On the Facebook fan page race to 100 fans

In the social media world, when I’m hanging out with my friends, at social events, and even here on my blog I’m pretty self-mocking. I joke about the fact that I’m self-absorbed, etc. But in the professional context (and by professional I mean both social media and environmental/public policy but more importantly in the fields I do research/teaching/consulting) I like to present a public face that is much less free-spirited and more business-like. So I created a fan page for my professional activities (primarily my research/teaching/consulting in environment and public policy). I did not create a Fan Page for Hummingbird604 because well, I think I’ve got this blog and why would I want to create a FB fan page for the social media side?

Lately, there has been a rush to get at least 100 fans on our Facebook fan pages so that we can get a so-called vanity URL (a simplified, short-name version of our page). I plead guilty to having promoted my fan page relentlessly and I apologize if I flooded your FB or Twitter streams. As I was writing this blog post, I wondered who might have deleted their Facebook fan page and it turns out that Chris Brogan (very well known in the social media world) did. He summarized his response as “Because it’s not about me“.

So why do you have a professional Facebook fan page? you might ask… Primarily to serve two functions.

1.- Reach out to a community that I normally wouldn’t through other means. Not everybody reads my research blog. And I don’t write that frequently on that one (I want to make sure to have good, well-thought-out blog posts there).

2.- Share some interesting links without overwhelming people. I know that I sometimes re-tweet a lot of stuff and I prefer to just share a few environmentally-focused articles, primarily those that are associated with my own fields of research.

3.- As an experiment in a new field. I have hated Facebook FOREVER and now that I’m on it, and appreciating some (a few, because really not every feature is good) of its characteristics, I wanted to experiment having a fan page.

So, that should explain to you why I’ve been bombarding you with tweets and messages about becoming a fan of my Facebook page. Should you decide to become a fan, I’ll try to keep it interesting! And, if you’re already a fan - THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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