“Quitting” Facebook as a social media manager
TL;DR: Log out of Facebook on your main browser, delete the mobile app, use a plug in to block the news feed and don’t use a fake account.
A decade ago, I decided to quit Facebook.
I had been a user about five years and was fed up with the constantly updated index of social information, how it made me feel and the time I spent browsing it. My best friend had been off of it for years and I saw that you could continue to live without a profile. I set a date: Saturday night, I’ll pour a beer, sit down, post a goodbye to all of my friends and deactivate my account.
But that Friday, my plan took a sharp turn. I was sitting at my desk as an intern reporter at the Kalamazoo Gazette and an editor asked if I wanted to help manage the newspaper’s Facebook page. Of course, I replied, thinking this would be a huge opportunity.
And it was.
Over the years, I have spent a lot of my Internet time on Facebook, building pages, sharing updates, doing work. I would always be led back there whenever I had a pause in thought, there was always something new to check out. But five, ten, fifteen minutes would pass scrolling through the news feed and I had forgot what I was working on.
No matter how much I want to, I can’t quit Facebook. It’s part of my job. It’s how I make money, like many other social media managers out there. But over the past few months, I’ve found ways to not only severely limit my usage, but remove the ease to access it.
I’ve tried several different ways to limit my usage of the social network: time tracking apps, parental controls, and sheer willpower, but none of these really worked with something is so intertwined with personal, professional and entertainment. I could think it’s a good idea to only limit myself to 20 minutes of personal browsing on Facebook per day, but some days I spend four to five hours working on pages.
After years of tinkering, I think I’ve finally found a solution that balances the needs of a social media manager with someone who wants to (mostly) cut Facebook out of their life.
These suggestions aren’t really related to privacy, which is important to me, and I recommend reading this book, but how to reclaim time in your day and avoid the suck of the news feed.
Log out of Facebook on your main browser
The first thing I recommend doing is logging out of Facebook on your main browser. I use Safari for 98 percent of viewing webpages, so logging in requires one more additional step to access the news feed. I have found that I will subconsciously go to Facebook but stop once I see the log in page.
Use a separate Chrome-based browser for Facebook work with news feed plug in
I don’t use Chrome because of how it abuses computer resources and how Google tracks everything you do, but there are some benefits of the browser. Recently, I started using Brave as an alternative. Privacy focused, Brave is based on Chromium, allowing Chrome plug ins. I use News Feed Eradicator, which stops out the center of Facebook and replaces the news feed with a nice quote. Facebook is fully functional in every other way. The combo of having to open another application and not seeing the news feed has allowed me to quickly manage pages and look something up on a page or profile without being distracted.
Limit your phone
Because I manage social media accounts and have a personal life, I have two phones — one for work and one for personal use. There’s a lot I can say about having the separation, and may write about it later, but there are two key benefits:
I can do things on my personal phone without being distracted by work
there’s no chance I can accidentally post something personal on a work account. (I don’t think people who follow pages I manage really care about my baseball thoughts).
I’ve uninstalled Facebook from all of my personal devices, leaving it on my work phone. I really only use that device a few times a day, so the temptation of opening the app is slim to none. And if I ever need to look at the Facebook app, 9 times out of 10 work related.
There are circumstances where I need to use Facebook on my personal phone — business often make Facebook the main place to find information on them. If I need to do this, I simply log on through Safari, check what I need and log out. The mobile web experience is very nice, better in some ways than the app itself, and allows quick access when in a pinch.
I also keep Messenger installed because it’s one of the best ways to stay in contact with acquaintances and people use it a lot to reach out.
Now that we’ve covered some of the things I do to limit my use of Facebook, I think it’s important to highlight some of the things you shouldn’t do, especially as a social media manager.
Don’t make a fake account
I know some folks who have quit Facebook and manage all of their pages through a fake, obscure account. Sure, Facebook has more than 2.6 billion accounts, but there is always the possibility that the fake account could be found and deactivated. While the probability is not high, it’s something I don’t want to take a chance with. I don’t know what happens to pages if an admin gets banned from the platform, but I don’t want to find out.
Don’t totally disconnect
Part of being an effective social media manager and producer is knowing about each platform, trends and how people use it. If you totally disconnect, it will be difficult to stay relevant. I limit myself to browsing the news feed once or twice a day, partly to see how people I know are doing, but also to keep tabs on what features people are using and what kind of content is popular from pages in my industry. I am usually not on for more than 10 minutes and browse from my work phone, which doesn’t have a lot of the Bell’s and whistles of my personal phone, so that allows me to get in and get out.
Don’t become bitter
My last bit of advice: don’t become bitter about Facebook. It’s easy to really start hating a large company you don’t like. I don’t think that’s healthy for someone who is managing pages on the platform because it’s easy to turn that to the people who are on it. I say “Facebook isn’t for me, but I understand how it’s important for a lot of people to communicate with each other.”
I’ve been using this method above for a few months and am really happy with how it has changed my workflow and time management. If there’s anything you do to limit your time on Facebook and still manage pages, I’d love to hear about it. Shoot me a tweet at @fritzklug.
A lot of the things I’ve noticed looking out my window for 12 hours a day for the past two months
- A lot of people got dogs and are training and walking them.
- A lot of people keep routines going on walks the same time every day.
- A lot of cars drive the wrong way down the one way.
- A lot of cute birds are actually mean and fight with each other.
- A lot of squirrels do the same.
- A lot of people stared running and have noticeably gotten better.
- A lot of people are looking out the window like me because when the mail comes there’s a rush to the mailbox.
A walk on Easter
Not much to say today: so much continues to change, but so much continues to stay the same. Focusing on the earthly signs of rebirth that are all around us… They come each year at this season and are a reminder that growth and beauty continues, unconcerned with our current troubles.
Like Easter, my favorite and most important holiday for Christians. Today is the day where, very broadly, we recognize Christ’s triumph over death and how we all can be reunited with the infinite.
Yesterday, I noticed a flower near my door that was close to blossom. Today, it was in full bloom. Although I had anticipated this happening, it filled me with more delight than I could imagine.
I went for a walk enjoying the sprouting beauty all around and our Easter celebration. But when I returned, the flower was gone, torn from its stem and laying at the trunk of a different tree. Maybe it was a cruel passerby, one of the squirrels that frolic around the yard or a bunny that often appears out of nowhere.
The flower is gone, so quickly after it appeared, and the others will follow, but its memory and what it represents continues. I know this is incredibly small in comparison to everything that is happening in the world, for sure, but sometimes these tiny things can be the most easy to grapple with, especially during such difficult times.
Taking things slow during COVID with Joe Pera
Entering the third week of sheltering from the world, I’ve fallen into a new rhythm of day to day life, one that is much more slow.
While things in our world are moving very fast, they are also very slow at the same time. Work is face paced, keeping up with new information is a new area of study, and buying goods is a micro odyssey. A lot of energy is required. But at home, the pace of life has slowed. As most of society has shut down, small things have become a refuge, like meals, a cup of tea, talking to a friend and, yes, even cleaning.
There’s a TV show I watched this week that speaks to this time: Joe Pera Talks with You. It’s the quirky comedy that chronicles about a middle school choral teacher in Michigan’s Upper Penisula. At first watch, it appears to be the soul of a 70-year-old man inside the body of a 30-year-old going through the mundaneness of daily life, but it really is a celebration of those simple things that are now taken away from us. Oh, and it’s hilarious.
As my habits in quarantine have become those of an old man, this show has become much more relevant and relatable.
A Saturday morning breakfast, a relaxing trip to the grocery store visiting friends and family for a cook out — all things that became routine and then for granted but we so desire now. The way Joe talks to you about them are soothing. As we’re looking at the world through a different lens, his perspective is, frankly, inspiring. While each episode is only about 12 minutes, they feel like a full half an hour, a statement of the peace we can find in these things. Time has a different meaning now.
Much of Joe Pera Talks with You celebrates what we can’t do right now, it also highlights things we can do: staying up all night watching internet videos, going for a hike, reading what peaks our interest, lots of reading.
The things he gets excited about are things I am excited to experience again. A story of a simple man with simple pleasures all of the sudden becomes something like an aspiration.
Closed Kalamazoo: Week 2.5
A wonderful, sunny day. Took two long walks through downtown. In the morning saw some daffodils that had bloomed in Bronson Park — in the evening the sun was full on them. Some things aren’t on hold.
Lots of people were out enjoying the weather — smiling, something recently as rare as the sun.
In fact, there was almost too many people out to be comfortable in our new world of social distancing. A dozen people at East Campus suddenly felt like being stuck in the middle of a Tokyo crowd.
But overall, all the problems felt like they disappeared temporally, nothing like those recent cold nights on the same streets by myself. But in fact things have actually gotten worse. But for an hour, the world felt alive again, vibrant and good. There were several reminders of the virus, but the sun overpowered them, temporarily.
Later tonight, I had a 25 minute conversation with my friend Sarah as she was walking by. At the end, we both realized this was the longest time either of us had talked to another person face to face (6 feet apart) in weeks.
Overall, today felt like a cease fire during a war. Things will only get worse, but April 2 was a great reminder of what we hope to see on the other side.
Closed Kalamazoo: Week 2
Closed Kalamazoo Week 2: Looking at everything differently
Another week of Kalamazoo being closed. It doesn’t feel as strange as last week, but there are still daily moments that are dissettling.
Like today. I just came back from a walk downtown and it was eerie to see all the churches empty on a Sunday morning. It was very windy, closed signs were flapping on doors. It felt like a storm is coming. Coming home and briefly turning on the news, it appears one certainly is intensifying.
I’ve increased the number of walks I take to two or three a day, mostly in the same area downtown, trying to come to terms with everything that is happening. I’ve walked these streets daily for years, so the changes are stark. As the initial shock of everything being empty has become the new normal, I’m beginning to notice new things in the silence.
The world feels tangibly different in a lot of ways. The birds and other animals seem to roam more freely — maybe they always have, but it’s noticeable with less noise and people. I saw some friends on the Kalamazoo Mall and, as we talked across the street, our voices echoed.
Stores that were open just weeks ago are blending in with those that have been vacant previously. Walking past them, they are like distant landscapes that can only been seen but not interacted with.
Crosswalk signs are really just recommendations now. Social norms and small rules seem to have been put on hold. This week as I was walking around 5:30 p.m., a group was skateboarding on the steps of City Hall. On the Kalamazoo Mall, a woman was walking her dog off leash. A man riding his skateboard, on the sidewalk, whole being pulled by his dog. I don’t know if anyone would have said anything during normal circumstances, but no one is even thinking it now.
It is quite a strange, but freeing feeling to walk and not see anyone, especially at night — similar to walking in the woods. And when there are other people, I try to avoid them by crossing the street. It’s hard to maintain the six-foot distance when passing someone on the sidewalk. But more times than not, they will move over too.
The warm weather is making everything feel more open — the spaces felt larger and the emptiness felt deeper. But there’s also signs of good things to come — Oberon is released, flowers are starting to sprout, the sun is making an appearance. Illuminated windows are welcome signs as people are connecting digitally.
While’s so calm and quiet, seeing ambulances drive by and walking past Bronson are both reminders of why this all is happening. It’s impossible to imagine what is going on for those people and for the folks affected by the virus.
What’s going to come in the few weeks? More of the same, I assume. But how we react will change.
Here are some photos from the past week.
