January 26, 2017 by  Ashley Guberman

Copy/paste in Facebook is part of a deliberate strategy to have us all tune each other out.

If you want friends and loved ones to tune you out, then use copy/paste.
I’m deadly serious here, and if you’re reading my words, then this impacts you personally.

Think about it.

With so much content in our feeds, what do we actually read? We read posts with interesting pictures or videos, or THE WORDS OF THOSE CLOSE TO US. Not all of our “friends” fall into that category. We read those whom we trust, respect, or love, or who make us laugh.

But with the proliferation of people using copy/paste for their posts, I no longer know if the words you share are even yours. From you, my dear friend, I will read everything. But only if it’s from YOU.

If you train me that your posts are copied words that you agree with, rather than words you wrote, I will start tuning you out.

If you post other people’s content and don’t say where it’s from (or that it’s not yours), I will tune you out.

And that, my dear friends, is precisely the point of a copy/paste strategy on social media. It is a step in the process of having us all tune each other out.

Eventually, we’ll even tune out those dear to us because, well, it’s only copied content. I mean, I would never do that with YOUR words, but with something you pasted? Maybe. Paste more than you post? Yes, I’ll tune you out.

And when more people post more copied content, it has ever less impact.

What shall we do instead?
1. Stop pasting… hit LIKE or SHARE instead.
2. Preface what you share and TELL me why I should read what you shared, in your own words, my dear friend.

I’m just one person barking at a huge windmill here.

Pay attention…. Copy/paste is part of a deliberate strategy to have us all tune each other out.

Do NOT copy/paste this. If it resonates with you, or we are dear to each other, then share it instead and say why your network should read it. They’ll read YOUR words, and only then might they read mine.

 


Original Post: January 26, 2017

I’ve seen more and more “copy and paste” requests on Facebook.  They seem to be crowding out the more common requests that one share or like a post, and both appear to miss the point.

If the goal Is to get your content liked or shared, post better content.

FB does not penalize content that is shared… they reward it heavily and financially in their ad platform. However, there are some (unproven) reports that what FB penalizes it when somebody makes a REQUEST that somebody take an action.  That’s what FB has their ad platform for:

  • If you want people to take action X
  • Pay us Y for everybody that does
  • And we’ll find Z people who will take that action

So please, stop requesting that people copy/paste your content. Not only are most people unlikely to do it, it’s also counter-productive to any viable outreach goal. Just post better, more moving, resonant, engaging, humorous, heartwarming, or jarring content… Hell, it’s why 60% of the internet is of fricken cat videos. If you have to TELL people to do something that you think they would not do on their own, you’ve already failed, or you’re pretending to be an advertiser without using the ad platform. That’s not going to get very far with the FB algorithms.

Just post better, more moving, resonant, engaging, humorous, heartwarming, or jarring content.  Hell, the dearth of genuine quality is probably why 60% of the internet is of fricken cat videos!

If you have to TELL people to do something that you think they would not do on their own, you’ve already failed, or you’re pretending to be an advertiser without using the ad platform.

That’s not going to get very far with the FB algorithms.

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