When I say that I haven't been going back on forth with this decision it's simply because the choice was made some month ago, back when I was thinking about whether or not I should have social media button on my portfolio website.
I'm sure you have all seen these buttons on websites, heck even Coca-Cola and Pepsi has them of their website. Both of course are two brands that have been around for much longer than Facebook, Twitter or any other social media. Two brands that I would imagine are more known than any of the social media brands, though I suppose that might be a moot point by now as e.g. Facebook is "quite known". So let's compare them quickly by experience instead. And for the sake of an easier comparison I am going to compare Coca-Cola to Twitter.
Coca-Cola, introduced 1886, registered trademark since 1944.The most of valuable brand of 2012, — and many other years — Coca-Cola has been around for over a hundred years. 126 years to be precise, counting from the year it was introduced. 68 years if we count from the year the name became a registered trademark. In the defending corner we have:
Twitter, 2006.6 years. That's not a whole lot of experience against the behemoth that is Coke. I've known my wife for longer than 6 years…
Holy crap. I've known my wife for longer than that. Back when I met her, Twitter didn't exist. How cool is that? Actually, come to think of it. February 2004, when our paths first crossed — and she thought I was so fucking annoying — was also the same month that Facebook was first launched. Back then they called it "The Facebook". Take a moment to think about that.
Actually, I'm going to compare Facebook and Coca-Cola instead. It's just too uneven to compare Twitter and Coca-Cola, poor Twitter isn't even in the top 100 of Interbrand's most valuable brands list. Facebook on the other hand is, comes in at the 69th place so that's a better comparison.
8 years versus 126 years.
#69 versus #1.
Something people frequently get super-angry about versus Something people like to drink.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is this; "Facebook gains more from being exposed by Coca-Cola than the other way around.
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| Illustrations "borrowed" from Alex Figini. Logo's strategically added by Me. |
Now of course, by that logic one could assume that I would gain more from Facebook than the other way around, because it's a more known brand. In reality though, that would happen if Facebook were to promote me. The bigger brands promoting the smaller one. Not as much the other way around. I gain very little from promoting Facebook on my blog.
That's the biggest reason for not having any social media links on my website and then extending that to these posts. The blog is going to get merged into my website at some point anyway but it feels nice to make these brand guideline changes already.
Then there's the "design" reason. I don't like the look of the share/like/follow buttons, they're visually inconsistent with my brands — obviously adhering to their own brands — which makes them a hassle to incorporate into the Carlos Eriksson design. And rather than taking a giant metaphorical crap on their brand guidelines I would very much like to respect them as much I would expect anyone to respect mine. So I am going to simply not use them at all. There might will still be some social media interaction but I haven't quite figured out how. I'll figure something out, or I won't have it at all.
And lastly… we have the saddest reason. The highest number of "Like"s a single post has ever gotten is… well 8. If I could be bothered to do a statistical analysis I am fairly certain the average number of likes would be ~ 0.15. But I haven't and I'm not going to. Even accounting for the number of visitors and calculating an average for likes/visitors/post, which does make the numbers better it still doesn't change one single truth. A post with 0 likes look super sad and desperate. And I had quite a lot of those.
Now, perceptions matter and for someone who happens to stumble upon my blog, that "zero" is going to tell those people "Don't bother, this is poop". I'm not arguing that "poop" isn't true, it very well might be that everything I write is poop and I'm simply doing everyone a favour by advertising the "poopyness" but I would like those poor bastards to notice that it's poop by wasting their time reading my posts instead. Muhahahaha.
So there you go. Three — hopefully — good reasons to why you can't "like" my poop any more. Besides, if you really like it, it's fairly easy to copy, paste and share a link to this or any other post using your social medium of choice rather than mine.
