you just hear my sarcasm).

Ric Crowder became a fan of 5,000,000 People Strong For A "That's what she said" button.


When you look at your life, sometimes it looks kind of boring. People my age always want to think back to those times and say, "What have I become?" "What ever happened to that kid that used to drink beer and go skinny dipping with his friends at his girlfriend's lake house (dad again, I swear there was parent supervision like I told you). I am not saying my life now isn't great. Because it is, but some people my age would probably not love their life like I do.

So what do we do we go on Facebook and try to rekindle our first love. We try to see how she or he is doing (I say we but I don't mean me. I will get to my personal policies later). Remembering how much fun we had with that other person. Not remembering that person probably didn't shower every day or that his mommy did his laundry and had to wake them for school every day. Who cares about that, we had so much fun in high school 15 YEARS AGO.

Kirk S became a fan of Bruce O'Donoghue.

I know, I know, everyone doesn't go on Facebook to "hook up" with old flings. I know that we all want to see how our old classmates are doing. Yeah the guys you didn't like 20 years ago, let's see how they are doing today. Or let's see where so and so lives...Oh he is married, I thought for sure that guy would never get married. Well I get there is a lid for every jar.
Am I really out of it or are all of you on Facebook all the time?
I did a soft survey at the office today, staff and patients.

Al N Most of us want to be judged based on our "intentions" rather than our actions...do we offer the same level of grace and understanding to others that we expect for ourselves???


And people go on this site. My assistant, hygienist, and first patient go on EVERY DAY. What?!!
They claim they are going to see what their family is up to. My front desk person and second patient go on once a week.
I don't know how many friends I have on Facebook, but it is something like 250. If I sat on Facebook and watched all the stuff coming in from just 250 people. It is so stupid. I am sorry I can't.

Rhonda put her contact in wrong.
Steve says "TGIF"
Lynette says they hate it when Facebook changes their format.
Chuck just bought a pig for his farm.

Are we really serious about this?

But this blog was supposed to be about Marketing on Facebook. But as I went to my Homepage and looked for stuff to write about things just kept coming in. I just scratch my head.
A couple of dentists posted stuff, and I am thinking to myself, "it is Friday, probably their day off and they are either at work doing paperwork and on Facebook or at home (which is even worse) on Facebook.

My friends are trying to market their practices on Facebook.
Tell me how you use Facebook?
Are you on it all the time? Tell me your approximate age.
What do you use Facebook for? Is it productive?
And if you think I am way off base I want to know that too.
Maybe I am missing something. Enlighten me, but don't be mean.

I almost forgot my rule of Facebook is I don't "Friend" any of my old girlfriends. Really I try not to "Friend" women period. I know it is stupid, but out of respect to my wife and I know not everyone has pure intentions. Look people at church have affairs too. I just don't want to put myself in tough situations.
I will get a "Friend request" from a woman, and I don't know who they are, so I ignore it.
Then a week later I will get a "friend request" from the same woman and this time it is with a message, "Are you going to be my friend or what?"....ignore again.
If I don't know you, and I don't know where you know me from....plus I usually never check my Facebook account so why do you want me as a friend anyway?

Please enlighten me,
I will follow up on Wednesday.
Have a great weekend
john

5 comments:

dannyboy said...

Great blog doc. I used to be on Facebook, but in order to facilitate domestic tranquility, I quit. Mainly b/c my Director of Standards and Practices did not approve of an ex-fiance and ex-girlfriends being "friends."

toothdoc said...

Since my name is the only full name used in this post, I figure I better respond to it.

I understand if people don't like FB. I honestly don't care if they are on it or not. However, as someone who lives in a town different than the town they:
1) Grew up in
2) Have any family members in
3) Graduated High School in
4) Graduated College in
5) Graduted Law School in
etc. . . I find it a great way to keep up with the 75 or so people that I shared hallmark times of my life in.

It is an awesome way for my kids grandparents to see pictures of their grandkids. It is a great way for me to share with friends what I am doing in my life and keep up with what they are doing. It is a great way to reconnect with high-school classmates prior to a 20 year reunion so we don't have to spend the entire weekend catching up on the mundane (where do you live, what do you do) but can spend time getting to know their family members.

You saw fit to pull 1 line off of various people's FB pages and impune the sensibility of it?? Why? You wouldn't take 1 line out of a CE seminar and use it to summarize the entire weekend.

We can get into the merits of virtual worlds versus "real worlds" but start it from an even playing field.

That's all for now, I don't normally go on for this long (that's what she said).

ric

Anonymous said...

Originally Facebook was only for college students and you had to have an email address that ended in .edu. Unfortunately times have changed and anyone can have a Facebook account. I know as a college student, Facebook is a quick easy way to communicate. Whether its about classes, meeting to study or just catch up. College students are busy and they don't have time to write drawn out emails or call to talk when a quick message will work.

For college students Facebook is also an escape in the midst of studying. I know during the summer and during breaks college students don't use Facebook nearly as frequent as when they are in school.

Anonymous said...

i see how you can be a little bit jaded by how people act on facebook. you know, the one friend who basically tells everyone EVERYTHING that goes on in her life (status update: "boy how time flies...time for my woman-doctor appt. today"....i've seriously seen these updates!). but mainly, i use facebook just to keep in touch with people. it's probably on par as far as how much correspondence i do using email or facebook. it's just so easy to send people quick notes, and to check it quickly everyday.

yes, people go WAY OVERBOARD with facebook, but if you use it for what it was intended for (keeping in touch), and not as "brag-book" or "vent-book" or "sleeze-book", it can be very useful.

as far as marketing, i can really see the merits of facebook as far as getting your name out there. i don't think it's the end-all as far as marketing, but, if you're desperate for patients (or starting a practise), you should consider it.

i'm 33, and have been using it for 4 years now, and i check it almost everyday. i hardly update my status at all, and very seldom post pictures. i think it has more pros that cons overall.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I just became a fan of Angulo Dental because you made me curious about it. He seems awesome!

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