Pitt

As organic distribution is being snatched away from social media users, places such as FB and Twitter are losing their flavor. The driving force of creating ones own FB page is to communicate with other persons interested in genealogy and share. Share is a big word. Help, also. The steady decline of 2016 affected the outreach to many persons earnestly seeking help. And now the 1% delivery to our social database is an obvious ploy to extract money in advertisiing fees simply to reach more of a database which we put together. And to learn that this database was being sold to advertisers is quite an affront! (1) We cannot reach most of the members of our database without paying for it and (2) FB is selling our member lists for big bucks. Meanwhile, there are countless articles floating around the internet suggesting that we delete FB. There are many good reasons. If you want a page for yourself and friends, there is a great deal of monitoring to do, especially in deleting undesirable articles and making certain they stay off your page. The removal of lewd articles is not always easy, especially if someone else forwarded it. And one nasty person posting on your page can drive away friend, family, potential customers, and ruin everything. Lots of problems and work go into creating a desirable FB page and retaining its original intent and purpose. Should your decision be to retain your page and you are willing to dedicate the time and effort required, there remains the decision of paying for organic reach to your own members. So, what is the answer? It appears the party is over for FB and any social media which resorts to questional ethics. Yet, nothing is free. We paid for organic reach (delivery service) with our member databases. They were sold for big bucks. There are other methods of communication, such as texting between friends and family, and joining genealogy groups such as those on Linked in and Google +. Blogging is returning as a safe medium. It is a desirable medium of organic reach because the blog is singly-controlled by its owner. Comments can be allowed and moderated. It is faster to comment on a blog, than to plow through dozens of unwanted junk on the media. Also, it is easily installed in the iphone. Simply type the website address on the address line of safari. Then go to the “up arrow” at the bottom of the iphone. Click on that and choose “add to home screen”. The result is quick. No going to the ap store and providing your password, thumb print or phone number. The ap is wonderful because you can scan the articles or click on “view web version”. Rather than an Ap which is a trimmed-down version of a web page, you get the real thing.