So you’re a blogger and you want to expand upon your readership. You’ve seen your stats…you know how many people read your blog. There’s only one more thing to do, right?
CREATE A FAN PAGE ON FACEBOOK!!!
Ummm…yeah.
I gotta be honest, I don’t really get that. Maybe it’s because I’m a dude or I’m out of touch or something, because I just don’t understand the reason/rationale for creating a fan page on Facebook.
And don’t get me wrong…I’ve got some really good blogger friends who have accounts under their blogger aliases: QTMama, Yummy Mammy, SingleMomInTheCity, & MsSingleMama just to name a few.
My question then becomes: WHY?
I can understand wanting to connect with people who read your blog and NOT wanting to divulge a “real identity” with them. Sure…that makes perfect sense.
I can also understand the ego-stroke. I mean, there are a LOT of reasons to blog…one of them being that you can develop a readership of people who actually want to read what you have to say. That’s definitely good for the ego, especially if you’re having some down times (i.e. a primary reason to blog to begin with).
But do you really expand upon that readership by turning to Facebook? I suppose there is a very real chance that people who read you currently will “friend you” or “become a fan”, then that may create interest in some of their friends who may eventually read what you’re writing.
It’s possible, I suppose.
Again, I can understand if bloggers want to get a little more personal with fellow bloggers while still remaining fairly anonymous. I mean, I was friends with QTMama on Facebook before I was friends with the woman behind QTMama(because, quite frankly, I’m a little creepy and she wasn’t sure if she should let me know who she was).
I think, though, there is a LOT more to gain by using your blogger-name on a different social medium: Twitter.
I’m an unapologetic Twitter fan. I don’t think I spend too much time on it…in fact, I think I could stand to spend MORE time on it. My hope is that people will see a tweet of mine and be slightly entertained or amused and then want to check out my blog. Period…the end.
Of course, I hope that my tweets are witty enough that they sometimes get re-tweeted and that expands on my fanbase, in a similar veign of what people are doing on Facebook.
I just feel that Twitter is the better option of the two. Facebook seems to be changing in terms of what people use it for. I know my own usage has decreased dramatically over the past year and I’m primarily using it for uploading pics of me and those I love. Every once in awhile I’ll throw up a new phrase (I think I’ve still got a “pants on the ground” reference on mine), but that’s about it these days.
On Twitter, though…the opportunity to gain new readers is a lot higher. People will follow you to increase their social media numbers. But I’ve found that if the tweet is interesting, some of these new people…people you don’t really know and many of them fellow bloggers…will re-tweet and/or comment, thus increasing the viewing to other people in their own social media group.
I’m my own example, too. There are probably three or four blogs that I follow now specifically because of tweets I’ve read on Twitter or responses to my own tweets that I’ve replied to.
But I go back to Facebook…
I guess I just don’t get it. What, exactly, is the point of generating your own fan page for your blog? What if you don’t get many followers on Facebook? Does that mean anything?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
