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Paring Down Your Social Media Presence

May 27, 2016 / Business of Writing / 18 COMMENTS


Paring Down Social Media by Elizabeth Spann Craig

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Do you have a social media presence that is gathering cobwebs and making it hard for you to sleep at night?  Okay, maybe you’re not losing sleep over it, but it’s on your mind or somehow making you feel guilty?

Here is a terrific website that takes you directly to the page you need to delete your presence on that particular platform: http://justdelete.me/  . The site bills itself as “A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services.”

I set up, with the best intentions, a Facebook profile for a pen name in 2009 or early 2010.  I can say now that it was a tremendous mistake.  I already knew that I didn’t enjoy spending time on Facebook (I had a personal profile on the site).  Plus, I soon set up a page for myself on Facebook under my real name.  I simply couldn’t keep up with several Facebook profiles on top of maintaining a presence on Twitter, my blog,  Goodreads, LinkedIn, and Google Plus, among other places.

Because I was so rarely on the pen name Facebook profile, I missed a lot.  Readers would write on my wall, asking about upcoming releases.  They’d message me.  I was getting so many notifications from Facebook on the three profiles that many times these important communications from readers would get lost in the shuffle.

I’d sign in every couple of months to find that I had 20 or more friend requests or messages. Since I’m someone who usually stays on top of communications from readers, this stressed me out.

And yet!  I continued to hang onto the account.  That’s mainly because I felt my author page on Facebook was more for writers than for readers.

finally, a week ago, sat down and really considered the issue.  Of course people were trying to communicate with me on that neglected profile.  That’s because I wasn’t trying to shift them somewhere else.  I realized the profile had been a continual problem from the start and it needed to be deleted.

There was a real sense of relief after I received this hardly earth-shattering revelation.  I immediately logged into the account, winced at all the missed friend requests, etc., and asked readers to like my page or follow me on Instagram (which I’m developing as a place where I can interact with readers).  I had a good response to this request and, several days later, I took steps to delete the account.

Specifically for Facebook:
To deactivate your account:
  1. Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Click Security in the left column.
  4. Choose Deactivate your account then follow the steps to confirm.

Or, to delete (again, from Facebook):

“If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, we can take care of this for you. Keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.

If you would still like your account deleted, click “Delete My Account”.”

Do you have a neglected social media platform that makes you feel guilty? How thin are you stretched online?

Reduce stress by paring down your social media presence: Click To Tweet
  1. There are so many social media outlets nowdays, it’s a bit overwhelming. You feel like if you’re going to be in blogdom, you need a presence on all the outlets. But I don’t think that is possible for me. It’s hard to know which outlets are the best ones to spend your time on.

    1. Mason–I think it’s got to be impossible to be *active* on all the platforms and still write, have a day job, see family, etc. I do grab my name on most of the social media outlets, just in case they end up being big. But I’m definitely not active everywhere.

    1. Alex–Facebook annoys me to death. Always pulling odd tricks. Once they did some sort of an update and it exposed all of my private information online even though I’d made the security settings very stringent on the account. So there was my cell phone number right out there on the internet! When a site is run by kids…

  2. I have a Facebook account I need to delete for the very same reason. I forget about it. I don’t have time to post material there often enough or to get people to come like my page. Be better just to delete it.

  3. I think social media can overwhelm us if we let it, Elizabeth. And there are good reasons not to have tons of sites (or multiples on one site) to distract us. It’s probably better (or anyway, it is for me) to have a few carefully targeted presences. Thanks for making me think of this.

    1. Margot–Definitely. Very stressful, otherwise, for most of us. Although I do like reserving my name on the sites…then I just don’t set up the accounts the rest of the way. That way I do have my name on the social media platform, just in case it gets big.

  4. Right now I only have my blog, Facebook page and LinkedIn. I keep looking at my Facebook page guiltily. I know I should share things, but do I really want to tell the world things like I had to fire my second editor?

    1. Deb–Delete! At least, that’s what I would do. :) I don’t apparently like sharing since I do little of it. But I’ve found that each social medium has its own peculiarities. Twitter is great for sharing links (Google Plus, too). I’m liking Instagram because it seems less braggy, less intimate to me. I like to take a picture of something and talk about the *picture*. Talking about myself…not so much. And FB seems a little too self-gratifying for me.

  5. Hi Elizabeth – I’ve never got started … sometimes I regret the inactivity, or lack of motivation … but mostly I’m grateful I’m not fretting about things.

    I will join and start doing things once the time is right … and be more active at that stage … good for you for making that decision – I bet it’ll help enormously and give you more freedom to think …

    Cheers and have a blessed Memorial Day weekend – Hilary

  6. Ugh, yeah, I don’t have time to be everywhere. And Facebook wants to squeeze everybody for as much cash as they possibly can, so they let you see just about nothing from anything you follow. Thank God for blogs! I use Facebook to hang out on groups, Twitter to chat, and blogs to keep in touch. Oh, and kboards for marketing advice. That’s all I can manage.

  7. I often feel I’m neglecting my Pinterest but then I remind myself that I set it up to have a place to collect research for my book … and not to interact with readers and/or other authors. For that I use Twitter. So I think I’ll hang onto my Pinterest account even if I only really use it twice a year.

    1. Denise–If you’ve set up no expectations for readers that you’re going to connect with them there, there isn’t any problem. With my Facebook, I definitely inferred that I’d hang out there and then I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain. :(

  8. Welcome to the “dark side.” We’ve got jackets!

    Blank Reg is my social media hero. Keep hitting delete. It all gets better in the end!

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