What We Miss

Introduction

I am writing this because very often we feel that posts in the various Facebook Vocal groups are invisible to readers. There will be a number of posts all with hearts and comments and in the middle or sometimes at the beginning or end will be one with zero reactions. This seems to have been exacerbated in my mind by a lack of reads on Vocal.

Why Does This Happen?

When we are on Facebook more often than not it filters comments on a post out. Sometimes these may be from people important to you, and when they are filtered out you will just not see them. That person may therefore think you ignoring them, but the reality is that you are not seeing them.

Sometimes you can select all comments but even that often doesn't work for me, and even if you do think to do it, it is a lot of extra work for you to do something that should need no effort from you. But this means that those important to you may be hurt because they think you don’t like what you have posted. They may also think they have been offensive to you or anyone that seems to ignore their post.

This is anything but the case, but the best thing is to message the person if you think this is happening, don’t let it get to you. It’s Facebook’s mechanism that causes this.

Can We Fix This?

Well maybe being Facebook Friends can help you see more of their stuff but I am not sure that Facebook prioritises what you see in that way. The thing is it is best to engage as much as possible and put yourself into what you share and say, maybe even tag people. If they are tagged they will be aware and do have the opportunity to remove the tag.

The thing with missing things, is we don’t know that we have missed it if we don’t know that it’s there. That goes for us and the people that we expect to interact with what we share. I suppose there is a little randomness in this. It’s like when you open a shop you hope people see it and buy things from it. If they don’t know it’s there they will never buy anything from it.

So I suppose we do have to do a little self-advertising to ensure people know that we are around in whatever areas our creation has been shared. Though we also have not to spam and flood. I share my posts in a few groups and just hope that some of my friends and new readers see and read my pieces then leave a comment and a suitable reaction.

And I Miss So Much

I often miss posts and stories by people I regard as close friends, especially in the Vocal community. Of course, I am not Facebook friends with all but I do feel a little guilty if I do miss things, and my friends miss out on the small financial reward if I miss the Vocal story, I still haven’t a clue how Medium works and though they are supposed to have paid me some tiny amounts I haven’t noticed them coming into my bank account, but that is a different area. I do try to use Facebook and my Vocal Subscriptions to read all the stories that matter to me but I still manage to miss things.

And In Conclusion

I will endeavour to read and interact with people and stories as much as possible and try and make myself as visible as possible so that people can see me.