How to Get Unfriended: Basic Advertising

Simple Advertising Rules:

I used to work in advertising and I was very good at my job. I took it seriously and I took seminars in advertising whenever possible. One of the things that still amazes me is how many Pagans, Wiccans and Druids have an advertising background. If we were the evangelic type, we could take over the world. However, at one seminar with the best advertising guru I ever met someone asked what he would consider the first rule of advertising.

1. If you can't write, shut up.
2. If it isn't interesting, shut up.
3. Never let the background overpower the foreground.

I might add to stick to the basic newspaper format: who, what, when, where and why. If you answer those questions be ready to answer the last one: How much? And for the love of all gods and goddess, keep it simple, stupid. The less you say, the more the person you are selling to will fill in the blanks and the better your chance of a sale because they will sell the item to themselves.

Take the woman buying the perfect little black dress. The saleswoman extolled the virtues of the dress for dancing, nightclubs, cocktail parties and how you had to have one. Unfortunately she didn't make the sale because the customer was going to a funeral. If she had stuck to the versatility, construction and durability without being specific, she would have sold the dress.

So, why am I telling you this? I have unfriended some people simply because …...well....I'll make you a $20.00 bet they can never figure out the reason. If you know me, you know I only make sucker bets. Scots hate to lose money. It is because they finally drove me berserk. Never drive a person berserk who has a collection of swords or an unfriend button.

Try to remember that when you are working on the internet and Facebook, most people have a problem with memory, not theirs: their computer's and with download speed. This is why Facebook has an album function for pictures. It also keeps people like me from screaming. If you upload too many pictures one after the other, you overload the memory in people's computers and the nasty little bug called Flashplayer suddenly breaks and every picture and graphic on the page becomes a blank except Facebook's advertising. This means people can't see what they want to see and it also slows their browsing down to a drunken snail crawl.

The main point is, your personal page is not your business page even if your business is you.

Now, on your personal page, I firmly believe you should have anything you want. Upload pictures to yin yang. On your business page, please don't. This is where you should be using the album function like it is the holy grail. Nothing is more boring than 20 pictures of people you don't know, don't care about and have no idea why they are there. If you want to stroke people's egos, put them in an album and title it X Dinner Party. That way, the rest of us are forewarned not to open that album. If you want to showcase your accomplishments, group them by event. Above all else, attach copy to your pictures more than John Doe. Nobody is interested in John Doe unless YOU make John Doe interesting. No one is interested in your event unless you make the event interesting and if you explore the Facebook albums and pictures function, you will find they have actually made it easy to turn your pictures into a story that people will read!

If you are uploading from an event, be prepared to organize those pictures later into an album. But, while you are there, you need something called a narrative. Fifteen pictures entitled 40K run is not going to endear you to anyone. However, “Here I am at the first K on the corner of out breath and cramping just passing the dead snail I was racing,” is interesting. This will keep people reading and looking at the most boring pictures in the world waiting for the story to unfold. This also means the event is not the time to learn how to text. In other words, preparation is 90% of the job.

As to other tips, hey...I'm available for speaking engagements, consultations and seminars. In other words, time is money and I need to eat, too. Always remember, time is money.