As more and more online engagement occurs and even “seniors” join Facebook en masse; The biggest current growth at the social media giant is coming from the 55+ age groups; we find more and more participation happening. Which, after all, is the point of these portals. Let’s be honest, engagement beats the old “I had a wonderful dinner” post.
I’ll start with Facebook groups, and I’m not mentioning companies that disguise the group as a marketing angle for their business because they can add as many people as they want (that’s a whole different discussion), I’m talking about legitimate groups. , set up by people who are generally targeting a community, sport or hobby and followed by like-minded people. I set up a bunch of Facebook groups myself and still manage them. BUT, I never “censor” or remove any content. It’s not my place to. It is also no place for administrators. Facebook owns the space, not the administrator.
I hear the complaints of some weird troll in these groups, well the same goes for business pages from time to time, and most of you know my opinion about deleting posts from business pages (in short, never!), but deleting posting in a group is just plain rude. The administrator does not reserve the right to play Internet police, that is Facebook’s job. The Facebook group, by its very nature, is an OPEN forum for people to discuss and participate as they choose. Ok now I can hear some admins of these groups getting angry, well guys if the group is not the place for your content you will soon be leaving as your activity will accomplish nothing. So if someone in a community group wants to try to sell an old bookstore, well, that’s what it’s there for. It may not have been your intention at first, but that’s called progress. If you, as an administrator, want to control the space, pay for it or own it; Facebook is not that space, you are not paying a dime, you have no control. Their Facebook’.
If you want a controlled environment, free from people advertising their old bookcases and cars, start a forum on your website. Easy, then you can control it all you want, after all, it’s yours. You manage the site, set the terms and conditions of the people who participate in it and pay to be there. So you have the right to do what you want with that online space. After all, it’s your site and users can decide if they want to be a part of it or not. Easy.
But just to re-engage, the Facebook space is not owned by the user, and neither is the content, so in short, don’t censor Facebook posts, it’s meant to be Social Media, not Private Media. And yes, some people abuse it heavily, but folks, such is life. We have that in the offline world, why not in the online world?
Simply put, if you don’t own it, you can’t control it.
And remember “sticks and stones”