Note - I wrote and sent this to a group I volunteer with, Ontario Barn Preservation. That's why I wrote it and who I wrote it for.

I was going to dig up posts about using social media and how it works and why it matters. But, thank you Jim, I do already know quite a lot about it. I've been using it since Twitter began, not long after Facebook became Facebook, etc. I was creating my own sites before WordPress existed.

So here's my blab, written on the fly. Hope I caught the typos.

Don had a good point about social media. There is a difference between a social media post which gets a lot of traffic but otherwise does nothing for your cause/ business/ etc.

For OBP, posts with barn photos get a lot of traffic. But, I couldn't say they do much to inspire anyone to fix up an old barn, or participate in the barn study or to understand how to fix up their old barn. You can generate noise without getting your point across. The photos and information from John are wonderful but they need legs. To be read by more people, the right people, not the average joe.

We haven't really sorted out who our associates are. Not competition, but the other causes and groups in Ontario involved with rural history. Groups that connect with our purpose, our cause. There could be a big list, including local historical societies in rural places. We could be working with them, keeping in touch, and promoting each other. We do some, but we don't yak about it enough and we don't crosspost, more about that to follow.

Barn photos help bring some attention to OBP, maybe a few more members. We need posts about fixing and saving old barns in Ontario. Actual ongoing projects would be really great. We have the SpeciaList but we don't use it. We could be giving the businesses promotion, showcasing their ongoing projects, also showing how we are involved and how we care about the old barns and their history. Sometimes I find a post on other sites about fixing up an old barn, but I don't have the knowledge myself to write one. I don't have the contacts to get barn people to share photos and information about what they do when fixing an old bar.

Think about it this way - if you were the owner of an old barn that needs help, what would you want to find when you discover there's actually a group in Ontario about preserving old barns!

These are the posts which people with old barns would want to read and find more of. Those are the people who would be interested in what we are doing and getting information from us. These are the people who would invest in a membership with us. Someone living in the city of Toronto, in an apartment (no barn for sure) might think our photos are nice, but for them its entertainment, not important information they could use. They might think we have a good cause but yeah... the photos are nice.

You can write a post with all the bells and whistles 'they' say you should use (previously known as SEO - Search Engine Optimization). But, if your post (on the website or social media) just stays on your own social media account, it goes flat quite soon. Social media is about activity and a few flashing lights. Your post needs to ricochet around online. Its called reposting and crossposting. We don't do enough of that.

Reposting - taking posts from your site and reposting them to social media accounts of groups not your own. Relevant to Ontario rural history in our case. Crossposting - getting other sites, groups, etc to post our blog posts or social media posts, or events to their readers. Usually you post their content on your site too, hence cross posting, its a two way thing. We have almost none of that.

I know most of you don't use social media. But, that means our posts are staying where they lie and not getting noticed or spread around. It does take time. Replying to comments is important. Those are people already interested, who know OBP and could share that knowledge - if they had the idea or interest to do so. Getting our readers/ fans/ friends/ directors and regional reps involved can do a lot and cost nothing but a little time. Most so called professionals are just looking for your wallet and don't know any more than what they read about on some other website. They may never have run their own site, or online community, nothing real. That's not worth paying for. You can read the same information yourself, for free.

I have two, more or less, active sites right now. I use my name as my domain and link the other sites at the top, in the navigation. https://laurabrown.ca I'm discontinuing a few of the domains which I thought would be fun, but I just haven't had time or inspiration to stick with them. I don't run them as a business or hope to become rich and famous, just for my own interest and seeing where they go, what I can learn and accomplish. So I don't have high pressure or lofty goals.

I've been building and maintaining my own sites since 1998. My most 'famous' site was WordGrrls, a site for web writers in those early days of the Internet. I got burned out and stopped working on it after several years, posting every day. Social media was pretty unknown then. Now my ASCII art site gets more traffic than my blog site. Partly because the ASCII art has a defined, focused topic. Partly because I am involved with other groups and artists and have been active in those communities. My blog is whatever I find interesting and decide to post. I'm not very politically correct and sometimes that brings traffic, but not always the traffic I want to deal with.

I seldom use Facebook, other than to talk with mu Mother. Facebook has become a site for older folks. Which a lot of barn people are, so that works for OBP. I talk to my nephews and nieces on discord but that's a bit advanced for OBP. The people we want to target aren't likely to be there. Maybe in a few years. I do use bluesky (only a few years old) and X/Twitter because they are quick and easy to deal with. I have Instagram but it is far more about images versus content. If you don't have a flashy, eye catching image there isn't much point in posting to Instagram. I know most people only look at the image and don't read whatever you post about it.

Working just by myself on my social media and keeping the sites sort of active, I have fairly good stats. But, I'm not selling anything and I really don't like the fakey marketing stuff a lot of people do online. I've been working (volunteer) for a web directory for about 30 years. It used to be the Open Directory Project, very popular and very busy. The tagline (slogan) was about being a human-edited directory and free (open source and free). Like a lot of sites online its taken some hits, the founders left, supporters pulled out and dumped it but took the name and web domain with them. Now its curlie.org and still working but not nearly as busy. (If you were interested to know more).

We had endless SEO specialists/ internet marketing 'professionals' trying to spam or cheat their way into having sites listed from clients who were paying them to get their sites listed in the directory. I've seen so many tricks and junk and its only gotten more phoney over the years. But some of the SEO type things are expected on the Internet and some actually work! Almost in spite of themselves. Mainly its about getting the right people (the people who want what you are selling/ offering) and the best focused, valuable content out there to be found by other people like them, or us.

So that's my blab. Have a good morning/ evening.

In the end, I'm glad it was a site I wrote for and a site that did pay writers.

I have awards and accolades:

• A member for over 15 years
• Published at least 300 articles
• Had at least 100 simultaneously featured articles
• Had at least 300 followers
• My articles were read over 100,000 times

Currently my articles have been read 236,022 times.

I wrote about this campaign in 2015. I wish it had not been contaminated and instead had continued. Why do some people feel threatened or challenged by something created to be positive? In my original post I did include all the image files. I'm just adding one to this post. There are just too many for one post.

The site is Go Make it Happy. I was happy seeing a big, consumer oriented company like CocaCola using ASCII art. Even though it’s computer generated – there is a wonderfully large amount of it.

If I were a more sane person I would have split these into several posts. Instead I have left them all (over 90 image files) below the “read more” line. I wanted to not only share them all but, preserve them all too. So this is an archive of the ASCII art I found on the CocaCola Make it Happy site. It’s possible they will add more. I wish I knew. I’d like to see it all saved. Campaigns like this tend to last like a fad and then disappear. I’d like to see the ASCII art survive.

I have a few favourites and I thought to just post those. But, how could I show all the full dorkiness and fun of the collection. Some of it reminds me of the old movies advertising hot dogs and popcorn at the drive-in movies.

Update about the Make It Happy Campaign

Coca-Cola has pulled its #MakeItHappy brand campaign, which it introduced during the Super Bowl, after being tricked by pop culture blog Gawker.

The campaign aimed to dispel negative comments on the Internet by enabling users to tag negative comments with #MakeItHappy, which Coca-Cola then turned into cute, happy pictures using ASCII lettering code.

Coca-Cola responded to this debacle with a statement: “It’s unfortunate that Gawker is trying to turn this campaign into something that it isn’t. Building a bot that attempts to spread hate through #MakeItHappy is a perfect example of the pervasive online negativity Coca-Cola wanted to address with this campaign.”

I remember when all this was going on. It was sad to see what Gawker thought was clever, smart, bold, attention grabbing, whatever. Gawker did not last long after that. Was the Coca-Cola thing part of that... maybe?

I miss when the Internet used to be like a club, a friendly collection of people sharing assorted information. Not for profit, just because they wanted to share what was interesting to them and likely useful to others.

I still find old sites, usually pretty forgotten or neglected, which were created without thoughts about marketing information or resources. I trust information from those sites, though it may be outdated, it isn't created to prey on my credit card.

You aren't likely to find personal home page and hobbies sites now. AI is moving in too. You don't even know if a site is made by a human being any more. AI can only fake being friendly. I don't see how you can trust, or feel welcome, by that.

The club is gone. Its not on social media. Social media could have been the next club for the Internet. But, it isn't.

I miss that feeling of shared information and friendliness. It was welcoming. I haven't found that in awhile. Even in places where I do share art, information, ideas I have to be careful about what I post - think twice and post once.