Writers are not so active on Facebook anymore?

The Chatters
#1

Agree or disagree?

All the writing groups I’m in which were once super active are not so active anymore. They were already dwindling during the height of the pandemic in 2020. You would think groups like that would be a great way for people to use for connecting to others, but it’s become less and less active. If active at all, always the same few people. Ten of the same people all the time at MOST.

The previously usually active people aren’t active anymore.

Because I know I won’t get as much response as before, even I’m less active on there and I used to be really active.

And these are all huge groups of 500 to over 1,000.

If not these Facebook writer groups, where IS everyone?

In which I give a tiny rant about a group which I will not name

The most disappointing thing that happened was when a world-building-focused group turned into a single person’s place to post their maps. When it first started to go downhill, I asked a question to do with my world building (something like “I have such and such in my story. What do you think about this lore?”) and someone said “This is a world building group. Not about stories. You should go to a writing group for this.” or something along those lines.

which was a strange response considering they were not an admin or mod and I have asked similar questions like that in the past, and this was initially a world building group for WRITERS. Who are YOU to tell me what to do?

But whatever :stuck_out_tongue: It’s fine. I have Wacky.

So, rant aside, what do you guys think about writing groups on Facebook these days? Or Facebook for writers in general? (like author pages. Do those get traction at all?) Do you think it’s declining?

And where IS everyone? Are there other writing communities out there? Ones like Facebook groups or Wacky other than the NaNo-specific one?

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#2

Hive Social appears to have a growing userbase and you might want to invest in the Fediverse, but most of the amateur writing community is found in the gated communities of discord.

Social media is soon becoming a shell-game of switching platforms and accounts once one goes out of style or business.

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#3

Meta/Facebook just isn’t connecting with the youn’uns these days. Even Tik Tok is in trouble, a few countries have already banned it due to its ties with the Chinese Government.

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#4

I dunno since I abandoned FB years ago, and finally deleted my account last year. FB was so cool in the beginning, back when your profile was the Wall with all those games on it, the aquarium, the solar system, the fluff friends…omg I miss it! But sometime later they got rid of everyone’s wall, and FB became a place for writers and sellers to harass you to buy their stuff and upvote their stupid pages, so it lost all its charm.

I wish I knew where everyone went! ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯

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#5

Unfortunately, when you let personal ideology rule as the morality metric of running your platform uncoupled from extremely judicious controls over keeping trolling/blatant bullying to minimum, the long-term viability of a talent whose core is imagination coupled with ideologies cannot thrive.

I mean, how do you write an appealing antagonist unless your evil is appealing?

This means writers need to be able to explore the mentality of things that can be quite repulsive, and discuss them, but if you have to invent terminology to get around censorship that absolutely does not consider context, is cumbersome once you run afoul of it, that is more concerned with you being right than being good at your trade, then the long-term viability isn’t aimed for growth, but stagnant conformity.

J K Rowling is a good example: she can have her beliefs without bullying. If you severely censor her, then you can’t improve your skills based of her abilities and limitations. You’re placing ideology before craft.

And as long as that is the core of what you are doing: ideology before craft, then craft-focusrd groups will die. The focus is not on sustainability but on safety and a life without risk dies. Groups without risk die.

But some of this is cultural shift. The people are worse censoring than the platforms and willing to leave over ideology first. You can’t keep someone who thinks you’re wrong in your circle, so you’re gone. That type of thing.

So I don’t see this changing until the behaviors of this “open morals ideology” actually is open, personally.

At the same time as this, you can’t have a free-for-all. So the very thing that is the death of platforms is also it’s death if you don’t care for it at all.

That’s why a massive safe space about the craft would have to be craft first, safety second, and if it’s not consistently placed that way, there won’t be exponential growth. Again, the individuals have to be on that same page, too. Culturally we are not, right now.

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#6

I got banned from Facebook for sharing a video from Rick and Morty (tv show) sooooo.
But before that, I’d actually gone on a Facebook break. It got me through lockdown and the boredom then, but it was so boring and sucked all my energy. I barely posted updates (I’m talking personal Facebook)
The groups I were a part of were inactive and boring, full of people moaning about something or other. No one engaged with my writing Facebook page.
So I took a month break from it. Deleted it from my phone, didnt go on it on my laptop… it was nice. Then I went back and it was just UGH

Being banned from Facebook was actually a good thing. I couldn’t find myself “able” to fully delete it. I dont actually miss it one bit.

I find social media is like that though; one minute it’s Bebo, then it’s Myspace, then it’s Facebook, then TikTok… it’ll be something else soon. Social media has “fads” that die out eventually.

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#7

yeah most of my writing groups are on Discord now. Facebook is going downhill for everyone I think

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#8

One of several reasons why Facebook is losing users is because the newer generations don’t want to be on the same Social Media as their parents.

I’m rarely on Facebook anymore, only use it for occasional browsing or Messenger. I tend to spend more time on VK.com (even though I can’t read Cyrillic).

And there once was a time when I was quite active on gaiaonline.com and fictionpress.com (good writing and editing resources), but not anymore. Wattpad could have been a workable replacement, until the Forums section vanished.

Oh, is Discord the new version of webpage forums or webrings…I’m old enough to remember those (the fun days of the Internet)…

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#9

It’s a lot like private forums on a single platform, so yeah, it really has an old AOL group-chat feel. Some of that stuff (a dating site that used to open a java program for a chat room: it was a dinosaur when I joined it, back in 2005) was really good for people who were getting a feel for basic programming because you’d have to program what your basic entrance and exit would do. So, when I did join a discord, it felt really old-school.

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#10

I have an author facebook page. Compared to my instagram, I might as well delete it because I’m just not getting as much of an audience as I am on insta. Writer groups are also much easier to find on places like discord

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#11

Honestly the only writer I’m getting from FB is someone who paid to have their posts show up in target feeds. I respond to her rarely, but even then, she’s not getting a lot of conversations.

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#12

FB is definitely dying overall, it’s going the way of the phone book, which sort of what it is now. Just a way to keep in touch wit people you otherwise would loose contact with…
That’s why they’re rebranding to “meta” because they know they’re dying, but hopefully that will only speed up the death process :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :joy:

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#13

The lizard man killed Facebook when he sold everyone’s information. After that, a ton of people dropped off and I stopped using Facebook altogether. Still have one to keep in touch with some relatives, but otherwise it’s a dead platform.

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#14

I just joined Mastodon a decentralised, non-profit social media platform because the biggest problem with FB, insta, tiktok, twitter etc is that they’re all greedy little shits who would advertise concentration camps if the advertiser paid enough…

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#15

I deleted Facebook a month ago. I kept it for this long (I’m 23) so i can stay in contact with my family, but the constant horrible updates made me delete my account. I think it’s just going downhill and only a bunch of people who are part of the older generation are using it the most. My mom goes on it everyday haha.

I think it depends on how many people are in the group and how many lurkers are in the group. I’ve been in groups with the amount of people you mentioned and they were complete ghost towns. The groups I used to be in that had many active people everyday had about over 10K people. I used to avoid groups that only had 1K people and lower because barely anyone talked and if they did, the last post would’ve been from months ago.

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#16

I’ve also noticed that with the one I’m in as well. It wasn’t super active, but there was at least a post or two made a day (and there’s a good thousand or so people in said group).

Honestly, I feel like Facebook in and of itself isn’t what it used to be. Its popularity officially dwindled to people being active every once in a blue moon. Yes, on my friend’s list, there’s still people posting stuff and being on once in a while, but their posts are like mine: memes, random videos, etc. with the occasional life update or photo of some place they went to.

A lot of people I know, though, rarely get on or don’t have one. My teenage sister (sixteen) doesn’t use it because she said she has no reason for it when she uses Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. She also said, and I’ll quote, “Facebook is for old people.” Which, yes, I am offended at such a comment.

I think that within the next ten or so years, Facebook will become the new MySpace—it may still be an active social media website and app where you can use it, but without much traffic heading there.

But a part of this may also stem from people’s lives being busier and priorities shifting. I try to be as active as I can on here and on the NaNoWriMo forums, but I can only get on during my days off (weekends) or whenever I’m free at work (without supervisors looking at me lol, like right now, I’m alone in the children’s area of the library, haha). People may shift their focus on not only work, but school and family. I’ve noticed that once people start going to college or having children or have a very demanding job, they may not be online that much which is bound to happen at one point. A reason why I’m no longer active on Wattpad.

I go to Wattpad to check notifications, mostly for my books, but I haven’t been on there to talk to anyone or to read or to post new content. Haven’t since November of 2019, for the most part since I did go on at times but that was during my Ambassador days. If I were to put a real date to it, it’s been since between January to April of 2020 when I quit the Ambassador team, about a day before they announced the forums’ closure.

I’ve been wanting to get back into Wattpad, both posting and reading, but I don’t have any new content since I’ve been so focused on a story I really want to try to get traditionally published (at some point in life lol), and I haven’t read anything because I’ve been focused on trying to get through my physical TBR (which keeps growing because I can’t stop buying books. :upside_down_face:) And it saddens me because I pretty much left on a silent note, made a message on my board that said I was gonna do stuff and never did. I have unfinished books I want to finish reading! But with my full-time job and my priorities elsewhere, I may not be able to get to it for a while.

And honestly, I want to be a part of other writerly forums other than Wacky’s because Wacky is so quiet. NaNoWriMo is quiet, too. They have a bit more traction, but it’s not by much. And a lot of the threads aren’t what I want to comment on anyway lol. It’s kind of disappointing.

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#17

Considering how much Facebook hinders a page’s ability to be seen unless you pay for it, it isn’t surprising so many writers have basically abandoned their pages. I know I have. It’s still there, but I never use it. And even when I did try posting everyday to it, it gained no traction. Writers, like influencers and content creators, are at the whim of algorithms, and Facebook’s feels a lot like spinning tires on a flat sheet of ice. So much effort that gets you nowhere.

The best advice I saw on the topic of social media is to pick two or three you know and can get engagement on, and focus on those. For many writers, Facebook simply isn’t that place. I am part of many groups but rarely ever see their updates or posts in my feed. I have to seek it out to see new posts. Few people have that kind of time in a day to seek out each and every group they’re in to check new posts. The platform has become cumbersome and pointless. For my personal account, I only stay for certain online friends and distant friends I want to keep up with. Otherwise, I don’t care about it.

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