Losing my Facebook account, and what it has taught me.
Some lessons are painful to learn, and sharing my story is as much to help me process my thoughts and emotions as it is in hopes of helping others avoid making the same mistakes.
Background: Facebook is my absolute favorite social media platform. It has always been. I was there when it first launched, and I have been active on this platform for decades: first for connecting with friends and family from afar, then for my blog while living Japan, and finally for my photography page.
I’m deeply connected to my photography and personal FB pages because I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours adding to it, sharing not only images of my life and my work, but also my thoughts and experiences. As someone whose first language is not English, this took so much time and effort (sooo much time and effort).
This week, I got myself locked out of my main Facebook account, which is linked to my photography page. It was an entirely avoidable mistake but hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. I had forgotten my password and wasn’t able to authenticate my identity with any of the methods provided, instead just being sent into an endless and frustrating, loop of waiting for authentication. And, to make this the perfect trifecta: I had never made Adam an admin on any of my social media pages.
Professionally speaking, October is one of the worst times to get locked out of my main social media platform, with seasonal sessions advertising being high on my current to-do list. Personally speaking though, that part hits even harder. The community that I was able to build around me, the friends and community around the world that I’ve been able to stay connected, all of this makes it a deep personal loss that had me going through various stage of grief.
Rather than dwelling too much more on the pain (I’ve had close to 48 hours to sit with my feelings and I’m ready to take action). Let me share what is going RIGHT.
I have a back-up social media account that I created, ironically, the last time I got locked out of my main account many years ago. This new(er) account is linked to my private Facebook Group that I had created for keeping in touch with my clients. With this, I’m still connected some of my dearest clients, friends, and supporters and will be able to reconnect with others.
My e-mail list. I have an e-mail list that I maintain for communicating with clients and potential clients. If I cannot truly recover my main account, I will be sending an alert out to reach those on the e-mailing list with information on how to find me on my new platform.
My website. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort to utilize my website as a source of information for clients and potential clients. My prices and packages are listed here, along with booking links for my mini-sessions, and the website is where I normally send all of my social media inquiries anyway. Having a website while going through this social media crisis feels like having an anchor in the storm.
My community presence. As a business owner, engaging and connecting with your local community is so important and this was a perfect example. Within minutes of logging into my alternate FB account, I was able to reach out to my connections within the community and the admins of multiple key FB groups in the local community to verify my identity and join the local FB groups under my alternative account. This reintegration has been, thankfully, seamless.
At this point, it is up to Facebook to determine whether or not I am “me” and let me reset my password. Whether or not that happens, here’s what I’m doing differently this time around.
I’m going to rely more on my website as a central source of information, converting long social media posts into blog posts. Rather than trusting the majority of my content to a social media platform, I’m hosting it on my own domain (pun intended).
Backing up all of my blog posts on my computer.
Ensure that I have a solid password retrieval process and assign a trusted person as an administrator on my pages and groups.
Rebuilding my social media page is going to take time, and it is somewhat emotionally painful. I remember starting my photography page back in 2016. I remember nervously thinking “What if nobody likes my work? What if nobody likes me?” I recall adding the first image, then another, and another cheering on excitedly as the numbers of “likes” grew from a handful, to a few dozens, to several hundred.
I remember being in awe when the numbers reached over one thousand. It was a milestone that I never thought I would reach. To be honest, I still don’t know how I’ve accomplished it beyond just sharing my love for photography, for life, for this beautiful world, and for humanity - and having that love reciprocated back.
I don’t know if I will ever reach those numbers again, but eight years of experience as a photographer who is fairly visible in my community has also taught me this: for your people to find you, you have to be able to show them who you are. The real you. I’m going to keep putting myself out there (my work, my heart, my soul), it’s just going to be slightly different than how I’ve done it before. This is an opportunity for change and growth.
I’m not ready to rebuild another Facebook page yet for my photography work, not until it’s absolutely certain that I cannot retrieve the old one, but if that day comes then I’m going to do it the way I’ve always done it: with great love.
Until then, I am here. And if you’ve made it this far, you are too. And for that, I’m deeply thankful.
Thank you for being on this journey with me.